Family mocking partner’s speech - AIBU to be upset?

[PReggoDuck23]

Bit of a rant really. We’re on a UK break with my family, just a cottage thing in Wales. Me, OH, my parents, my sister and her fella. I’m 23 weeks pregnant and just feeling a bit raw anyway tbh.

So my OH’s got a bit of a speech thing. Not a full stammer but he struggles sometimes with certain words or says stuff wrong, mispronounces things a bit. I’m used to it now and usually know exactly what he means. He gets worse when he’s tired and it’s been a long few days. We’ve been walking loads and it’s not exactly relaxing.

Last night after dinner he was trying to tell a story and got stuck on a word. Tried like 3 times to say it and my dad and sister just started laughing and taking the piss. Doing voices and repeating it back to him all wrong. He tried to laugh it off but I could see he was gutted. I told them to pack it in and they were like oh calm down we’re only joking. Then my sister said I’m just hormonal.

This morning he said he had a migraine and stayed at the cottage. Might be true but also reckon he just didn’t fancy spending the day with them after last night. Can’t blame him.

I said something again to my mum and she just rolled her eyes and said he’s too sensitive and they’re only winding him up. But I don’t think it’s funny at all. I feel really protective of him and also just really sad he’s been made to feel like that. It’s meant to be a nice time away before baby comes and now it just feels crap.

AIBU to be upset? Should I have said more?

I would avoid them in future. Sorry but they sound awful. Also mocking him for not drinking etc! That’s passive aggressive behaviour and that would be enough for me to swerve them. I can’t drink due to a medical condition and you know what’s really boring, it’s drinkers having a dig and saying you’re not fun if you don’t drink. Surely the muppets that need a drink to enjoy themselves are the really boring ones. Also overbearing extroverts telling quieter people they’re boring too, that’s bullying. And the comment regarding you being hormonal & over sensitive because you’re pregnant. Honestly you both deserve a lot better than this toxic bunch of vipers.

I would leave ASAP and make it clear you won't be holidaying with them again.
It's bullying plain and simple.

Agree @BeNavyCrab
my eldest couldn’t speak at all for a year when he was 8. All down to a severe stammer.
Like your dc it’s all but disappeared now but when in stressful situations it comes back a little and I’m really feeling your dhs pain here OP.
Protect and support him.

Why stay another night. Leave now, don’t put him through any more of this

I'd be really annoyed too. I have a bit of a funny accent, I've moved around alot and I've got a accent which is a mish mash of different accents so occasionally I come across someone who thinks it's alright to mock my voice, tells me I talk funny, laughs and says "go on say that again" or "say (a word they want to hear in my accent)". It does make me feel deflated sometimes and it does cause me to freeze or I make a joke out of it. Even if making your partner feel awful wasn't their intention, they have and they need to apologise and adjust their behaviour.

Wow they are horrible.

Why are you waiting till tomorrow? I'd not be staying for dinner this evening with them, I'd be out of there today.

Your parents and sister are foul. Would they mock his walk if he had mobility issues, laugh if his hearing or sight was minimal, I don’t know why I am even postulating this because from what you have said they probably would.

I am so sorry you have such mindless uncaring insensitive wankers for relatives. Let’s hope for their sakes they are never in a similar situation following an illness, stroke or accident and learn the hard way how nasty some people can be.

Despicable behaviour on the part of your family. No doubt there will be a ton of self serving backtracking on their part as and when you confront them about their awful behaviour but you really need to draw a line in the sand over this, not least because your DP needs to know that you have his back.

A joke is only funny if the subject can genuinely laugh.

They are not Funny, just plain nasty. I wish you'd rescue him from this awful situation. They're your family so I see it as your responsibility. Go home and tell the nasty fuckers to do one.

I'm very sorry op.

Sometimes it takes seeing how our families treat an outsider to realise what they are really like.

Yours sound like deeply unpleasant (and quite thick) bullies.

I wouldn't let them anywhere near a child. Imagine if they had a stutter, a disability or even, God forbid, a slightly different set of interests to your bullish father and vapid sister.

I wouldn't do anythIng dramatic like leave, as that might make your husband feel worse. I would definitely send them all a group WhatsApp (with DH not on it) as soon as the holiday is over to say that they all know DH has a speech impediment, and that you are really disappointed in them for mocking him about it, especially in public. That you had thought they would behave better and more kindly than that to someone who's joined the family, and it's not the values that they raised you with to take the piss about someone's physical or mental impairment, particularly one about which they already feel self conscious.
Hopefully that would prompt an apology to DH, and they won't repeat their awful behaviour.

I was going to say the same .
It's absolutely not on that your family have made fun of your DH they are beyond reproach .

One of the guys I work with has a stammer and a new security guard ( sub contractor) laughed at him then mimicked him .
Two other members of staff took the guard into the carpark and gave him a thorough dressing down and reported him to his boss and both companies HR.
He was booted of site within a hour .

Making fun of any disability is absolutely not 'just a joke'

My daughter university age, can't drink due to medication she's taking and I am with you on the shit people say about it. It's so weird that there's this undercurrent of "a good night is one where we get pissed as a fart and do stupid shit or even better can't remember it", so you are boring because you don't. It's mental!!

little jokes about how he’s not “a lad lad” and my sister’s said before that he’s a bit boring.

Sounds like they're a bit intimidated by the fact that he has a brain in his head, to be honest.

Nothing more boring than 'lad lads' and people who can't enjoy themselves without drinking, IMO.

I wouldn't have bothered waiting until tomorrow, to be honest. I would've told them they're pathetic and packed the car.

Arseholes.

Your family have behaved horribly OP and you know it. Quite honestly I’d be going home today. Get a nice takeaway of meal out somewhere tonight just the 2 of you. I’d then be having it out properly with family once they’re all home next week. I hope you and your dp have a lovely family unit together without much input from your family as they’re toxic by the sounds of it.

YANBU. Absolutely disgusting. Are your family always like this? Do they mock people with cerebral palsy, or people in wheelchairs? If it were me, I'd just leave now.

How do your family generally connect when they get together? Is it based on 'in jokes' and specific ways of relating? ie drinking or particular activities? They may not notice their way of behaving but that does not mean you have to put up with it. You are all a family so I wonder is there a way you can get them to reflect on their way of welcoming and including new family members?

One way is to focus on the other person as they have done and see it that your partner is 'too sensitive' the other is consider how they welcome and include new family members? If there is a general practice of teasing and humiliating can you as an important member of the group speak to them in a way that lets them know your values are different? How have they been able to change their ways in the past? Have you found them able to do that successfully when the are motivated to do it? As for leaving early, will that invite the change you are requesting or can you stay and set a firmer boundary with them? At some point you will have to have this difficult conversation as I am sure they will want to welcome the newest family member and it sounds like you really want them to treat your partner with respect and not replicate this behaviour. Do you think they are holding some private reservations about your partner? If so they should find a way to respect your choice particularly as you are both going forward as parents. I think you are right not to let it go. This should be a lovely break for everyone not just a few.

Well, they sound like absolutely horrible and also stupid people.

Yeah my family all take the piss out of each other. But we all do it and everyone joins in.

If someone didn't like it, we wouldn't do it to them. Everyone has to enjoy this type of humour and be able to give and take for it to work.

As soon as you raised concerns, they should have stopped. This was just bullying.

I'm so sorry that you had to have this realisation about your family. I grew up with a relative with a stammer and while he was and is an arsehole, I could never stand anyone taking the piss out of his stammer. There's something just so particularly nasty about that kind of mocking. My heart goes out to your OH still dealing with this in adulthood and to you for your family.

God, your family sound pathetic and immature

@PReggoDuck23 quite a few under 10's in your family, aren't there? they are horrible!

Just don't bother with them. Just awful. I would have left. But the good news is they have shown what they are like. Let's hope they don't have any health issues or impediments.

Your family are awful, OP - I mean, who does that? After this holiday, keep them very much at arms length, if you even see them at all.