AIBU to refuse the back seat when giving my MIL a lift?

[Frontseat]

MIL expects lifts . Fair enough dh obliges.

Sometimes I’m with him as while she’s in an appt we get other jobs done/shopping etc

Turned up today and she ordered me into the back seat ! I said no - if you want a lift get in if not book an uber.
The seats are on the same level, just as accessible and the same leg room ( im petite so have the seat pulled forward so back seat has lots of space).
She went mad started shouting at me ! To have some respect and move. Called me a ‘rude disrespectful little bitch’.

Dh has then told her to sort out a taxi he’s not having her speak to me that way.

She has phoned repeatedly (we ignored)
Shes messaged to say she missed her hospital appt because of me !!!

AIBU to think she should have just sat in the back ?!!

It’s social rules like this that leave me bewildered. You think you are being polite even though I don’t need or want this gesture. To me if the OP was in the front seat it seems illogical to move. This is where ‘politeness’ isn’t helping anyone it’s just making life more complicated. I like a bit of polite social lubrication but this is going too far.

She was extremely rude !!!
When my MIL visited us she had to stay with us because we lived some distance away .
On a day out we would be taking the big car , husband driving.
I would be be putting 2 of the kids in the back and the third in the extra row of seats behind that .
She just came out and plonked herself in the front passenger seat !!
Some of those journeys we went on were quite long and I get nauseous in the back .
She felt entitled to the seat. As if she were superior to me as his mother .
She even did that during my 3 pregnancies !

If I’m already sat in the front of my car and giving someone a lift, they get in the back or walk. End of. Glad your DH sent her packing. Toxic tramp. I’d refuse all help going forward.

I've never been in a chauffeur driven car but here when you get a taxi you generally sit in the front seat. The only time I've ever sat in the back was when I had a cat in a cage so I sat with them.

I actually prefer sitting in back seats, however I agree with others - you generally offer the front seat to a guest, especially an elder one. It's just basic manners.

I always offer the front seat in similar situations, even if it's not an elder relative and just a friend, but for any adult. However, not always if I'm already sat in the front and didn't get out. But I think it's more rude to ask someone to move into the back, and her reaction was disgusting.

I would slways give my mil the front seat out of respect but shes lovely

i would have nothing to do with someone who speaks to me like that

I am older and find it is much easier getting in and out of front seat when you have mobility issues . Perhaps that applies to OP's MIL . However I would be grateful for a lift and not be rude .

This. I would always offer the front seat to someone of my mother's generation (ie someone older) I also just think that's good manners. Sounds like there is more at play in your situation.

I think your abrupt comment to your MIL was rude but her response to you was far worse.

She ordered you to sit in the back of your own car then became abusive when you refused...

It sounds like you already have boundaries, well done. I would have refused too. This wasn't about mobility, was it?

Congrats on having a decent husband.

How lovely to read an op that doesn't have a DH problem.

So weird. Imagine dictating where you sit in someone else's car!! I wouldn't take orders from anyone and would decline lifts in future (or not join in with future lifts).

I don't want to be unkind to you OP, but I must admit that am astonished that so many people think you were completely fine in ordering an elderly woman to sit in the back. I don't mean to be horrible to you, but I am just confused - I can't imagine doing something so seemingly disrespectful and unkind. You keep saying both seats are totally equal, so I am really struggling to understand why you did it? Why did you feel so strongly that you had to sit in the front?

Obviously the way she spoke to you was horrendous and I do fully understand why that upset you. Though I can see why she might have felt shocked and a bit humiliated by the way you spoke to her?

It must be absolutely exhausting to live like this. I go out of the way to make my mom comfortable, and when I have had in laws I have done the same. I recently went on a break and both my own mother and my former MIL (dd's gran) were there - we all made sure they were comfortable on trips and when out for meals etc - I think that's more normal? It's certainly a much mor easy and relaxing way to live!

But given the responses you are getting on here, with everyone saying your behaviour is totally fine, or not extreme enough, maybe I am missing something, and most people speak to their moms and MILs like this?

I think the phrase here is don't bite the hand that feeds you. She missed her hospital appointment because she was rude to the people giving her a lift. She sounds like a nightmare!

Did she try and get there another way but got there too late or did she just give up and blame you?

Yes I would offer the front seat to my MIL - sorry

YANBU OP, I am just glad you have a husband who supports you.

Ok I don’t drive and am rarely in cars except Ubers (as I don’t ask people for lifts) so I don’t really have the opportunity to offer the front seat or not and am not super familiar with rules concerning that. However I think whatever someone thinks the rule is, it’s outrageous for her to have ordered OP into the backseat.

If she had asked politely and worded it as a request maybe Op would’ve obliged. But even if she had declined it still wouldn’t have justified her outburst.

The fact she descended into sweary insults when she was told no, shows how she views OP and gives an indicator into her general attitude towards OP. You get so many people who struggle to get to hospital appointments themselves for whatever reason and here she was with a son kind enough to pick her up and drop her off and probably collect her at the end of the appointment and she just ruined it for herself. This shows the level of contempt she has for her DIL that she couldn’t just bite her tongue.

I am shocked that anyone is even trying to justify this.

I agree. I’m 67 and don’t expect or even like special treatment due to my age! Some people seem to enjoy being treated like they’re elderly and immobile.

This is a class thing. Well brought up people would absolutely never expect anyone to move out of their seat when being offered a favour. It literally wouldn't occur to anyone with good manners to expect to shove another person out of their seat.

As for asking - good Lord, no of course not. And of course the MIL went way beyond asking and was just a vicious, rude horror.

So, of course, the OPs mil is 100% in the wrong in every way.

Obviously older people (and I speak as one) are not more important just on spec, and mil is not more important than OP, so if the mil sees the front seat as more important, that rules out her right to demand it.

It's never rude not to give up the front seat of your own car just because they want it, particularly if you are doing someone a favour and giving them a lift. You always have a perfect right to sit anywhere you like in your own car (or your spouse's car) and this freshly imagined "rule" that it's somehow expected isn't actually relevant as a) it's not a rule at all and b) even if it was expected isn't the same - at all - as required.

And even if it was rude not to offer - and it's not - the person having the favour done for them still shuts their mouth and is polite. Because they are having a favour done for them.

So that's the silly nonsense that it would be rude not to offer it on spec ruled out.

She's only in her 60s, has no health issues that would affect her sitting in the back and the back seats are perfectly comfortable and no different from the front.

So that's any need ruled out.

The only reason OP needs for sitting in the front of her car (or her husband's car) is "I want to". So that's every other possible argument ruled out.

That just leaves us with MIL being an obnoxious, entitled, bullying, ill tempered, foul mouthed pos.

It's truly fantastic that OPs husband stuck up for her. I guess the mil should be getting used to Ubers. She can probably sit in the front in an Uber if she demands it. But she won't.

Because the entirety of her tantrum was to prove she is further up on the family pecking order than the OP.

Sadly for the mil, she is not.

Since you didn't read the OP's post, allow me to assist.

The 64 year old woman with no mobility issues rudely demanded that the OP move. The OP then refused. The 64 year old woman with no mobility issues then threw a tantrum, including calling the OP a bitch. She was left to her own devices at that point.

Hope this helps.

Thank you, just the comment I was looking for! I thought I was the only one who thought this way

She’s not elderly (a lot of people are still working at that age) and no reported mobility issues. Her response is quite vile. I wouldn’t give her the front seat and l would be getting a proper apology

This, given the back story it sounds like the OP was looking for trouble. She could've and should've stayed at home. Sounds like she set out to wind up her MIL and has got exactly what she set out to achieve.

Yes I don’t think I’ve ever asked to go in the front in my life! @Winterhasbeenandgone As I said upthread I don’t go in cars much but recently me and someone else were both picked up for a work thing at a station by another colleague and the other woman (both of us millennials) offered me the front seat and said she would take the backseat.

I gratefully accepted as I have dyspraxia and hyper mobility and find it easier to get into the front with bags, without banging my head or something 🤣 but I’d never have asked to get the front and certainly would not have asked anyone to move from the front to accommodate me.

For example, I think it’s nice when you offer a neighbour a cup of tea but if for some reason I forget to offer one when said neighbour pops over to borrow a screwdriver and then abrasively ordered me to make her a cuppa - all the while I’m doing her a favour by looking for the screwdriver - I’d not be best pleased!
And if I dug my heels in and said no to tea, then she called me a rude bitch I certainly would firmly ask her to leave and take the screwdriver back.

The point is just because you believe its polite for someone to offer you something it doesn’t mean you are allowed to be rude and aggressive when that offer never comes or they outright say no.

Except, it is of course not disrespectful in the slightest to simply sit in your own seat in your own car.

You're not the only one with this strange belief, but you are certainly in the minority.

So, let's examine the situation.

Even if you actually believe this strange notion that booting someone out of their chosen seat is somehow normal or expected, or that the OP should have simply chosen not to sit where she was comfortable and happy to accomodate the woman they were doing a favour for - what happens if they don't move?

Do you scream abuse and call your son's wife a bitch, as the mil did? Or do you just shut up, accept the favour, and get on with your life?

Are you going to pretend that it's not obvious, given the mil's reaction, that she is an overbearing person used to demanding her own way and for that reason alone should not be kowtowed to?

If you would react by being abusive, you deserve no lift. End. If you would not react by being abusive then there is still no issue.

Believing, in your own head, that someone doing you a favour should be shunted out of their seat to please you is fine. We can have any beliefs we like.

Abusing her dil for not kowtowing to that belief makes the mil wrong, in every possible way.

If the mil thought her due was to boot the op out of her seat, a polite conversation could have been had, at another time. The reason mil didn't do that is she wanted to prove she is further up the pecking order in the family than the OP, and felt it was her due to demand to sit where she liked. She was incorrect.

If you are not offered someone's else's seat but a perfectly comfortable seat is offered, no normal, reasonable, decent or sane person could or would pretend that they had a right to abuse someone on that basis.

Even if you think it's rude for the wife of the person doing you a favour to remain in their own seat there is no reasonable way to demand what you think is your due without now becoming the rude person.

It's not your car. You are being done a favour. The seat being offered is comfortable. You have no mobility issues. There is no argument for saying anything to the people doing you a favour that a reasonable, well mannered person can offer.

But if someone is deliberately rude, orders a person out of their seat and then resorts to name calling and abuse when she doesn't get her own way, that is unmistakably and inarguably disugstingly rude.

The two situations are not equal. The mil is completely in the wrong, regardless of your belief about the seat arrangments.

And she's absolutely ensured she will be in the back seat now every time OP is in the car, forever. If she ever gets offered a lift again.

Don't overplay your hand in the game of oneupmanship. That's precisely what the 64 year old woman with no mobility issues attempted to do and she's learned a precious lesson. She is not more important than the OP and she'd best mind her manners if she wants a lift.

Hope she can afford Ubers in the meantime.

If you are "wound up" by someone sitting in a seat in a car while three other seats are on offer that are all comfortable and easily accessible, you need therapy.

I’m sorry, I would probably be classified as an older person but if someone is giving me a lift I will sit wherever they want me to, I would not expect to be offered the front seat. So glad your husband is on your side, so many on MN are not.