DH kicking off as I want to uninvite DMIL/DSIL from Christmas Day

[Christmasdayissue]

NC’d for this. Please can people let me know if they think IABU.

Background - DH and I recently moved into our own home after renting for years and having limited space.

Yesterday we hosted DMIL and DSIL for a roast. Both have stomach problems - fine. However, they spent the hour following the roast sat in our living room openly breaking wind and making no attempt to hide this fact. In front of our two young DC (both found it hilarious). No apology from either of them, the only acknowledgment being ‘well you know we have stomach issues and eating that makes it flare up’.

DH didn’t say anything to them. When I told him after they left that I found it disgusting, he said I was prudish and that they can’t help it. I asked why they couldn’t leave the room. He said it’s good they feel at home and he grew up with them being like that so doesn’t see the issue.

I’ve told him today I don’t want them to come on Christmas Day as planned if that’s how they will behave, and set such an awful example to our DC. He said how dare I threaten that and if I ever thought that was appropriate then he’d simply go out for lunch with them to a pub instead.

This whole thread is actually, however, totally beside the point imo.

OP's DH is rude, disrespectful and dismissive of her in ways that go much further than a few audible farts.

I think it's that background that has made the farts upsetting to her - which I can understand. The whole thread took on a different aspect for me when I read her later posts.

FWIW op I had a great aunt who occasionally let one slip in her later years and would NEVER have apologised.

She was exceedingly ladylike in fact, but it was a case of not being so uncouth as to acknowledge it. She would simply carry on demurely as though nothing had happened. My GM liked us all to sit round as a family and exchange gifts one at a time. It took ages. I remember this Great Aunt tottering over to the tree bending over to get a gift when she was quite old and stiff and making an emission while we were all sitting round looking and waiting. She simply turned round and said "Here you are Helen Dear" and passed the gift to another aunt - but her face was red as a beetroot, bless her. But she was a gentle and kind old lady and no-one felt disrespected that she'd let slip and not apologised.

My GM also used to tell me and my cousins, rather starchily, "best not to comment" when one of us farted. I realise they would all have been older than the PILS in this thread, but that was once an attitude some took.

I have an etiquette book that says the same; some things are best not "noticed." Anything below the waist, one should not acknowledge nor excuse.

But if people are deliberately drawing attention to themselves, guffawing and trying to out-do one another, I think it's OK to say "Do you mind? That's very off-putting. That lavatory is that way >>"

Agreed. I think op should say something directly if her dh won't.

Or corks.

The farting debate rumbles on…

Find out exactly what they are intolerant of and make sure you serve them their Xmas lunch. If they ask for anything else that might upset their stomachs say no. They wil probably gripe about not having things but you can present it as concern for their wellbeing. It would be hard to uninvite them and cause an argument with your DH but you can control their diet and therefore the farting!

How strange that both in a married couple have the same intolerance with the same effects. Even more strange that they haven’t modified their diet at all over the decades……

I don’t think her mother in law is married to her sister in law… and I think it’s entirely possible for a mother and daughter to have the same gastric issues.

Males with hands down trousers fondling genitals to be ignored too?

What on earth would make you say that in this thread?

That seldom happens by accident.