DS and DH buffoonery

[Unusuallyirritated]

AIBU to feel really irritated by this?

Just went round to friends to play board games. DS 10 and DH were poking each other and play fighting almost constantly. Being really noisy. Having to be reminded when it was their turn. Not really following what was going on. DD 7 and DS 13 were brilliant. Hosts two kids were too.

I asked them to stop politely twice. I gave DH a look twice. I also then started to attempt to make jokes about it which wasn’t right but I was out of options. I felt really embarrassed and it ruined the night for me. I also think that DH was setting a bad example for DS.

AIBU to think that it’s rude? How would you feel as the host? They are really lovely and accepting people but I imagine even they were tested. But it might be just I have a low tolerance for that kind of behaviour.

I think it's very common for people not to want to tell their kids off in public, and when you're in someone else's home, it can be even more difficult.

It's not like you could just take DS home (without all of you having to go home) and you can't send him to his room either, so your options are pretty limited.

At least if you're out in public you can take him off somewhere and have a strong word with him - that's not as easy when you're in someone's living room

Interesting. Thank you. There are only a couple of responses like this and it’s good to challenge my perspective. It was just so bloody annoying. I couldn’t follow the game or have a proper conversation. But to be honest I’m peri and want to live on an island by myself at the moment so I’m not the best judge of what’s irritating to
folk and what isn’t. It’s been good to have so many agree that it’s rude and irritating though. Makes me feel less like a curmudgeon but may be I need to chill out. Mind you, when I imagine what would have happened if I’d chilled out, the game wouldn’t have happened. It would have been lost in the chaos. So on the one hand we’d agreed to play a game and so I felt responsible in part to help make it work and on the other hand may be that would have been ok. The hosts didn’t know the game so harder for them to take the lead.

Sorry. Rambling. But thanks for the alternative view. It’s helpful.

I also think its not for OP (or women in general) to give 'the look' or tell someone to stop doing something

I do wonder what the responses would be if it was a mother/daughter messing about and given "the look" by a man.

If it was disrupting the game then it wasn’t suitable behaviour at that time. I would have been embarrassed if DH and DS had been mucking about like that.

Yes!!! That’s it too. It felt exclusive. It felt like they were playing their own game and having their own conversation at the exclusion of anyone else. A bit like if a couple were canoodling and we had to interrupt that every time it’s their turn. I hadn’t realised but I think it’s that bit that felt the most rude. It was a group activity that required investment from all the group to be most enjoyable.

As a host I would be really irritated by this behaviour. I’ve gone to the trouble of inviting you around and perhaps serving snacks/food and your DH is acting foolishly.
I wouldn’t be inviting you around again.

I haven’t RTFF, but so far I am surprised no one here (being MN!) has asked if the husband could possibly be ND?

Me too. But I’m grumpy. Thanks for understanding. I’ll chat to her next time I see her. See how it was for them.

Listen, I am in no state to judge. Im also in peri and its a good thing we do not have guns easily available in this country for my OHs sake, that is all I will say!!!

He is also socially awkward and I despair at times and I veer from wanting to punch him in the face and hate him so much to thinking 'who the hell do you think you are' (about myself)

If ADHD and ASD had been assessed back in the day he’d meet the criteria for sure.

😂😂 Oh thank you for making me feel normal. I get such stabby feelings. Thank god that’s not my nature or he’d be under the patio! 😬

He may well be, I suspect my own socially inept OH is ND (not diagnosed) but it makes no odds really in terms of what you see and how annoying it is.

Yeah. I guess I shouldn’t have given him the look and asked them to stop. I was in parenting role and felt DS needed to know it was inappropriate behaviour. But yes. I should have perhaps stayed quiet. I’m less and less able to as time goes on. I’m so going to be the little old lady waving her stick at the youngsters misbehaving. Never thought I’d get to this stage!!

Yes. It’s not like he’s going to change no matter what the cause.

If I was acting like a prat and encouraging DC to do the same when it wasn’t appropriate I would fully expect DH to say something, same as I would to him.

Exactly - someone has to be the parent. I can't actually remember a time where dd and I have run amok at someone else's house screaming and being physical with each other and expected everyone to just watch. Very much suspect it is not as commonplace.

Say if next time you kept DS sitting beside you/on your team in the games, would he start on one of the other children because he needs to be niggling at someone or is it a specific dynamic between the two of them?

Board games are great for children to learn all sorts of skills, turn- taking, attention, thinking ahead, using your time wisely. We don't expect to children to have full mastery of these skills but it would be hard for them to develop them if the adults aren't displaying any of them!

That doesn't mean it's all serious or humourless at all. You can still have a great laugh around the table without the physical poking and digging. I would be so on edge about the board getting knocked and everyone losing their places, too. It's so disrespectful to everybody else's time and investment in the game! And I would be teaching DS this, whether DH is a lost cause or not.

It was very disruptive behaviour and made it hard to play the game in any meaningful way. They had no idea what was going on half the time. I spent a lot of time letting them know what was going on because they’d missed it. So yes. Just stressful for me!

Just a thought, but maybe you shouldn't smooth it over. You're not his social secretary, let him take the consequences of his own behaviour and fall flat on his face if necessary. Also makes it harder for him (and the be cool/be kind folks on here) to make you the scapegoat who shouldn't be telling him off.

I do realize that's hard when you don't want to jeopardize your relationship with the hosts - I would definitely apologize to them.

I have to be honest, if my DH was so embarrassed by me that he felt the need to give me "the look" multiple times in public, and then brought it up again in the car, I think would actually be quite hurt.

It can't be very nice to know that your partner is humiliated by you.

Board games are not "for being silly." Some of us actually like to play them not use them as a jumping-off point for bantz.

I would have found it intensely irritating. I’d find it annoying enough if it were a couple of ten year olds acting like that, let alone a grown man. But I do know I’m a bit of a fun-sponge when it comes to silliness so I’m interested to see most other people on this thread agree in this case.

It isn't the partner's job to constantly validate bad behaviour though and especially not when she is a role model to her son and other kids in the room.

It's a form of 'performance parenting'. As PPs have said he's trying too hard to make himself look like a great fun dad but it's so cringeworthy because it's not natural. People can tell when you are naturally having fun. This was 'performance fun'.

I wouldn't take him again.

For me, it depends what you mean by ‘at others’ expense’. It sounds like no-one else was being teased and no-one got hurt accidentally by the roughhousing. But the rest of the people there (OP and her other two kids, her friends and their children) weren’t able to enjoy playing the game ‘properly’. So it was at their expense.

I only really enjoy board games played ‘properly’ (ie according to the rules, no cheating, no messing around), but I appreciate other people see board games more as a prop to an evening of fun, rather than an end in themselves. IYSWIM. Sounds like OP is a bit more like me in that respect.

I never said it was.

If OP feels her 10yo was behaving inappropriately then of course that needs to be addressed, but I don't think giving a grown adult "the look" in front of friends/in public is the way to do that.

Part of me wonders if the friends picked up on the tension between OP and her DH and that's what made it awkward.