First meal out with son’s wife’s parents and they let us pick up the whole bill.

[50sandFabulous]

What would you make of this? Son got married recently. Obviously, we have met his parents. However, we have never been out with them before.

The other day we met for lunch, there were six of us there in total. I had said to my husband that we should pay for the whole thing just as a nice gesture.

We went up to the bar at some point and paid for the whole tab. No one knew that we had done this.

When it was time to leave, everybody just left the restaurant and absolutely nobody queried about the bill. Is this not a bit mad?

So basically, we have paid for everybody (which we were always going to do), but there has been no acknowledgement from anybody about the fact that the bill has been paid and absolutely no thank you. I just find this really really weird!

I was expecting somebody to say, oh we need to get the bill, and then I would have said don’t worry it’s covered, but that did not happen!

Did your son and son-in-law say thank you?

Honestly, I think you need to sit down with your DS and have a serious chat about how you have paid for every damn thing so far and the buck literally stops here. Tell him you are disappointed in everyone’s entitlement and absolute rudeness. I would make it clear that you won’t be put in that position again and have no desire to be known as the parents with more largesse than brains.

A thankyou would have been nice at the very least. Some people are just natural takers though.

Is there a huge disparity in your financial situations? Sounds as though they think you both can and want to pay.

But even if you are as poor as a church mouse saying thank you costs nothing!

Ha ha that's brilliant!

I do think the OP is getting an unnecessarily hard time here and I must admit that I often pay the bill quietly but I certainly don't consider it secretive or that I'm 'sneaking off' and I definitely don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable.

It's never occurred to me that this might be the opinion of the people I'm paying for tbh. But maybe I'll stop doing it and just start letting other people pay. Although it might be that this is peak Mumsnet, as someone else said and in the real world good friends and family never mind if someone quietly and happily picks up a bill for dinner. I am never "performative" about it, whatever that means - maybe doing a song and dance as you come back from paying?! The mind boggles.

They sound like rude and ungrateful twats. No excuses

This reminds me of the time that I met the father of a minor celebrity who married a major, big name celebrity. And he was talking about how he met his future son in law in the private room of a big name restaurant in London - and how no money changed hands and how that was seen as perfectly normal. He was a successful professional man, so would have been well used to restaurants, but this was clearly outside his experience. If there’s a huge wealth disparity, could they just have felt really awkward and embarrassed? I mean - it’s still rude not to say even the most basic thank you, but could that have been it? Otherwise, it seems totally bizarre under any circumstances. Even a child would know that a “thank you” was expected in that scenario, surely?

We went out with our son , DIL and her parents. At some point her father went up to the bar and paid the whole bill. That was not what had been agreed with the young people beforehand. He likes to think he's an Alpha. I didn't feel any inclination to thank him. He did it to show off. We are far better off and were expecting to cover half the bill as agreed. Perhaps the other couple in your case thought you were showing off too.

Clearly! 🤣

Weirdos, definitely. Let's just pray their daughter doesn't take after them!

How utterly bizarre!

How rude. Unless they thought the newly Married couple had paid? Maybe they didn’t realise?

I would be very grateful and wouldn’t consider it sneaking off

Are they a lot less wealthy than you? It’s weird they didn’t pay ANYTHING towards daughter’s wedding.

are they just really poor?

Maybe they thought your son and their daughter paid. But why didn't you say my treat I'll pay. I think it makes things awkward when somebody just sneaks away and pays without saying anything.

Very odd. Did they think your son and wife had paid? Either way you would say a very grateful thank you!

You seem to really dislike them OP. Anything could’ve happened. And incidentally as you’ve learned lots of people dislike the sneaky pay and it can throw people off. Wait until the bill comes next time and then say you’ll cover it instead of wanting to act the coy benefactor.

I presume the conversation between the in-laws and their daughter went :
"What's happening with the bill for this meal?"
"DH's parents will insist on paying and will want to make a show of it, it's what they do."

In scenarios like this it would be more polite to say at the start "we would like to treat everyone tonight as a celebration etc etc". That gives everyone else the opportunity to say "we would like to pay for the drinks" or similar.

You see, I think it might have been seen as more performative, if he’d come back and announced that he’d paid. I imagine that he was expecting DD’s parents to ask about the bill before everyone left, and planned just to say it was sorted at that point.

I find it interesting to see so many accusations of showing off. If we go out and someone else pays the bill without telling me, I just think ‘That’s kind of them’ , say thank you v much, and make a mental note that it’s our turn next time. It would never occur to me to read anything else into it.

In any event, I think it was v rude for no one to say thank you - son should really have led the way with this if necessary. In fact, I think son sounds like the most entitled. Does he never offer to pay?

Did your son thank you?

This sounds very like what happen to us.
Our son got married, we paid for half (her parents didn’t contribute) and we also organised and paid for a small drinks & canapés reception after the family only civil ceremony the day before the main event. No thanks for either organising or paying for the party.

Manners seem to br in short supply these days!

Maybe your son implied he was paying if he chose the restaurant? Abd they thanked him?
ps-I’d be delighted if someone subtly paid the bill!

You’d be delighted but presumably you’d say “Thank you”!

i know
people are absolutely charmless nowadays, looking for fault and ulterior motives

in the real, polite world you ask for the bill, as your son should have. The payer then says ‘our treat’ , you thank them for their generosity, and you get on your way

even if you think it is a power play (fuck knows why) surely you would have the grace and manners to say thank you

Tbh even if OP was massively controlling and only doing this to show off or whatever negative motivations you want to ascribe to it, the ILs should still have said thank you.

It doesn’t sound like they actually know OP and her DH well so why would they assume they were making what is fundamentally a generous gesture with bad intent, unless of course their DD or son in law had said something about it beforehand?

@50sandFabulous I think you need to have a conversation with your son to work out whether some wires were crossed (eg did they think he/his wife had paid) or whether there is some kind of issue you’re not aware of. If not then yes, they were rude.