Entitled male relatives who contribute nothing to Christmas

[GooseyGandalf]

We’re having dh’s dps for Christmas this year. Mil will bring something thoughtful, gifts for us all, that she has picked, bought and wrapped, offer to help in the kitchen, make lovely comments about the food. In previous years she has hosted for the extended family.

Fil will come. If any of the food isn’t up his liking he will pull a face. He will accept gifts, making his opinions obvious on them, as mil tuts at him and tries to redirect our attention, and at no point will he contribute anything to the occasion. Gifts are of course from both of them, but he will have no idea, or interest, in what they are. It’s obvious mil is entirely responsible.

When we were first married mil would correct my cooking choices, in line with fils preferences. I’m very happy to accommodate allergies, intolerances, preferences, vegans, and arfid - I like my guests to feel welcome. I went along with it, for mil and dh’s sake because they probably wouldn’t visit as much if I didn’t, and we’d have to stay with them more often instead, which is worse.

The entitlement sets my teeth on edge. Mil will be almost apologetic for coming at all, conscious of the workload, and he will just arrive and sit there, the great family patriarch and everyone plays along with it.

Including me.

When dinner is served, he will automatically seat himself at the head of the table, taste the turkey and there will be a pause, while everyone waits to see if he approves, and mil will relax and dh beam proudly at me and I’ll try not to get stabby.

It’s a small enough thing in the greater scheme and not particularly unusual in his generation (though nothing like my lovely df, or even my gf) and not worth causing a row about. Just getting it off my chest here, in the hopes of getting through another Christmas without exploding.

Does anyone else have the honour of hosting a Great Male Guest this Christmas?

It's not a generation thing, it's your FiL who I suspect is into various sorts of coercive control. He's just nasty. Your poor MiL needs help.

When dinner is served, he will automatically seat himself at the head of the table, taste the turkey and there will be a pause, while everyone waits to see if he approves, and mil will relax and dh beam proudly at me and I’ll try not to get stabby.

So sit DH at the head of the table first and serve FIL's turkey last.

You can't complain about him and pander to him at the same time, OP.

If you don't like the behaviour, don't fuel it.

Christmas is a time for a load of dysfunctional families to get together for the annual celebration because there are no other obvious options.

1. We pretend all is OK
2. We cannot say no because it looks bad and you feel bad.
3. We long for the end of the holiday.

Most people get that or have had experience of it.
We all pretend to the outside world we have had a wonderful time while wondering if the next Christmas can get any worse than the current one.
How can one say their Christmas has been terrible, perhaps only if they have had a bereavement.
Meanwhile all the ads on TV show such happy families etc we wonder where we went wrong.
Guess what, they are playing characters on the TV.
Solution grin and bear it, it is only 2 days.

You might in time be that awkward relative that is been discussed on Mumsnet with regards to Christmas - what a thought!

For many they dread it but cannot say it.
For me it comes every year whether you want it or not.

I can totally picture the scene OP. Cantankerous old farts will always take the lead because…just because.

Make a huge fuss of your lovely MIL. I like the idea of switching out the cracker jokes with one aimed solely at the insufferable oaf in his place.

Yes, my dad is the king, BIL is the prince & DN is the newborn king / saviour of the world. Mum & me are trained to serve. My sister thinks she isn’t, but just look at BIL. He’s the worst!

Was your MIL a housewife? FIL’s only job is to pay for things.
Family life nowadays… Both parents are working, in most households. But, this dynamic is not uncommon with older couples.

Is there any chance you could source a round table for Christmas Day? Any MNer living nearby who could swap tables? Anything at one of those charity furniture stores? It would be worth it for the reaction!

fwiw we have someone with some of those characteristics in our family. Scrape below the surface and there’s a lot of insecurity there. And his grandchildren saw through him at 4-5. They mostly ignore him now.

and mil will relax and dh beam proudly at me and I’ll try not to get stabby

Such cringe.

I strongly encourage you to cook whatever the fuck you like this year. Go al-out. It can be exotic. Doesn't have to be the traditional turkey.

Then, once you've sat through the awkward dinner and you can see he's going to carry on, go out for a walk somewhere so he doesn't have an audience and he can stew in his own juices.

If I had made all the food, I'd sit my fucking self at the head of the table!!

There is no 'head of the table' in my house, we put the kids 2 at a time at the 'head' and the adults in the middle so we can all talk and the kids be watched, and allowed to leave when they're finished without disrupting the table.

You can solve this issue by pre-seating your children at the end of the table so he CANT sit there.

I absolutely wouldn't tolerate their family bollocks about pandering to FIL in MY house. fuck that for a lark.

There would also be pointed comments of "What did his last slave die of?" if someone swooped in and did the job i'd given him.

or possibly "Since when was FIL an invalid? He's perfectly capable of doing that himself, Sit down"

I'd also be making a point of serving the kids first. Adults can wait a moment.

When dinner is served, he will automatically seat himself at the head of the table, taste the turkey and there will be a pause, while everyone waits to see if he approves, and mil will relax and dh beam proudly at me and I’ll try not to get stabby.

Don't let him.
Put the turkey on the other end of the table if you have to, or plate everything up in the kitchen.
Give him the parsons nose.

Your husband sounds like a dick. Poor woman.

I don’t think that’s quite fair on OP. My reading of it is she hasn’t kicked up a fuss out of kindness to her MIL, who she likes and who is clearly on eggshells during the whole thing.

Please stop with the generational rubbish. My father never behaved like this, my late husband never behaved like this.

Well you don't need his approval. Hold that thought close to your chest from now on.

By the way, don't think of him sitting at the head of the table. Turn that right round and think of him at the foot of the table instead. If at all possible, serve him last and put all the dishes with veg, potatoes etc, the gravy and the salt & pepper just that tiny bit out of reach.

This.

Some really interesting replies here about what people think they would do in this situation.

I had a FIL like this, OP — right down to the part where everyone would wait with bated breath for him to pronounce judgement on the meal. That wasn’t just Christmas either, it was every shared meal. Christmas was especially grim, as presents would be opened by both MIL and FIL expressing an emotional range from bafflement to barely-suppressed fury.

The first time he complained about food I’d cooked for him, I simply stopped cooking for him. That didn’t magically fix things. What it did do was create a couple of very tense Christmases where my husband ran himself ragged trying to appease his father and was visibly distressed when his father behaved badly. That stress landed squarely in our household.

This is primarily a DH-and-his-family issue. I say that with a caveat, because you’re right: your DH didn’t create this dynamic. But his family weren’t like this, you wouldn’t be in this position at all.

The problem is that the dynamic is predictable enough that you’re posting about it ten days before Christmas. That tells me you are already carrying more of the emotional labour than your husband, who — along with his mother — will default to managing FIL and maintaining the charade.

Ultimately, there are only two choices that are fully within your control:

1. Carry on accommodating his behaviour to preserve family harmony, while accepting the impact that may have on you (and potentially your children).
2. Stop accommodating it, knowing that this may create tension or upset with your husband’s family, again with possible knock-on effects for the children.

There might be a third, more hopeful outcome — that he backs down when called out on his behaviour, or that your husband learns to push back — but those outcomes aren’t actually within your individual control.

I think this is where MN often goes wrong on threads like this: we talk as if the OP can single-handedly fix a multigenerational family dynamic, when in reality all she can decide is where she stops absorbing the cost of it.

Drop some gravy on his lap (accidentally of course). That's legal 😉

@GooseyGandalf
I like the idea of fussing over mil a lot more, though. There is no universe where she would sit at the head of the table though!!!

Hmmm, there's TWO ends to a table, strokes menopausal beard maybe MIL should be at t'other end...as far away from him as possible so she can enjoy her meal.

In all honesty, from me, he'd get all the crappy bits of the turkey and that rogue roast potato that jumped off the tray onto the floor and was licked by the cat

I know! The weird thing is that my husband is quite a modern male and happy to do what is expected of him in our home but he reverts to type when he's back with his family. Last Christmas I told him I wouldn't go to his parents if he didn't make himself busy helping out as I found it offensive. He did do his share, admittedly, but I have to remind him everytime we're due to see them that I expect him to be considerate of his mum. His view is that he'd be happy to go out for dinners and pay but it's his mum who insists on being a slave.
The part that pisses me off the most is that she'd be more disgusted with me, as a female, for not offering help than she would be with her own son. She's definitely complicit in this situation.

butterfingers.

I’d not walk on egg shells I tell him to stop being so rude and if he doesn’t like the turkey etc he can shove it up his arse!

I’d be tempted to have a table plan this year - with little name plates - and seat him away from you.
And ask him if he would like to peel the potatoes or load the dishwasher - just to see his face

I’m interested to know what would happen if he didn’t approve the turkey?

It’s harder than people realise to disrupt the dynamics, especially if the patriarch (or matriarch) has a tendency to get angry (that only those in the dysfunctional dynamic will be aware of). People will walk on eggshells.

often the enmeshment is deep and you will find yourself attacked by those who you thought you were helping to liberate from the patriarchal or matriarchal structure and demands.

i’ve been caught in this dynamic where I had the courage to challenge it, and suddenly the people who you thought would be on your side, aren’t, usually because they’re scared or fear change, or they feel sorry for the person you’re challenging

(in the case of my husband’s family, his mother had been so emotionally abusive to them all whilst growing up, the adult kids were conditioned to put her needs first and let her play the victim if someone challenged her).

it wasn’t pretty and I was labelled the bad person.