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?

She called them ugly. It wasn’t just a benign comment.

So? That's her opinion!

Late to this thread, and only read OP's comments: I think you're out of order, actually. Her only "crime" is not keeping her opinions to herself. She's not wrong about any of what she says; different from you, maybe, but not factually wrong or unreasonable in her opinions.

You commenting on their PDAs is about you. It sounds grim to me too, but I wouldn't dare police another person's actions like that.

I think you owe your son and his girlfriend an apology. Of course they're going to Edinburgh and skiing to get away from you.You've made it clear how uncomfortable you find their presence. I'm always the first to back up parents when it comes to young people as almost always they're beyond the boundaries of selfishness (they're young, it's their job). But in this case I think you're fully in the wrong and the poor girl should be excused for being 23 and somewhat lacking in self-awareness. She's done well to live abroad, communicate in your language, stay with guests and have this be her only negative.

It’s unbelievably rude.

I agree with her on every point.
BUT I wouldn't dream of saying so out load. It's just rude and bad manners and I'm not sure it's a cultural thing, surely Italians wouldn't make such personal remarks to someone they don't know well.

don't ASK then!

Or don't get miffed if someone replies what they think. You might just lie and make stuff up to such a question, but clearly other people will be honest.

Foreigners see photos of drunk people in the street, and of the circus of "ladies day" and overweight people in skimpy outfits at race days and others. Where do you think the stereotypes come from? I am not even sure they are stereotypes sadly.

Kate Middleton is tall and slim, but as much as she's supposed to represent this country, she's not representative of the women here, is she (I think she looks great, that's not an attack on her)

OP shouldn't have pushed her for an answer then. Also, OP did qualify what the GF meant by ugly. She wasn't talking about beauty standards.

"Her issue is that it seems every time they get back from being out she can't seem to hide her disgust at the number of fat people and the "terrible" dress sense which made them ugly."

Brits do have ugly dress sense compared to other nations.

I wonder how much of this ‘everyone thinks that’ is just general anti-British sentiment. A bit like the way we always get nil-point in Eurovision even when we have a decent entry.

My family are Polish so I have fairly extensive experience of Polish cuisine, along with other European countries as well have family all over now. I don’t think British food particularly stands out from the rest as being worse than the others (galaretka anyone? 😱) You’ll find good and bad dishes from all countries.

It’s sad that you think it’s acceptable to call people ugly and judge women based solely on their appearance.

I gave my advice upthread OP and you chose instead to listen only to posters validating your views and detonate the nuclear option, rather than agree a more measured approach with your husband who is actually there and knows the dynamics and personalities involved (unlike us strangers online).

I'm reminded of the Bluey Grannies episode where Bingo won't play with Bluey anymore and Bluey goes to her mum who tells her, "you can be right or Bingo can be happy, you can't have both".

This was one of those situations where you could have chosen to be wrong, chosen to focus on your son's positives and his girlfriend's positives and chosen to learn about/embrace the girlfriend's culture so she felt less homesick and felt welcomed. You could have accepted that she is young and will not be this outspoken in 10 years (if they are even still together at that point). However, you chose instead to have the temporary validation of being "right" at the permanent cost of spending time with your son before he goes travelling (and potentially permanent damage to your relationship going forward).

This could be the woman he chooses to spend his life with and you have handled the situation extremely poorly. You need to apologise not only to your son but also to your husband for speaking to your son and his girlfriend without first coming to an agreed approach with him. I imagine your husband knew that this is exactly what would happen - I imagine your husband was enjoying having his son home for this period and chose to overlook the silly/immature comments and cultural differences for this reason. However, if you're actually happy they have gone and no longer feel welcome in your home, then crack on.

“Brits do have ugly dress sense compared to other nations”

Ah yes. Zero fashion styles or designers have ever come from the uk 🙄 we’ve had absolutely no impact on the world of fashion at all…

@mikulkin don't you come for our beans on toast! That's a step too far, missy! It's a classic!

Brits do have ugly dress sense compared to other nations.

Isn’t that a matter of opinion? I quite like the casual, understated Brit look. I think some other countries have dreadful fashion sense and look ridiculous and try-hard. But I won’t mention which countries because I don’t want to cause offence. I keep those sorts of opinions to myself.

Eh? The judgement of "ugly" or "beautiful" can only be based on appearances, isn't it? What else would it be?

I didn't see the girlfriend judging the women on any other quality than their appearance. She said what she saw.

Great Post @Christmasmorale

Never said UK designers haven't had an impact on the world of fashion. But how much of the hoi polloi actually wear those designer styles? Anyone visiting would think our national costume is trackie bottoms with sliders/Crocs.

Your defensiveness is coming off you in waves. We're not the best-looking or best-dressed nation in the world and it's okay to admit that!

😂😂😂

There are normal people wearing normal clothes with normal faces all over the world. In fact, they’re the majority of people all over the world.

I think the 18% can read between the lines of the OPs words and recognise that she is likely to be jealous of this young, beautiful, intelligent, confident woman who her beloved son obviously adores.
Her husband’s perspective seems more balanced and it is quite insulting to him to imply that he is blinded by lust for his sons girlfriend.
The fact that the son says that the OP never likes any of his girlfriends reinforces this perspective.

I think the point is he’s clearly loaded, or she is, or both, but they haven’t so much as bought ingredients to make the OP a meal

It’ll be trashed for 5 minutes until he needs a place to stay in London again.
He will grow up and realise once he has his own home and has to host a rude guest I’m sure

I don’t think you were wrong to bring up the criticisms (lightly, something like “ok once was enough, we get the message etc) but I do think you shouldn’t have mentioned the PDAs (rather kept quiet and counted down the days @Bluebrownies

Agreed. So many dimwits fall apart with a pair of breasts in display

It’ll be trashed for 5 minutes until he needs a place to stay in London again.

I was thinking that.

Staying for three weeks before going off to freeload elsewhere!

Anyone visiting would think our national costume is trackie bottoms with sliders/Crocs.

sounds like you live in a very different sort of area to me! There will always be differences between sectors of society, but when we are talking about a country’s general sense of fashion we would normally look at the average people - not the dregs.

Tell you son that his girlfriend is both beautiful and intelligent. You just don't want those kind of comments in front of your girls because you want to minimise their exposure to anything that can be damaging to their body image, but you know that she didn't mean anything bad by it - could she just dial those sorts of comments back when she comes next time? And to her: She's welcome back any time. Even if you don't mean it. They may or may not last as a couple but either way you want to maintain a good relationship with your son and it does seem as if shes a big improvement on earlier girlfriends!