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 ?!!

I always offered the front passenger seat to my mother-in-law when offering her a lift. Anyone younger gets in the back. You were disrespectful but the fact your mother-in-law felt it appropriate to rebuke you in that manner suggests there's much more going on.

She sounds like a horrible person all round.

Generally, the front or back shouldn’t be a huge difference unless either party is car sick or there’s more difficulty getting in or out.

However, I have known it to be a thing to give older relatives the front seat. Maybe that is because on most cars it’s easier to get in and out of the front. Are you sure it’s not?

I am very travel sick though so I find it hard to discuss this topic rationally!

Does she suspect your don’t really need to be there and would prefer to have the trip with just her son? Does she think you’re coming along to spite her? Is there any truth in that? It would be unkind if so.

Another option if you do need to be there would be for you to drive and her son to take the back - I do think it’s a nice thing for men to do, to give women the front - just as a sort of “we men have so much privilege, you can have this” nod.

But really the front v back issue has paled into insignificance here compared to the way she spoke to you!

Edit - and sorry I should say definitely YANBU and neither was your husband! As pps have said, you don’t abuse someone who’s doing you a favour.

The only reason - the absolutely only reason - this rude, vicious woman tried to order the OP around is that she wants to prove she is higher in the pecking order than the OP is, within the family unit.

That's it. That's the whole of it. No need to tie yourselves in knots inventing scenarios or reasons or imaginary rules.

Mil's just been given an invaluable lesson in where she actually stands in her son's life - and it's not above his wife. She's also learned that when someone is doing you a favour, abusing their wife isn't a great idea.

Well done OP. You were not even remotely unreasonable.

🤣 when I was a kid in the 70s my brother and I often travelled in the "boot"....our choice!

Your MIL’s behaviour was dreadful.

If someone is kind enough to offer you a lift somewhere, you either accept it or make alternative arrangements. You absolutely do not get to tell people who are already seated in the car to move. The fucking audacity.

It’s such rank entitlement to start dictating the seating arrangements in someone else’s car.

I always offer the front seat to my grandma - but she’s in her 90s. Anyone else can sit where there is space.

It’s a matter of need, rather than some outdated notion of “respect”.

Your mother in law was so focused on sitting in the front seat at all costs that she seems to have forgotten that you and her husband were doing her a favour (as if driver’s just LOVE taking hours out of their day to drive other people around). Zero gratitude, zero appreciation. Instead of “thank you” you got called a “rude disrespectful little bitch”.

That comment alone tells you exactly what she thinks of you. I wouldn’t be in a hurry to speak to her again.

Exactly. It's not like being asked to sit at the back of the bus, although some people seem to react as though it is.

I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. Are you thinking that I am projecting from my own experiences?

In my real life I'm a widower with adult children and my parents are long dead. I never fell out with my parents, or my children, or my in-laws. I've been married twice. When my first marriage ended in divorce, I didn't go back to my parents, crawling or otherwise. And my ex wife didn't go crawling back to her parents either. My children have, at times, had partners that I wasn't wild about. When they told me how great they were, I agreed with them whole-heartedly. When they then split up, I told them how sad I was and that their lives would be full of ups and downs and they would overcome them all, because they were amazing people

I'm assuming she knows how a neck and a window work... they don't stop being functional just because she's in a back seat.
I think you absolutely did the right thing. No one would be ordering me to sit anywhere in my own car. Carry on ignoring until you get an apology. Bravo your husband too for having your back!

Or maybe she just has a spine and doesn’t want to be ordered around in her own car by someone who never shows any respect for her, whilst doing a favour for that person

She must resent you and is not afraid to show it. Well, that's on her.

"she knows how a neck and a window work"

The instruction "wind it in" applies to both...

Absolutely!!

So when MIL ordered OP into the back of the car, how should OP have responded?

Bearing in mind that the MIL also accuses OP of stealing her son and also mocks OP's cooking?

@wiredandtiredthe MIL said that in response. Again not saying I think the MIL was but I've always been brought up to treat people with respect. I would rather kill people with kindness than bring myself down to their level.

I would offer the front seat to an elderly relative as well. It was rude of you not to offer from the start. It’s also because this is your DH’s mother and as you get older, it can be hard to hear and carry on a conversation from the back seat. I would have thought she would want to actually talk to her son a bit on these lifts to the hospital instead of sitting in the back like you’re a taxi. She may need some emotional support about these hospital appointments.

So I understand why on the 4th trip she asked you to sit in the back seat. Your reply was very rude. Book an uber? That’s very much a beggars can’t be choosers, you’re lucky I’m allowing your son to drive you kind of reply.

Yes she then lost her top and said even more rude things to you, but it feels to me like you picked a fight by being passive aggressively rude from the start and then refused to even share the front seat with a rude comment.

I think MIL needs to apologise first, but you also need to take some responsibility for how you sowed the seeds for this to happen and you don’t come out of this as innocent as a lamb.

Well neither of them were particularly nice, but the MIL "started it" as it were, by ordering OP around. I wouldn't have responded well to that either.

Ok

My Mother was like this, claimed it was because it was easier to get in and out (despite like yours our car being exactly the same to get in and out of front and back). Curiously though she’d never take the front seat in a taxi, and was miraculously cured of whatever ailment it was when we had DS and she wanted to sit in the back beside his car seat 😵‍💫

64 is not elderly.
If someone is in a seat, you don't get to order them out of it. If they offer and it matters to you, say thank you graciously.
The knots people are tying themselves in to make OP the rude one here are ridiculous.
There is nothing inherently 'respectful' about sitting in the front seat of a car.
Even if there was, respect is not automatic and it sounds like MIL has thrown away any that OP might have had for her a long time ago.

I am often swapping lifts with friends

I wouldn't dream to ask, but I have never been asked to sit at the back while the child stayed on the front seat.

Of course it's a thing that the guest gets the front seat? Unless it's one of your kids friends, but for the little ones there's also a safety issue, so it's a different format.

I really hate that we are meant to hold our tongue with old people etc. Why can't we give as good as we get? Why do we have to be "respectful" when there is no respect given back. I have the same issue with my grown adult stepsons that still live at home, don't work and do nothing around the house. They can get as annoyed as they want but as soon as I speak up they start policing my tone!

I think it’s polite to give the older person the front seat. But her reaction was completely unreasonable too.

Nope. Not at all. The rude, entitled mil ordered OP out of her own seat in her own car. It all went from there.

Your MIL sounds like a massive twat

Given the history you've described, I don't think you were unreasonable. Good for you for having a backbone and saying no. Well done to your DH too for having your back. The insults and name calling were way out of order, especially as you were doing her a favour and taking her to her appointment.

She sounds like my late MIL. She too was a nasty woman who hated that I'd "taken" her beloved son away from her. I could do no right in her eyes. I wasn't sorry when she left this earth.