Struggling with son's girlfriends personality

[Bluebrownies]

Hi all, so my son is 23, in August he set off to go travelling, he met a girl on the trip and they are now dating. He came home last Monday, just for 3 weeks, then they are going to her parents for 3 weeks before setting off around Europe. We live in London so they are staying with us which is great as we missed him a lot, plus they are keeping themselves busy with museums/theatre etc.
She lives abroad and a lot more rural so that will be a nice change of pace for them when they stop with her family.
The issue is I'm really struggling with his girlfriend's personality, she is respectful but I find her quite "a lot". She is very confident, I thought it might be a front as she was nervous but I'm now thinking she is just naturally very self-assured. Obviously there is nothing wrong with confidence but I've also found her to be very judgemental, she has said multiple times that brits are all so fat (as someone with a higher BMI I feel like this is targeted) and she has said several times British girls are ugly, in front of my impressionable teen girls (13 and 16). She usually follows with "not you guys but generally". I also feel like she is just overly opinionated in general, be it the food I cook, what I'm drinking etc. she has something to say about everything.
We also seem to be having a massive PDA issue, I know this is my son too but he has never been like this before, I feel like they are always touching in some way, she constantly plays with his hair or his hands, they kiss all the time, be it pecks or longer kisses it seems to be every 5 minutes, we went out to the pub for rugby on Saturday and despite their being plenty of seats she insisted on sitting on his lap, even feeding him food off her plate like he was a toddler. It all just makes me little uncomfortable, nothing against hand holding, odd kiss here and there but it's relentless, even when I'm trying to talk to them.
There are other things I dislike but I know aren't really any of my business (her dress sense is very revealing for one).

I'm finding it quite draining as obviously she is always with my son and I don't enjoy her presence so I almost avoid them both. I was so looking forward to having him home but now I'm looking forward to them going). My husband thinks it's just cultural and I will learn to love her but AIBU to feel like this because of these things?

Again I don’t think you can be racist and intelligent. IMO racist people are universally stupid. Depends how you define intelligence I guess. “Loud and outspoken” /= intelligence

No Italian mother would sit meekly in her own house being attacked by some girl, she'd give it to her both barrels, loudly and clearly, the girl would run bawling. And no good Italian son would sit quietly whilst his girlfriend is thrashing her mother

I was about to applaud you for this, I agree but then:

As for fat Brits and shit food, well that's the honest truth. It's not 'Italians', everyone in Europe think that. And why? Because it's the truth. I couldn't with good concience deny it, so I wouldn't call her out on it. Brits are fat, not good looking (being polite) and the food is shit. Jar sauce, countless cokes and instant coffee. And for an Italian, no less? That's just abysmal. But shit, I'm as blunt and ballsy as they come, but I wouldn't cook pasta for an Italian, that's something, hats off to you for that, OP.

What an utterly stupid assertion to make.

You think that "everyone" in Europe thinks brits are fat and ugly? And that's because we are?
Ive often thought that the Eastern Europeans around here are really unattractive, often with 20 years out of date fashion, bad makeup and sullen demeanours but I wouldn't assume that all EE's are like that.

You sound awful, and I'm willing to bet my life you wouldn't say any of that stuff out loud (unless you were amongst racists such as yourself).

I was just thinking the same!

It's a brave Brit who cooks pasta in front of an Italian at the best of times, so if you were pouring a jar of Dolmio over your pasta, I'm surprised she didn't have more to say! I agree with all of her opinions - too much coke, coffee (unless you genuinely have decent coffee), and jarred sauces, overweight & generally poor dress sense however she also needs to understand boundaries and cultural sensitivities and slagging off an entire nation & commenting on a host's food choices is NOT on nor are excessive PDA

If the subtle hints & 'that's quite rude" retorts aren't working, you need to have a word with your son about both & ask if he's like you to speak to his gf or will he do the honours but either way, tone is down. Make sure you tell him lots of positives about her - think shit sandwich - or he'll get defensive and just think you don't like her and finding fault.

Out of all the ops first post the bit that stood out for me was her saying the girlfriend was confident with I thought a slight edge to that in kind of a how dare she be confident. Reminds me of my mums saying „that girls got a lot off“ lot off meaning not apologising for existing.

she’s not wrong about the fat thing, I’m British and I say it every time we come back from the Trafford centre. I also, when in Austria last year was agog at how not fat everyone was. Agree that the ugly thing is not on nor making fat comments when children are present. But, perhaps it’s better that we don’t normalise it. I’ve currently got an extremely obese woman who keeps appearing in my instagram feed trying to convince the airline industry that they are wrong for not making seats that are double/triple the size of normal ones rather than her being the outlier.

I would break this down

Commenting on fat/ugly in front of young teen girls - absolutely unacceptable - she is ignorant and young and you need to be the adult and have a quiet word

You can do this politely so she doesn't feel defensive - say - look I realise you wouldnt be thinking of this but it's really important we don't talk about 'looks' in front of teen girls etc -

The commenting on jars - just cringe behaviour from a young person without the grown up understanding that its rude.

I personally wld snap at her! but I realise how hard it is when its your sons GF.

could you say - X - we all as tired parents use these things sometimes, its rude to comment.

the pda is cringe but - thats young people, your son is in love !

Im sorry to say she sounds a bit like me and my friends at uni age - thinking we knew it all. Im sure i would cringe at some of my comments

it also sounds as though you are an intelligent household that encourage open conversation and debate - and as an intelligent young person herself she is a bit too cocky among adults.

There isn't a GF issue here by the sounds of it
I refer to my previous post...

To be fair to her the obesity rate in England is 26% of adults whilst in Italy it's 11%. It's rude of her to comment but she's not wrong about us being fat.

Spot on! But being myself from EE I would not dare to do such comments to the host family though, that's disrespectful (even if honest).

But you don’t think it’s ridiculously rude to stand in a house with 3 British women and declare British girls and women are ugly?

“Isn’t it funny that Italian men are basically all sex offenders” (my experience)

See OPs further posts about the previous GFs - I don't think anyone stands a chance

Agree what a great start to a pair and then so disappointing to read the rest of it

Also the obesity rates and healthy life expectancy for the rest or Europe is nothing to be proud of

The over overweight stats are very similar. 1 in 2 Italians are overweight. A bit higher for Brits

I work closely with an Italian colleague. They are very physically affectionate with everyone (men and women!) which I hate, but I can tell it is cultural. However, they are also very polite and thoughtful, never make rude comments about individuals or Brits in general! i think that is a "her" thing, not an Italian thing!

Isn’t it more concerning why your son always has awful girlfriends?

Spot on. If you read the OPs later post where she clarifies what the poor young woman has actually said and done, it is clear that the OP is looking to find fault and take offence.

My ex and his family used to love scoffing British woman. Saying we were all fat (I was a size 6), promiscuous, shit cooks and not good housewives.

I remember once being shown photos of woman from their country saying ‘look how beautiful they are compared to British woman!’ I pointed out they all had obvious facial plastic surgery and fillers so it wasn’t really a fair comparison.

The utter cheek of some people. If we behaved like that regarding them we would be branded racists.

And she's only been there a week!

She's hot, your son into her, no wonder there are pda. Doesn't sound like it'll last the long haul, just remind everyone that beauty comes from within whenever she pipes up. Not worth losing your son over.

Yep, awful is a subjective judgement from the OP. I feel sorry for the GF and wonder what her POV would be about the OPs behaviour to her.

Haha- touchy much?

im not singling out Italians or Italy.

not questioning that she’s young and beautiful.

im just pointing out there will be a reason for this particular individual’s insecurities. British people seem to be targeted for this ‘you’re all so fat and don’t eat properly’ by some young Europeans. I suspect because Brits ( though not now) were from one of the richest countries in Europe.

We’re not talking about rural England. But this Portuguese woman ( poorest country in Europe) living in rural Italy ( socially conservative, inexpensive) is possibly intimidated by visiting his family in London (expensive,cultured)

Almost all European places I visit have the same mix of young people, gorgeous people, ugly, old and everything in between.

Its almost universally true that all people who criticise or judge other people’s lives are doing so from a place of insecurity.

And it’s not rude to point out that property in London is many times more expensive than rural Italy- it’s a fact

Tell her Italy and italians are overrated.

Pizza, pasta, ice cream, wine, paintings

That's all they've got going for them. 90% of their cuisine is a variation on two dishes.Boring! Desert is something with lemon, coffee, or ice cream. Yawn!

Name 2 italian movies, 2 italian novels or 1 non operatic italian musician the average person outside of italy will have heard of? Heard of many sports stars other than footballers? Even the football team are renowned for grinding out dull 1-0 wins.

Us ugly overweight Brits have more culture and banter in our fingertips than the average Italian has in the whole of their beautiful slim bodies!

...I do really like pizza and ice cream though.

She sounds rather rude, I’d never dream of behaving like that in someone else’s home while they are allowing me to stay there.

The British girls are fat/ugly comment would have pushed me over the edge though, mainly because of it being said in front of my teenage daughters. My DD is about to hit 13 and she and her friends are already stressing about their appearance and trying to stay thin. Stupid comments like that, even with a “oh I didn’t mean you” eventually added whilst trying to backtrack, could stay with them a long time.

Also, Dolmio is shit now they have taken most the sugar out of it. 😂

Maybe the overweight MIL who eats junk food and drinks cola and has never even been to Italy is intimidated by a healthy, young, and beautiful, well traveled Italian.

as you said most judgemental people are insecure.