Fil reluctant to serve niether myself nor dh nice champagne?

[KnittedJimmychoos]

Fudged details in case the eye of sauron gets hold...

But Mil and fil had been entertaining their friends, say Peter and Jane... Dh and I came in after their meal... And fil opened a really nice bottle of champagne.. Dh and I sat down chatting and fil served his friend but not me?
I made eyes at dh so he got a glass and went to serve me a glass, dh was driving and also doesn't like it.. Fil suddenly looked panicked and asked who was driving, and as dh poured he tried to make sure it was a half glass even though dh said he was ie empty excuse ? Meanwhile he then took the bottle and topped up his fiend chatting happily!
Dh then took bottle to fill me up and again fil seemed panicky!!
I did say I only fancied one glass.. And he sort of sucked in his breath and looked at me like a five year old and said "this is a really good bottle".

For context there is no way on earth my df would ever serve one person like this and not another!
Maybe he got out this bottle and hadn't reckoned on us coming back but isn't this the height of rudeness?? The mother of his only grandchildren??

Pils live in house worth a few million, not London, are very well off.. Have a wine cupboard.. They also treat dh like this.. On other stuff... Ie this wasn't a treasured special bottle saved for anniversary they can't replace..
I'm not keen anyway but I felt this was so unpleasant! Your not good enough for me to give nice champagne too!
Can't say the make because its fudged details.

Or.. Is it understandable to only want to serve this to his pal who it was intended for? I often feel like we are treated like second class citizens!!

@Springchickpea

What am I reading?! Since when do you need an invitation to your own parents’ home? Even my PIL who I would personally hate to turn up uninvited here don’t need an invite and we damn sure don’t need one to theirs.

And then if someone does drop in, entirely reasonably, it’s polite to share. It’s so odd that you wouldn’t share something like that with family.

YANBU.

So you're having your mates round for a night then you'd happily have your FIL sitting there in the middle helping himself to your alcohol?

I meant 'father in law.'

@KnittedJimmychoos

Vivien no!! We don't feel welcome or comfortable there so no! This hasn't happened before..

Mint, you see in my family it's the total opposite.. Everyone is offered food and drinks and my dp are equal and fair hosts and esp dh! He's treated like a king!

Hmmmm, if your DH is treated "like a king" by your DPs, then surely they're not treating all their guests equally?

Anyway, I'd be pissed off if a family member rocked up knowing full well that I was hosting a dinner party. I think it's rude, regardless of who the other guests are.

@HepLaurenceLB

Maybe he had spiked the bottle with poison and was trying to kill his friend. If that was the case then your FIL saved your life which was very sweet.

😂 😂

Your PILs are rude and sound like middle class aspirational types who think they are better than you&your family. They also sound rigid and overly formal. However, given you have children and they are rich, it is probably in the interests of your children for you to stay on amicable, formal terms. Inheriting money does make life easier and gives young people more choices.
I know plenty of properly upper class people and they would never not offer an open bottle to everyone there. It is incredibly rude not to. Equally though, they might judge you if you had too much/are the type to order the most expensive item on the menu when taken out? Did you ever do anything like that OP? Or get really drunk in front of them?

The drip-feed that you were not invited but turned up after the meal anyway is rather relevant! YABU.

OP this is completely off topic, but why are you constantly using ellipsis? It's really, really annoying...

I normally feel the same about the upside down world of MN where everyone has to 'make an appointment' before going to someone's house. Never want anyone coming to the house to visit a new baby until it's at least 3months old .. or God forbid , answer the door when someone rings or knocks without previous booking !

Like the OP my family are 'normal' in that we can pop in anytime.. and if 'the good stuff' (of any variety drink, sweets, biscuits etc) was being served then we would be offered.

HOWEVER... You are hugely unreasonable in your behaviour OP because you KNOW several key things before the incident occurred .

1. That your PIL made it clear they didn't want you at the house. It wasn't a secret, they had told you prior to the evening.
2. Your PIL do not like you. You have said it many times.
3. They aren't close to your husband.
4. They are NOT the same as your or my family. They are formal and have different boundaries. Just because this is not how your family would behave does not make them wrong. Just different.

Most of all.. None of this is a surprise to you so knowing what you know - you BOTH deliberately pushed yourselves into their private space , trampled their boundaries and pushed your DH to share what wasn't his with you. Whilst plonking yourselves into the middle of their evening with friends which you were specifically not invited to.

No excuse. Staggeringly rude.

OP, are you very young? Because the whole bafflement that your PILs and your DPs do things differently sounds a bit like your eight year old bursting in after their first sleepover shouting ‘In Jack’s house they have COCO POPS for breakfast!’

Also, what was the timescale for this whole visit? How long were you there? Because you mention your FIL looking panic-stricken and saying what a good year it was when your DH poured you a second glass of champagne, and I think it makes a difference whether you’d knocked back the first one like a tequila slammer and were horsing into the next one within a few minutes.

Lakie what I mean is he is a treasured family member, dm wouldn't for instance buy him off the shelf tesco canapés to entertain him then make him say how greatful he should be when she's used to and likes knocking up home made canapés usually.. That sort of thing
He would get the home made, not the shelf grab. We are not treated differently to guests and made to feel special
But as pp said, I get on with dp, dh doesn't and there is the rub.
I don't feel it's acceptable however in that case to push and pull him in and out when they want him or mostly the dc and not welcome other times

I'm sure pre covid they have hosted many many times and we've never known.
We bumped into them at restaurant once with a bar and they said a brief hello and sat at the bar after with their friends and didn't ask dh to join them or offer us a drink.

To those saying families should always be able to drop in unannounced whatever the circumstances, just consider the regular threads we get on here about MILs (sometimes DMs) who call unannounced constantly and demand a lot of time from the poster /their DH / DC. Almost universally the response is the poster is not being unreasonable and needs to set some boundaries, often accompanied with howls of outrage and "How dare they's".

Even in the closest and most loving families, people occasionally neeed to be sensitive to and respect other adults' boundaries.

Even more so when they know full well they are not invited.

@KnittedJimmychoos You've ignored multiple suggestions that the Champagne could have belonged to the guests?? That could explain your FIL's reluctance to share??

I'm cringing at you turning up unannounced at their dinner party when it had been made clear you were not invited. God you and your DH must be thick skinned, and have a total lack of social skills.
You keep saying over and over that your DF wouldn't have treated your DH like that and would always offer him a beer but it's not the same at all is it. You say there were 6 people there. They had saved a really good bottle of champagne as a treat. So 4-6 glasses. Then you turn up unannounced and want a glass and your DH is busy grabbing the bottle to top you up. No wonder your FIL was looking alarmed, it will have meant that he or his friends (who may have brought the bottle with them) are not going to get a full glass . So the equivalent at your house would be if your parentshad friends round and there was 1 beer each left for them all at the end of the night and your DH turns up put of the blue expecting to knock 2 of them back
I can just imagine how the conversation went when you left!

I only got half a glass and I was topped up to full so one glass and I wasn't rushing in making instant eyes at the booze at all.
It was more a case of dh.. I've been left out here!
Please step in!!

Agreed. It was probably a case of "Oh no, the knitted are here, best let them in". That's NOT the same as welcoming them in. Op sounds persistent and thick skinned so would probably have continued to knock at the door until it was opened.
Would love to know how being "the mother of his only grandchild" equates to being offered champagne on tap when you gatecrash a gathering....

@KnittedJimmychoos

Lakie what I mean is he is a treasured family member, dm wouldn't for instance buy him off the shelf tesco canapés to entertain him then make him say how greatful he should be when she's used to and likes knocking up home made canapés usually.. That sort of thing He would get the home made, not the shelf grab. We are not treated differently to guests and made to feel special But as pp said, I get on with dp, dh doesn't and there is the rub. I don't feel it's acceptable however in that case to push and pull him in and out when they want him or mostly the dc and not welcome other times

I'm sure pre covid they have hosted many many times and we've never known.
We bumped into them at restaurant once with a bar and they said a brief hello and sat at the bar after with their friends and didn't ask dh to join them or offer us a drink.

Nor should they have done. Your level of entitlement and determination to push yourself forward at inappropriate moments becomes clearer with every update.

Definitely not Peters booze, fils and mils.

We bumped into them at restaurant once with a bar and they said a brief hello and sat at the bar after with their friends and didn't ask dh to join them or offer us a drink.

I think that's really normal behaviour. Their friends aren't your friends. Why do you think your husband should be included in every social meeting they have? If you were out with your friends and bumped into PILs would you invite them to join the group? Because I'd find it really wierd and rude if I was visiting a friend and they invited their parent or child to join us.

We bumped into them at restaurant once with a bar and they said a brief hello and sat at the bar after with their friends and didn't ask dh to join them or offer us a drink.

I don't think that's rude. It sounds like you just have different expectations. Part of good etiquette is reading situations and responding appropriately. You have a more casual approach to socialising and that's fine. they have a more formal approach to socialising and that is fine too, but you know they feel that way, you just don't seem to care and think your feelings are more important than theirs.

I don't have family close by but would certainly not want either my DM or lovely PIL dropping in when we were entertaining, especially if we'd told them we were entertaining and they weren't invited.

Loving the idea of FIL having poisoned the champers though

Tbh we have some Moet in the fridge that I probably wouldn't open for the ILs as they're not fizz drinkers, would probably give them Prosecco or similar as I know that we'd just be opening it to toast rather than savour. It doesn't mean I don't love them, I'd just rather have it with friends who appreciate it.

Can we know what type of fizz it as OP? And please tell us the biblical backstory?

Did you bring a bottle to the house? If you don't appreciate nice champagne then I can see why someone who does would be reluctant to share

We've never dropped in before though and it's not regular behaviour at all.

It's not a case of "here we go again, knock knock, guess who.. Our embarrassing son and his swaying bleary eyed lush of a wife about to drink us dry" panic stations, red alert!

If my kids ever waited for a formal invitation before visiting me at home (their childhood home?) I would feel like I failed as a parent.

I've moved since mine left home so that lets me off random dropping in just so they can go and look wistfully at their old bedroom or whatever.

Seriously though, once children are adults with their own homes, surely it's normal for them and their parents to get in touch before arriving.
Even if they happen to be passing, it's not difficult to send a quick text or make a call.
And I would offer the same courtesy to them.
That's not waiting for a "formal invitation"; it's just polite.
99 times out of a 100, no doubt, the person being called on would be delighted, but I feel it would be rude to assume they have nothing else going on in their lives that or that I should be included in everything they do.

Certainly, none of us would turn up knowing that the other one was entertaining people and hadn't specifically invited the other.

Firstly op, stop going on about how your family do things.

You are aware that not all families/people are exactly the same?

I am not a "the more the merrier" person. I don't like mixing certain dynamics of people. I prefer to choose who to invite into my house at different times.

Secondly, I think you probably came across as pretty fucking rude here. You turned up to a dinner party uninvited after they'd finished eating. Likely upsetting the flow of the evening, and making things awkward. Which is obviously the case here. A bottle of champagne has a limited amount in it, your FIL obviously chose this bottle to share with his friend who he hasn't seen in some time, and you come swanning in without calling ahead or being invited, plonk yourself down at the table and start angling for some, to which FIL was uncomfortable and clearly indicated this, but you persisted.

If I was his dinner party guest I'd think you were a rude brat and it would be obvious why your DH and his rude entitled wife wasn't included. If I was being charitable I'd think you were perhaps just very socially inept.

But WHY did you drop in when SPECIFICALLY TOLD YOU WEREN'T INVITED ??