For not serving FIL?

[Keroppi]

Semi lighthearted, as I get on very well with lovely MIL and her second husband (will just call him FIL for ease) but he can be emotionally immature and passive aggressive, mostly to MIL. However I do care about them both and they help a lot with the kids and with DIY.

So, I am having PIL over for some food later as they've recently got back from holiday. I'm doing Indian, so chicken curry, bombay potatoes, rice, naans & papadum and aubergine pakora. Mint yogurt and maybe some chopped onions out in little bowls.

I normally serve my big meals like this family or buffet style where everyone can help themselves. Not that it hugely matters, but I'm from a mixed race background where a lot of family meals are like this. DH and PIL are white british but travel a lot so aren't exactly small minded, so I don't think it's that.

My issue is that previously whenever I've served meals like this, FIL will literally just sit there with an empty plate and not serve himself. I and DH say multiple times to help yourselves, crack on, especially if I am still cooking something or DH is doing some drinks or seeing to the kids. But EVERY TIME FIL will sit there!! I used to fix him a plate with a bit of everything on, but then I recently started being a bit pissed off about it, so I usually ignore him now and every time without fail MIL will have to start putting things on his plate for him. However, I do feel like I'm being a bit petty and rude? What do you think?

Maybe this will be a drip feed and the poor soul has no hands. Or legs. Or a very specific neurological disorder where he cannot differentiate between pakoras and telephones? Or Sticky Arse Syndrome, that one’s quite embarrassing and people can be uncomfortable about talking about that. We should Be Kind.

He's a bellend 😃

Your food sounds amazing and I’m sure any of it in any proportion would be good, but I’d be tempted to serve him a really shitty helping. Like one type of curry on top of another type. Or loads of rice and hardly any meat. Or just the smallest portion ever!

Thought of this because I’d hate to be served by someone else because I know what I want and how much!

I would turn round to your Mil “do you mind plating up FILs food since he doesn’t want to help himself.” And then walk off. What a bone idle man.

I used to say to my (very similar) FIL: "Would you like me to eat it for you, too?"

Leave him to it. It sounds amazing so I'd be so happy to help myself.

Shame on MIL for enabling her man child DH! Carry on as you were OP and don't give him a second thought. Very strange behaviour 😂

Who the hell does he think he is???? Waiting to be served by someone. This would give me the rage - it reeks of entitlement

Put tiny portions on so he has to get up and get more

The first time I went to my in-laws for Christmas I was sitting with my father in law on the couch and he said ‘I finished my drink’ and stared at me. I stared at him and had no idea what he was talking about. Hours later I realised he actually thought I’d leap up and get him another drink. 😂

If I ever went to a buffet with my parents, my mum would go and get my dad’s food. Now they are old, my mum is 84 so was it more overt then, men’s assumption women serve? I never saw him at a meal like the op suggests though ( he’d never have eaten Indian food) where you get food from a communal dish but it’s made me wonder. He also, when going out for a meal, would ask my mum what he’d like.

What a silly little man!
Call his bluff……..serve him small amounts in the shape of a face and cut it all up very very small and give him two spoons to eat with like a toddler!

You can’t imagine it for yourself can you? That someone else would put food on your plate for you, do you salt and pepper, all of that while you just sat there like a lemon. It would be so WEIRD.

I would studiously not notice that his plate is empty. Just ignore it.

if he chose not to help himself I'd take his plate away and assume he's not hungry.

He is a guest and it's not a big deal so I would serve him tbh.

Big Grey Rock his nonsense.

he can be emotionally immature and passive aggressive, mostly to MIL.

What fun for her. He sounds hard work.

I would completely ignore that his plate is empty and start tucking in. If MIL wants to serve him that's her business.

I’d be loudly shaming FIL for not fixing his doting wife a plate, or while offering to fix her a plate myself and telling her she’s earned the opportunity to relax. Completely ignore FIL and let him go hungry. Don’t even engage beyond the initial telling him to help himself.

He sounds like a petty passive aggressive twat. Leave him to it. I wouldn't be able to not ask him why he feels like he's too good to serve himself?

My in laws are all like this and I hate it. They all help each other to everything. My MIL will always serve FIL and literally everyone else also. One time she picked up cooked carrots from a bowl with her hands and put them on my plate!! I hadn’t asked for anything and I am a perfectly capable adult! She will rarely sit down at a meal as she is always popping up to get someone a drink etc etc.

i find these meals so stressful and annoying as it’s help yourself in theory but in practice no one ever does, they just pile vegetables, unasked, onto someone else’s plates. If I am ever asked if I want something, I always say ‘ oh just serve yourself, it’s easier.’

i don’t know the answer, but over the years I just accept that other families have their own weird dynamics, and I just sort myself out and refuse offers of bloody veg I don’t want.

Same.
If he can't or won't put food on his own plate, then he can just sit there with it empty.

This!

If he doesn’t feed himself I’d leave it to MIL or DH to do something.

Absolutely not, completely ignore!

Instead of putting a plate at his setting could you put a bib, plastic bowl and spoon. Perhaps add a high chair for final flourish.

I know previous posters have said this, but bloody hell he is a bell end.