To not apologise when I meant what I said?

[MotherOfOlafs]

MIL round for Sunday lunch last week, all very pleasant to start with. MIL always has a lot of comments about others appearances which we tend to ignore as rising to it just seems pointless. Until during lunch she told us about a woman she’d seen at a restaurant who had some facial hair. She then told us she’d taken a photo of this lady obviously without her knowledge and sent it to some friends who’d then ‘made some very funny comments’. She was laughing her head off while she was telling us this. To be perfectly honest it made me furious and I replied ‘I didn’t realise you were such a nasty bully MIL’.
The rest of the day was spent in silence pretty much. She now won’t speak to any of us (fine with me but DH is upset). He’s asked if I’ll consider apologising. I honestly don’t think I should, especially as this all went on in front of DD14 and I would never want her to think this behaviour is excusable.

Makes no odds. She still boasted about her bullying, shaming behaviour in front of your teenage daughter. So my response still applies.

Don’t apologise to her. You were absolutely correct. Apologising won’t achieve anything anyway. She will just interpret that as carte blanche to carry on.

For the sake of family peace I might try "I'm sorry I called you a bully, I was just shocked that you'd taken a photo of that poor woman, and I didn't want DD thinking this was acceptable behaviour"

Why should op apologise? What kind of person makes fun of a person, takes s picture to send to people to laugh at? The shoe would be on the other foot if someone did that to her though I bet!!! I would want nothing to do with someone like her, mil or not!! Especially if she thinks nothing of repeating in front of children what a complete idiot. Don’t apologise as you’ve nothing to apologise for, your dh should have a word with his nasty bitch of s mother about her horrible attitude tbh

nah don’t do this. It’s not your fault the truth upset her and you shouldn’t apologise for that.

Actually it can be very effective!

You did the right thing OP and Hell would freeze over before I apologised!

I'd have criticised the behaviour, personally, and not resorted to name calling. Name calling can be bullying, also.

I might say all of that except ‘I’m sorry’.

No I was just putting that out generally as a few comments have mentioned her being grandma and she isn’t

Yes this is perfect!

Well yes, in this case it shut her up on the spot, didn't it?

But I’m not sorry for calling her a bully.
That is bullying.
That would make me a liar.

You were in the right. I'm all for keeping family relations happy, but that was really shitty behaviour of her and her equally odious friends - and very important to show your DD what's right! No apology from you needed.

Growing up I had an aunt (married to my mum's brother) who would say awful things about other people in the way you described your MiL doing. I was always so proud of my mum when she called her out on what she would say in the way you did with your MiL. Absolutely don't apologise. It made things awkward in the moment, but everyone would get over it without having to have a big discussion about it, dissect it and apologise.

Actually, similar conversations would play out repeatedly, with Aunt saying something else awful and mum again calling her out on it.

It is ok for people to have different opinions on things, and to voice them/be called out on things. This is how people learn, develop as humans and get an understanding of other peoples' points of view.

It is not OK to be encouraged to back down from what you believe in/apologise for something you fundamentally disagree with. I am sure your DD is proud of you too for speaking up.

It is nice to be nice, and costs nothing. Well done you for speaking up, as many people would have bitten their tongue to keep peace.

Why should she. She was right. What her MIL did was appaling & she should rightly be called out on it.

Apologising is sending out the wrong message to her

Nothing wrong with saying 'I didn't know you were such a nasty bully'. It's not as if the OP lunged across the table and smacked her.

Not only should you not apologise, you shouldn't even contemplate apologising. Any further references to the incident should only involve your MIL being told her behaviour is absolutely repellent, and furthermore a disgraceful example to a teenager who is almost herself certainly dealing with the oddities of puberty, changing body, body hair etc.

@saraclara’s message is absolutely spot on - perfectly worded.

Tell her you'll apologise if she gets in touch with the lady from the restaurant, owns up to what she's done and apologises to her first. In practice it would probably be difficult to get her contact details, but it makes a good point.

What a stupid comment. Of course calling out someone for bullying or inappropriate behaviour can make them change their behaviour. They are literally being told what they’re doing is wrong and having a mirror held up to themselves to think about what they’ve done.

Honestly i would imagine that yes, quite often being called a bully does cause someone to change their behaviour - not always of course but for lots of people a short sharp shock with no pussyfooting around is exactly what they need.

Maybe it wouldn't make a difference to someone who is aware they are being a dick and just doesn't care but for someone like the MIL who seems completely oblivious to the fact she did anything wrong, and who is probably very aware of her reputation/how she is viewed by others, OP being very blunt was likely exactly the thing she needed. And it clearly did have an effect if she was silent for the rest of the day-if OP had just said something like "Oh I'm not sure if that was very nice?" It's likely she would have just brushed it off and ignored it, moving onto a new topic.

By outright calling her a bully the MIL has to examine her own behaviour and either think "no im not! mocking people for their physical features is conpletely fine" or "oh....wait...."

Apart from which it's not just for the "benefit" of the MIL -addressing it that bluntly also makes clear to the dd and dh what OP considers acceptable.

Good on your mum!
Saying that people have different opinions is completely fair so when she does her usual thing of ‘oh I don’t like so-and-so’s hair’ or ‘did she/he get dressed in the dark this morning’ we don’t even respond. But her story about that poor woman deserved the response I gave IMO

It wouldn’t have even occurred to her that what she did was wrong though, she wouldn’t have freely shared it around the dinner table if it had

You were 100% right. He was 100% out of order, and you put it very tactfully imo. He can clearly give it out but not take criticism.

I can’t see what you have to apologise for.

It reminds me of Peep Show Mark’s girlfriend Dobby calls out his dad’s rude behaviour, the atmosphere gets awkward and Mark thinks “Why did she have to say?! I’m going out with a sayer!”

We need more Sayers!

I think this is a good response too. Mil sulking shows she hasn’t seen the wrong in what she did. This might get the message across to her.
While I agree that she was definitely out of order, I think the way you said what you said could have been better (something I’m prone to as well!)