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?

Honestly? I would rather prepare the meal to suit the crowd? He clearly doesn’t eat spicy food or anything that isn’t traditional. Personally I would make something that everyone will enjoy as opposed to push foods onto him that you’ve said he’s refused to have eaten in the past. Or else just don’t invite him.

Yeah, carry on ignoring it. If MIL wants to play stepford wife that's up to her. But please, please, give us an update on how it plays out if she's ever not there for some reason - I'm dying to know what would happen.

The issue doesn’t seem to be that he doesn’t like the food, he just doesn’t want to put it on his plate himself.

That definitely wasn’t common in my relatives of that age or older, unless there was some kind of infirmity or disability. People would just get their own or, if anything, the men volunteered to get plates of food for the women.

My dad doesnt cope too well with this type of meal as it makes him feel very uncomfortable.
Not sure why. Do wonder if he worries about taking too much as he likes a big portion. He usually would ask me or mum quietly qnd very nicely to portion him some curry and rice.

Am going to go against the majority here.. my late dad, who was the kindest of souls, wouldn’t have been used to this concept at all. Me or my mum would’ve put a bit of everything on his plate and then offered him more of what we could see he liked. He wouldn’t be rude, just a bit confused so we’d help him out. He’d nudge my mum to see if it was okay to get something more. He was a very shy man and just not used to that style of eating. He was lovely though, and wasn’t ever being rude. When we’d be at family events or buffet style dinners one of us would just say “Dad, will we make you up a plate” and you’d see the relief on his face.
Maybe your FIL is being rude but just wanted to give another side. My dad was the loveliest man but would have been baffled at this kind of meal. He found social situations hard, but loved company in his own way.

I have literally never heard of or encountered this. If DH sat at the table without sorting his own plate of food I’d wonder what on earth he was playing at.

Put his food on s large plastic, unbreakable baby bowl.with s big spoon in it.

And then put a bib on him with his name on it.

He is a complete wanker. Just pretend he's not there.

I had to laugh at ‘he is handy for laying carpets’ 😂😂😂.

What you’ve described was really common among men of past generations. I think what’s unusual is that your FiL is probably pretty young to have this attitude. I’m pretty sure I remember that it worked this way between my paternal gran and granddad (who would both have been over 100 if they were still living today). She would serve him unless it was a joint of meat, which he would carve (lol, a manly job indeed!). He was a very nice man but it was a different time. She didn’t work so did the usual domestic stuff. My maternal grandpa was a bit more enlightened and would cook, wash up, serve etc sometimes, though it fell more to my granny (they both worked in the same level of the same profession so maybe this contributed to a bit more domestic equality).

This is nothing to do with race. Hes one of those men who thinks it's still 1950 and men should be waited on hand and foot

In my house unless your a small child or disabled you would go very hungry at meals served in serving dishes

If your mil wants to pander to him then that's on her, ignore him and his empty plate completely

Some men have learned incompetence
He probably thinks he won't get it nice if he does it himself or something
But yh leave it with his long suffering wife 🤣

Have you been in FIL’s company where a buffet is being served? - would be interested to know if it would be the same and he wouldn’t get food for himself.

I'd be tempted to ask him at least once why he isn't serving himself.

Good idea, and I'd send him to his room.

Sod them, invite me!!! I'd be all over that grub.

First post nails it again.

Is there any chance he's just waiting for everyone to be ready? I wouldn't start helping myself before everyone was at the table as it would feel rude. Even when I'm told to start eating, I always wait for everyone before tucking in.

This is definitely a strange cultural/generational thing. My grandma used to always ask her son what he wanted at a buffet and would ask her daughters if they were getting their husbands. My auntie still gets her husbands and is now very annoyingly also asking her 30 odd year old son. My mother had more sense, thankfully.

I assume she gets food for him. That’s what my mum did.

I’m glad to hear it. She cooked all his meals, even when they’d had a huge row, she was cooking for him once with a black eye. I think it gave her some agency that she felt she lacked, she once said to me “you’ll never be able to run a house”. We lived in a three bed bungalow at the time, it was hardly Chatsworth .

I’d be putting less on the table, so once you, your husband and MiL are served, there’s very little left for him. I may even deliberately burn a couple of items and save them for him.

Ugh what an overgrown toddler.

What happens when he cooks for you, does he serve you?

He’s being ridiculous
i do serve my DP but he has an essential tremor, so if it’s bad I carry his coffee/make his meal up etc

I would doubt he would cook. That’s a woman’s job in his eyes I’d suggest.

This is so ludicrous, why would anyone else want someone else to put their plate together for them? How would they know what you wanted from the buffet? Totally weird. I don’t get these people at all! 🤣