Not to let dh take MIL food shopping on Xmas eve

[Bookitonlinenextyear]

Every year we prompt MIL about what a good idea it would be to book an online delivery. Every year she says ‘oh no - I like to pick my own fresh things the day before!’
Every year she then asks dh to take her. It takes AGES because she wants to look at everything and chat to everyone. It takes Dh away from me and the dc on Xmas eve and I find it irritating.

This year it’s been no different we told her please book an online delivery as we have plans this year we can’t take you shopping. She didn’t.
We offered to add anything she needed to our delivery due on 23rd. Not good enough, she as usual wants to pick her own things.

We have all come down with an awful cold/flu and she’s called dh to try to arrange to
go food shopping on Tuesday !!!! He is saying he feels he has to I’ve told him categorically no. That he can’t as if we aren’t all better I just want to rest and if we are all better I want to do something with the dc. She can get a taxi. AIBU to put my foot down ?

This strikes a chord with me. Where there are family relationships like mother / child they don't just end when the child gets married. Wouldn't you like to still have an activity you do with your children when they are grown up and married?

It's the 22nd so your husband only has three options for 2024:

1 ring up and insist they go on the 23rd (assuming he is well enough) so he can be with his kids and you all day on Xmas Eve.
2 tell her he isn't doing it full stop this year and she gets a taxi. If my DH chose this and dropped his DM 48 hours before I would actually think less of him unless he genuinely was too ill to do it.
3 take her Xmas Eve morning but tell her that you and the kids have plans for Xmas Eve afternoon and he needs to be back by 2pm. Start the film at 2pm prompt whether he's there or not.

Ultimately it's his decision not yours which of those three he does. But if the 4 of you are spending xmas day together alone is it really that much of an issue that he spends 5 hours with his mum on Xmas Eve?

would you like a ladder for that reach?

it's insane that people are so determined to defend a random woman they've never met that they are now insisting that the DH (whom they've also never met) is so hen-pecked that when he said he didn't want to go and was "dreading" it, he actually meant "I really would love to go but am scared of you?"

Apart from anything else, surely it's far more likely that someone recovering from heavy cold/flu wouldn't want to spend Christmas Eve traipsing around Asda, that sounds like hell on earth even if you weren't ill.

Yep, the DH same who has offered to do her an online shop, or to add her shop to theirs...she refused both options and demanded to be taken in person instead.

Im in my 60s and there's no way I would be demanding that my son took me shopping on xmas eve, I would never be that selfish.

THEN WHY IS IT NECESSARY FOR THE OP TO ‘PUT HER FOOT DOWN’?

He can make his own judgement on how to handle his mother on Christmas Eve.

"They" being posters on MN in general.

I never said my response was any more valuable than anyone else's, but at least I'm not leaping to make the OP feel as horrendous as possible.

The words mealy mouthed spring to mind.

I used to have this kind of thing with my DM. I was run ragged trying to accommodate what she wanted, working FT and juggling family. I reorganised stuff in my life to fit around what she wanted despite offering to help or trying to plan in advance - my DC suffered in my eyes. It’s not easy and I get why you’re annoyed, I used to get soo mad, upset and frustrated as I was also caring for her and it used to wear me out and it always fell to me. At least it’s not you having to do this and it’s your DH. Could your DH go in the morning Anna then you have the rest of Christmas Eve to do your own thing?

Really shocked at the responses here. She sounds utterly selfish and self centred. What grandmother wants to take her grandkids dad away for hours on end on the most exciting day of the year? At 66 she is acting like a little frail old lady, it’s ridiculous. Your updates cement my opinion even more.
any reason he can’t take her on 23rd as a compromise? Sounds to me like it’s her way or the highway and she’s going out of her way to be difficult.
im with you OP- me and my husband would have a real problem if he kowtowed to this silly behaviour!

Op, I want you to look at your DH and your kids, and try to imagine it's 2054 .... your DH has passed away, and your children are now adults and married. One of them is happy to take you food shopping on Christmas eve, and you love the time spent with them, but their partner is not allowing it ever again. You're lonely and frail, but you get a taxi and shuffle around the supermarket alone. How does that feel?

exactly! I dearly hope, when my parents pass away (hopefully not for a long time yet), I have better memories to look back on wistfully than wandering round Sainsburys on Christmas Eve, ffs!

Again, the woman is 66, not 96! Not to mention she's so unbothered about "making memories" with her own grandchildren that she refuses to see them on Christmas Day because they give her a headache and she doesn't want to leave her cats!

As irritating as it is, you don’t get to put your foot down. Your husband is not under your command.

She most likely enjoys the shopping and spending some quality time with her son over Christmas. You are wanting to take that away from her when you could just as easily factor it into your day.

DH could take her shopping in the morning and you go out in the afternoon. Or you could all have a day out together?

You can't stop your husband taking his mum Christmas shopping!
That's so mean

Shuffle round the supermarket alone?!

She's 66 and has been given multiple other options - none of them are good enough!

Having read your updates OP, the only thing that makes you BU is the concept of "letting" your DH help his Mum. He is, after all, a grown-up. OTOH, your objections don't seem unreasonable at all. Like PPs, I imagined an eighty-something, but she's 66 - six years older than me and I regularly do an online shop. My eighty-something Mum also gets her groceries that way. She freely admits it's not her preferred way of shopping, but it's better than being dependent on family members who are already stretched.

Your MiL is in a similar position to my Mum, but significantly younger, with a DS, DiL and DGC stuffed up to the eyeballs with a variety of malevolent pathogens. Which, btw, could really mess Christmas up for her, were she to catch anything.

I know plenty of people of all ages who prefer to shop in person, especially for produce. There is nothing weird or strange about it.

You seem very invested in making the MiL the villain of the piece for wanting a morning on the 24th. The DH could say "no" if he wanted and the OP isn't required to spend a single minute in her company all over Christmas which is spent with "my little family".

It is now Sunday, your husband will probably feel a lot better by Tuesday. If it is only once a year I don't think it is unreasonable for your husband to take his mother shopping though I think she is a brave woman doing it on Christmas Eve. It won't kill you to do without him for a little while. If he is ill, she can get a cab there and back, lots of people do that.

He hasn't actually agreed to doing it so he wouldn't be "dropping her" if he decides not to.

So I found with my late Mum that she did want to do things her way. Offering to going out first thing was met with ‘I couldnt possibly be ready at that time’ and as a non driver she really didn’t know what seven circles of hell a supermarket car park and the tills are.She just liked the atmosphere and didn’t think at all what she was asking us to do.

If your DH can take her first thing rather than in the middle of the chaos that could be an option but somehow I suspect she will want it all her own way.

I love your passive aggressive swipe at OP with 'let me guess you see your family 😂...'. OP has already explained that she was taken into care as a child so has no relationship with her mother.

Maybe read the OP's posts before making such an insensitive comment.

You are totally not unreasonable. How ridiculous to insist on this on xmas eve. I am older than her and woulcd not dream of getting any of my DCs to do this with me!

I would be offering between 21-23 December or she catches a taxi, or add on to your online order. How selfish of her.

How does it feel being offered to come and visit your grandkids but refusing because they “give you a headache”? She’s not that bloody lonely! And she is SIXTY BLOODY SIX! Not 90! Shuffling around indeed 😂

I get your point. I really do and it would annoy me a little too to be honest but I think in this circumstance it's about compromise.

Yes, DH will take you as usual but it needs to be early morning so we can go ahead with our plans for the rest of the day.

If they leave at say 8, going to be back by lunchtime surely. That gives you all the rest of the day.

I think we all take online delivery for the norm and forget back in the day going out and getting things yourself was how it was done and part of christmas. I think its nice to help the older generation keep this little bit of tradition

Well, I do think a grown woman who insists on only going shopping, in person, with her adult son, on Christmas Eve is being monumentally selfish. Not a villain, necessarily, but totally oblivious to the fact that her son is now a parent with young children.

She could have gone yesterday, or today, or tomorrow, or last week, or she could go alone, or with SIL later on Christmas Eve if going in person is so important...

BECAUSE THE DH IS A WET LETTUCE WHO HAS BEEN MANIPULATED AND GUILT TRIPPED INTO DOING WHAT HIS SELFISH ARSE OF A MOTHER WANTS FOR YEARS.

The OP clearly has a bit more backbone.

I said at the start that this is a dh problem though.

So leave him to it OP - you have a nice relaxing day with your dc's whilst he's schlepping around Tesco's and waiting on his dm hand and foot! His own fault.