FIL - I can’t bare him and his stupid behaviour and I’m close to exploding

[Sovereigns]

I feel like I’m going to snap. I’ve name changed as I’ve spoken to a few people in real life about this and it would be obvious who I am.

My father in law - I’ve never liked him. I don’t know what it is, he has the most annoying face and stupid expressions. He always has to be centre of attention. On our wedding day the person doing the video went over to him and he just stared into it with a stupid grin slowly opening a bottle of wine and it completely ruined the video as it’s so, so annoying. Everyone says so, it’s not just me.

During the summer holidays he’s taken it upon himself to visit every morning to see the kids (unfortunately he only lives a short walk away). He lets himself in through the back door and then just stands there in the kitchen grinning, not saying anything. I’ve started just completely ignoring him until he walks in and speaks like a normal person.

Thing is I can feel myself boiling over with rage. On Friday he came in, stood there not speaking so I ignored him and he suddenly shouted “I’ve Brayed my Bonce!” Baby was asleep, woke up in shock, started crying and I was so annoyed I just snapped and said “Right. Why did you come here then?” Whilst I saw to the baby.

On Saturday DH made a big carrot cake and FIL came in and shouted “where’s my lump?”. DH said we’re not cutting it yet. Later that evening he rang up saying “don’t forget I want a lump”.

Yesterday morning he came around and said “when am I getting my lump?” So I snapped and said “DH will you just cut him some cake please, I’m getting sick of hearing about the fucking thing”. He winds me up more than anyone I have ever met. I’m getting annoyed just writing this post.

This morning he came in - stood in the kitchen grinning with his arm outstretched holding the tub the cake was put in so I snapped “what??? Just put it on the side!! What are you just stood there with it for??”

he put it down and said “right, I assume you’re busy so I’ll leave you to it” and left. Now I’m thinking is it me??

Will everyone stop coming up with the mental health, neurodiverse theories. It's just an excuse for poor behaviour.
He is a silly old sod. He is a prick. Let's call a spade a spade.

Every/most families have a strange member. I have a bad tempered one that falls out with people, over nothing, they shout and say the most unforgivable things. The family just shrug their shoulders and say oh that's just X. Noone ever puts X in their place. X tells lies, none ever tells X that they are wrong. We just let X live in their own little world. There is always some member of the family who isn't talking to X because of their behaviour.

Another friends silly old sod member of the family died a couple of years ago. Opinions were divided as to whether he was a lovely old man with a delightful sense of humour, or a bloody nightmare.

YANBU. My sister’s partner evokes this sort of response in me. He is the most rude, arrogant, contrarian arsehole I’ve ever met in my life. If he was walking into my kitchen whenever he pleased I just couldn’t take it.

This thread has given me flashbacks to my summer holiday job in a farm shop in the 1990s.

There was a regular customer - a man in his 60s - who every time, without fail would say 'can I have this on tick?' (on credit) and then grin manically as if he was the funniest person ever.

Massive inward eye roll.

Being a stroppy teen I just used to look blankly at him and say no. Which actually was not a bad way of dealing with him.

Have you ever been brutally honest and said “Ted, everyone finds you insufferable and no one likes you being around. You need to stop acting like a child and grow up! You are not welcome at this house until you behave in a normal manner”. And then reinforce that boundary, don’t let him come in the house unannounced!

I'd pay twenty quid to see that wedding footage.

One of life's tits, oblivious or completely wrapped up in their "hilarity" they can't see everyone around them is dying inside.

Something about "lump of cake" just makes my teeth rattle, makes me itch! I've an uncle like him, his wife also has a short temper and slightly nasty side but I wonder if she's just at her limit! When we were kids he was quite funny for a while but now his jokes and japes have an almost antifunny effect that I feel physically, like instead of a smile my face wants to implode in on itself like a black hole he is so unfunny.

Your husband needs to clock on but I don't think he will, you might have to just say no more visits unannounced and if it's queried then just be grey rock about it, because I said so.

My neighbour (in his late 60s) used to walk into the village pub, with an empty wallet apart from a dollar announcing “Im down to me last dollar hahahahaah” and wait for someone to buy him a drink. He was a wealthy man. He did this for years and would tell me everytime I saw him while guffawing loudly at his own madcap antics.

I hate him.

If you can’t stop him walking into the house have a chore for him every single time. As he’s standing in the kitchen like a goof tell him you’re glad he’s here as he can help with the chores, put the vacuum cleaner in his hand and tell him to do the downstairs and stairs, wash the car, clean the bathroom, send him to Tesco, mow the lawn…he sounds like Frank Spencer and that would drive anybody nuts.

please lay off boomers. Weirdness is not generational

I've met many old men like this in a previous line of work. I think it must be quite a common trait to make these sort of unfunny jokes. I realise that isn't helpful to you, but you certainly aren't alone. I think this is where the term 'dad joke' has come from?

Well if he got together with DMIL at 18 he must still be relatively young.
I would get out while you can.
If they depend on you and DH now, imagine what it is going to be like as they age or DMIL is ill or unable to get about for some reason. You will be expected to step up and 'look after' DFIL and DMIL.
If you don't move further away now you are doomed. Unless you get a job that works shifts and can be out of the house at all hours and avoid them. I hope its a job you enjoy.

I've met a few blokes like this. To be perfectly honest, I had some of those traits as an older teenager, which I think was largely due to the belief that I could overcome my physical shortcomings and attract people (and girls in particular) by being larger than life and "wacky". It didn't work, obvs, and I grew out of it once I realised people were rolling their eyes wearily. Some people, for whatever reason, never seem to get the message, though.

It sounds like he's been indulged/enabled by a lot of people over the years.

Next time he asks for a ‘lump’ of cake mould a slice into an unappetising lump, finger dents and all, and hand it to him!

People saying he’s must be lonely, the man’s been married for decades, has a family and grandchildren, had been employed, why on earth would he be a lonely man? He’s been like this all his son’s life, it’s not a retirement thing. He is, what is commonly known as, an arsehole.

To be fair boomer men can be insufferable (I’m a ‘boomer’ woman).Even my son said why are older men so bloody awful! I even heard one recently tell a young woman minding her own business to ‘smile love’. I wanted to rip into him.

That's wound me up just hraring about him. What a twat.

This thread has made me very grateful for the older men in my life. My dad and uncles are gentle interesting thoughtful men and my fil is thankfully practically mute and rarely speaks. Bliss.

That's what I thought of too, guy called Colin I think?

I've got horrible flashbacks to my Uncle Malcolm. He used to come over and present us with something, a comic or sweets or something, and then snatch it away and start guffawing.

He used to performatively fart too and lift one bum cheek off the sofa and say "I've whistled in my Yfronts open the window please" in a sing song voice.

And burp when he had a mug of tea and say "pardon my genie". Every single time. It was so bizarre.

He wasn't even old though, not even 40.

I don't envy those who'll have to put together the speeches at this fellow's funeral.

"It has to be said, Les could be bloody annoying and often was, and most people couldn't stand him. But there was another side to the man, a nicer side, seldom seen in public or indeed at all, but I've been told I'd better mention it, even though I never encountered it myself..."

On that note, I wonder if the OP could relate at least one or two instances of kind and good-natured behaviour by her FIL, which made her stop and think, "I know he's usually an arse, but that was a very nice gesture by Les, he did the right thing and I take my hat off to him."

I don’t get why people kept buying him them?

He needs to be released into the wilderness and never let back in. He can forage for nuts and berries with only rabbits and foxes for company.

I hate him too @Sovereigns .

Have you ever loudly asked MIL WTF she married him?

Same. I said much to him everytime and he said “it’s just a bit of banter hahahaahaha”. Eventually they stopped. In fact his “crew”’told him they weren’t going to the pub anymore and a few months later he walked into a pub in the next village and they were all sitting there. He was “so hurt, after all he’d done for them 🤷‍♀️”

I think anyone who has worked retail will know the type. I used to work in a health food shop and a man like this would come in, buy ginseng and make unfunny remarks about why he needed it. He was boorish, inappropriate, hung around saying stupid things and just used to get on everyone's nerves. It got to the point where all them women in the shop would make an exodus for the back when he came in and we would let the manager serve him.

Oh good god that’s deranged.
I am a small woman be raging at him if I were that dog owner and he’d not know what’d hit him !!! That isn’t just being quirky that is 100% unhinged