AIBU to be fed up with my in-laws' reverse one-upmanship?

[GreenPoppies]

I know I'm not being unreasonable because making disparaging comments about someone elses choices is always rude but does anyone else get so annoyed by reverse one-upmanship?

My in-laws are the ultimate in this. We are going on holiday to Portugal in August and they are flabbergasted that we are flying. "But why can't you just drive? It's so brilliant. We love driving. The views from the motorway are second to none. I don't understand why you're flying" Because, Not-So-Dear In-Laws, we have 9 month old and a 2 year old, and 2-3 days of driving is neither comfortable nor practical. "But just do it all in one go, it's only 24 hours if you drive non-stop, you'll be fine, it's so much fun, I don't understand why anybody would fly there in 2 hours when you could drive there in 24! Such luxury!".

We took our (then) 18 month old camping last year in our 4 man tent. "you sat on CHAIRS?! Oh wow, that's crazy, I can't believe you sat on chairs, we would just sit on a tesco bag. And that tent may as well be a castle, we just prop up a tarp and sleep under that, no need for sleeping bags, it's so much fun to camp without all the unnecessary extras".

We were once on a walking holiday with them and I mentioned (didn't make a fuss or anything) that I needed to stop at a shop. When they pressed ("why on earth do you need a shop? Just sustain yourself on beer for 3 days!") I said I needed some plasters as a stone had got into my walking boot and rubbed my foot raw, I'd bled all over my sock. I was made out to be the most precious princess ever, to this day I'm ribbed about "can't even do a 6 hour walk without needing a plaster the next day! We just walked through the blood!"

I'm getting fed up of gritting my teeth and putting up with it. I've bitten back a few times and told them to shut up if they can't say anything nice but again, I'm seen as 'dramatic' and it's ignored. I now try and avoid them but obviously they are my kid's grandparents and otherwise not bad people so needs must.

It feels like they assign a moral worth to anyone who does not suffer like bloody Christ on the cross! I'm a second rate human being because I fly, camp in a tent, use plasters and god-forbid breathe bloody oxygen. The fact I've run 10+ ultramarathons (so fully know what discomfort feels like) goes ignored....

Arghh I feel better for that rant now :)

Dear lord, they sound like they’ve escaped from some sort of comedy sketch show😂

I think you need a bingo card every time you see the.

This is a great idea. I need to feel like I'm having the last laugh (even secretly to myself 😂) as otherwise I just feel constantly judged by them!

I call this onedownmanship.

This reminds me of Monty Python's Yorkshire men, will give you a good laugh OP if you've not seen it!

About to post the same. OP you or they need to watch this.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k

"I need to feel like I'm having the last laugh"

This is exactly it @GreenPoppies they will never change.

Create a mantra to quietly recite, that allows their daftness, just to fly completely over your head 🌻

Sympathies. Just learn to smile and say 'that's nice' ....

Mine are similar. Slightly different in that MIL makes out everything they do/have done is/was 'wacky' or 'crazy' or they were soooooo drunk. Even stuff which, when you do the maths, was way less than 10 years ago and neither of them have drunk alcohol since forever 🧐 And how they walked and walked.

Also when ever DH and i have a weekend away she always, always makes a theatrical great show of wide eyed confusion about what we did while away. She always asks. More than once. And we always politely say we rested and enjoyed the room in the v posh hotel (which is code for we 'shagged all weekend') and we have to have the oh?!? and then hear about how we should have done this and gone there and how her and FIL would have barely seen the room because they go out and do crazy WACKY things and walked so much.

🙄🙄🙄 god!

This!

Next time they do it, start quoting it.

Just reply… yes, but you are stuck in the olden days…
oh don’t worry, we can afford to fly, why would we bother to drive?
oh, you are so funny, no one does this anymore - it stopped just after WW2…

They sound mental. Im
surprised they created a decent DH for you. Just chuckle and say “it’s ok MIL, I wasn’t put on this earth to suffer. I’ll get 90 years if I’m lucky and I’ll do it in comfort thanks. You do you”

Buy her a new carrier bag for Christmas to sit on whilst she’s camping in the pissing rain.

Thank you for that sketch it's wonderful ! Start playing it op !
Say I've just seen this is so funny and play it

Next time they start you can joke with them ...plastic bag seating ?? I had to sit on hot coals

I would just continually retort something like ‘you do you’, 10 mins later say ‘As I said, you do you’.

Or ‘well everyone’s different Janet’ and keep saying it over and over again.

@Jamesblonde2 that's more than possible my DH is gorgeous and lovely his dp are vile ..materialistic mean ,snobby...

I think I’d just say, on repeat, ‘you’re right. You’re MUCH more superior to us.’ Either they’ll realise how judgey they’re being, or you’re validating their views - but either way it becomes your grey rock statement and you don’t need to engage any more than that.

I told my MIL that I saw no virtue in roughing it and thank goodness I earn enough money to not have to do it . Shut her up .

Stop telling them. If they do make a comment then just nod and smile you don’t need to answer. Total neutrality is your friend , rather than trying to win, just change the subject.

I transcribed this for my Dad years ago, enjoy!

THE FOUR YORKSHIREMEN
Monty Python

• 1ST YORKSHIREMAN: Very passable, I say, very passable.
• ALL: Aye, Right.
• 2ND YORKSHIREMAN: Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas (wine), eh, Josiah?
• 3RD YORKSHIREMAN: Aye, You're right there, Obadiah.
• 2ND: Aye.
• 4TH YORKSHIREMAN:Who would’ve thought, thirty years ago, we'd all be sittin’ here drinkin’ Château de Chasselas, eh?
• ALL: Nah.
• 1ST: In them days we were glad to have the price of a cup of tea.
• 2ND: A cup of cold tea.
• 4TH: Without milk or sugar.
• 3RD: Or tea!
• 1ST: In a cracked cup, an’ all.
• 4TH: Oh, we never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
• 2ND: The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth!
• 3RD: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
• 1ST: Because we were poor. My old dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son."
• 4TH: He was right.
• 1ST: Aye.
• 4TH: I was happier then and I had nothing! We used to live in this tiny, old, tumbled-down house with great big holes in the roof.
• 2ND: House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, half the floor was missing, and we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
• 3RD: Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in the corridor!
• 1ST: Oh, we used to dream of livin’ in a corridor! Would've been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
• 4TH: Well, when I say 'house' it was just a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin (tarp), but it was a house to us!
• 2ND: We were evicted from our hole in the ground; we had to go live in a lake!
• 3RD: You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred-and-fifty of us livin’ in a shoebox in the middle of the road!
• 1ST: Cardboard box?
• 3RD: Aye.
• 1ST: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a newspaper in a septic tank. We used to have to get up every morning at six o'clock, clean the newspaper, go to work down the mill: fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence (6 pennies) a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
• 2ND: Luxury!

We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence (2 pennies) a month, come home, and dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

• 3RD: Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox in the middle of the night, and lick road clean with tongues! We had to eat half a handful of freezing-cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at that mill for fourpence (4 pennies) every six years, and when we got home... our dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
• 4TH: Right...

I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down the mill, and pay the mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home... our dad would kill us and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

• 1ST: And you try to tell the young people of today that ... they won't believe you.
• ALL: No, They won't.

They both sound bonkers, guess they are looking for eventual saint hood.

Love the Four Yorkshiremen 😁

When they start the plasters thing up again, I would have to say 'remind me, how many ultra marathons have you run? Oh right. Well I've run (this many) and I know that when you need a plaster, you put a plaster on'

Otherwise, I think the 'it'd be a dull world if we were all the same, wouldn't it?' option is best.

They sound fucking nuts.

Usually, people who behave like this are extremely insecure. I’d just laugh at them the next time they make such comment and then just walk off.

I’d test them! Make up some ott extreme tale of hardship (on some outing or something) but dressed up all fun & enjoyable then watch them scramble for ways to imply they suffered more or how you should’ve done it.