Husband and MIL

[Eventingmum]

Over Christmas none of us were well and so we had to cancel Christmas. This meant we never managed to exchange gifts with my Mum, who was supposed to come to us for Christmas day.

Flash forward to yesterday and my Mum comes to visit and we are able to swap presents. My Mum arrived at 2pm and left at 3.30pm as she does not like driving in the dark.

I told my husband on Saturday that my Mum was popping in for a visit at 2ish. He just nodded his head.

It was lovely to see my Mum after so long and we had a good chat, swapped gifts and had a cup of tea. My daughter (14) sat with us the whole time and it was nice.
My husband was upstairs tiling the EnSite bathroom for the day. He started at about 10am and finished off at about 4pm (Has not completed it yet). He was up and downstairs quite a bit, cutting tiles, and as I was making my Mum a drink I told him she was here.

My Mum left his present on the side and we opened ours. My husband never appeared and my Mum then left before it got dark.

I am really cross with my husband for not popping in to say Hi. I know he was busy, but all he had to do was pop in, say hello, explain what he was up to and then disappear. My Mum and he do not really get a long, however this is the sort of thing that makes it worse. I feel that he lets himself down.

I would never dream of ignoring his parents if they came to visit. Even if I was busy I would pop in and say Hi.

He is now sulking with me as I told him I was annoyed at his rude behaviour. He hasn't even opened his present. He has just left it.

I thought that sleeping on it would make me less cross but it hasn't.
AIBU?

Sounds like the tiling was a strategic ploy to keep out of the way.
she was the guest and had brought a present for him. It takes all of 5 seconds to say hello, thanks for the present. Is he like this with anyone else?

Well, the OP says 'They don't hate each other, but there is always an underlying tension between them.'
My point stands, anyway; it doesn't take much to show your face and say thank you for the present.

So your husband has prepared and scheduled in a stressful diy job for the benefit of your family and instead of being available to support and assist him, you've invited round a woman who hates him slap bang in the middle of the project and then expected him to be enthusiastic to see her. 😬

YABU.

Your mother should have gone to say hello,
He should have gone to say hello.
If they didn't you should have asked either of them to do so.

From her posts there a lot of background and history between her husband and her mother. Her mother never thought he was good enough for her despite the fact they have been married 18 years so obviously there's a lot of simmering tension.

So yes it's rude that he didn't pop down to say a quick hello but it's obvious from her update that they do not get along and he didn't even bother to open the present from her mother. OP is focusing on just this event while ignoring the 18 years of issues and resentment.

And the way she said her mother will add this to her mental list, sounds like she has a very long mental list of why OPs husband is not worthy.

My friends housemate is always busy in the shed/garden when I visit. Even he pops his head round the door and says "hiya, how's it going? Nice to see you. Did you watch the match/have a good holiday/manage to avoid the potholes on your way over? Anyway, I'll leave you two to catch up."

Couldn't your mum have nipped up and said hello to him? He was doing a massive job which will have saved you a fortune. She was drinking tea. So easy just to have put her head round the door. Instead, he does this and gets a load of grief.

What was your mum's present to your DH? I'm going to put money on generic, cheap and nasty or totally unsuitable for him ... i.e. the sort of present you struggle to manage to say "thank you" politely.

You greet all guests who come to your home even the ones you don't like and say thank you for gifts! Even the ones you don't like!

If the situation was reversed, all of mumsnet would be saying for the wife to go non contact and telling her she had a husband problem. This poor chap has a wife problem and a mil problem.

@AuntMarch

Has your friend's housemate been badmouthed by you for 18 years?

I originally thought he was rude but after the reveal I’m Team Husband.

If you mother doesn’t like him - he knows. She can be as polite and smiling as possible but he knows - hence the underlying tension.

He can’t win really. If he comes in and spends time there’s the awkwardness, he’s kept out of the way so now he’s rude. Could he have said hello to keep the peace? Probably. Has he reached the point that he can’t be bothered? Again probably.

If my mum was so rude about the love of my life and so unsupportive of my marriage I wouldn’t be asking my DH to say hello to her. I’d be protecting him from her.

Unless she has something that is actually detrimental to you to judge him for (domestic abuse? affairs?) your ire is focused on the wrong person here. She is disrespectful to you and unsupportive of you both. Your DH has the right idea in staying away from her.

After 18!years she needs to understand that she was fucking wrong!

I'd not bother with my MIL had she said I was good enough for her son. But then my DH would've put her straight.

This reply is so futile and not as clever as you clearly thought you were when writing it. Surely you can interpret that OP is simply saying her mother shouldn’t have to go to husband when he is passing the room she is sitting in.
Stop being horrible.

Husband was rude. Mother needs to stop with the comments, it’s been 18 years. Both are in the wrong. If you’re having words with husband, have them with mother too … or neither.

If visiting someone's house, you don't bad mouth their husband constantly.

I'd like to know why after 18 years OP is still letting her mother be negative about DH? That's much worse than not saying hello to a visitor who pops round for an hour.

Your mum probably didn't even care!

Come on @Eventingmum - time for you to come back and give an update on your situation.

Even if it hasn't gone the way you were expecting.

He should have said, "hello, I'm sorry I can't chat because I'm tiling the bathroom." If he didn't even say hello, then he's rude. But I wouldn't have expected him to sit down and chat, when he's covered in grout and busy with the tiling.

I have to say, from your update, I have more sympathy for your DH. He should still 'say hi and thank you' though, to anyone who enters his home.

OP you need to stand up for your DH more. It is not acceptable that your DM has been slagging him off for 18 YEARS!!

OK, she may not like him, but you have stayed together and have a good marriage. Your DM needs to know that her behaviour is also unacceptable.

DH was rude to not pop down and say hi/ wish a happy new year. It would have taken 5 mins and he then could have said that he’s doing tiling and needs to get on with that as it’s a big job.
I sympathise with him as I don’t get along with some of my in-laws and generally try to avoid.

edited after reading your update:
i’m similar to your DH in this situation - in-laws didn’t think I was good enough for my DH and were vocal on why to him and anyone who would listen. Your DM’s behaviour over the past 18 years is unacceptable- she should welcome him into the family at least for your sake. She at least needs to not list reasons why you should leave him to you or anyone else in the family. It’s understandable that your DH doesn’t want to be around her- who would want to be in the presence of someone who doesn’t like them? But he should have popped down and said hi, at least to be the bigger person and be a good example to DD (then he could have gone upstairs and smashed up any off-cut tiles to de-stress!).

You are not being unreasonable. He was very rude. The least he could have done was to pop down, say hello and thank you for the gift. Then a quick text later to thank her and say he liked it. I understand that it was a flying visit and he may have thought he was doing the right thing by keeping out the way and letting you have your time together but it really wouldn’t have hurt him to say hey

'Being Rude' is the MN equivalent of public farting, leaving laundry out in the dark and washing bog brushes in your dishwasher. It's the worst of all possible cardinal sins. It instantly bestows the status of persona non grata and elevates the judged 'non rude' party to the sunlit uplands of the moral high ground.

Nowhere is it acknowledged that sometimes, rudeness is the appropriate or even desirable response.

It seems as far as OP's DH is concerned, this is one of those occasions. Sometimes, what people fail to see is that others are mirroring their own shit back at them.

OP, I get it. My Mum is the same way, and likes to find reasons why my husband is a terrible mistake, despite having a very strong marriage of nearly 7 years, children and our own home. It's not like a flash-in-the-pan fling with a bad boyfriend.

On the one hand, the rocky relationship they have is entirely her fault. On the other hand, he frequently does and says things which he KNOWS are just giving her ammunition. Then I have to listen to her complaining about it.

It wouldn't have cost anything for him to have stopped for 30 seconds to say hi, but NOT stopping to say hi has probably gone into her evidence bank of reasons why he's badly brought up and ill-mannered.

I suppose it depends on the history. If by not getting on you mean your mum has a history of treating your husband poorly, then it's understandable. Otherwise it was passive aggressive and rude.