Should my wife support me on this?

[OzzyGrandad]

My wife & I attended a Christmas dinner at our daughters in laws. The dinner was on the table but there were still a few items to be placed & finalized. I asked my daughters mother in law if it was ok to start, she said yes. The rest of the party sat down & I had already begun eating. (I admit was not a good move). I believe the son of the mother in law wanted to say grace before dinner & was angry that I had started. He launched into a tirade of abuse, aggressively belittling me about my bad manners. I tried to explain that his mother had said it was ok to start, but this was ignored. I remained calm for the rest of the evening & then we went home. The next day I texted the son, explained my position & informed him that I would not tolerate such verbal abuse again, hoping he would regret being so abusive & apologize. He texted back, F off D Head.
We drop our grandson at his house every weekend & he returns him on Sunday. I asked my wife, when he drops his son off, to be courteous, but to not show any of the usual friendliness, just pick him up & say goodbye until he apologizes to me for his behavior. My wife refused, saying it was between me & him. She behaved as if nothing had happened & was friendly.
My question to the readers of this story is, should my wife have agreed to just be courteous & not friendly, or was she right to ignore my feelings on the matter.

So if all was well before that single incident and you're otherwise happy to leave the child in his care, why are you making a fuss? Let it go for your grandchilds sake. And in future don't start eating when others are still cooking!

Are you sure it was meant in the way you took it? People say different things and take things differently. I doubt it was as bad as you are making it out and throwing around the word 'abuse'. You're the older person in this, you're not doing yourself, your wife or your grandson by behaving like this. What exactly was said and how was it abusive?

"I did nothing wrong"

Well, you did do something wrong. You started eating (which was then later changed to carving) before everyone else was ready, which is what started this whole mess.
It's also rude to ask to start before everyone else, which you also don't seem to understand.

The father's behaviour was terrible - although he wasn't wrong about your initial bad manners.

Then you continued it into the following day by texting to demand an apology and I am willing to bet you did not offer the son an apology for your initial rudeness.

And you've effectively been sulking for four and a half months and are annoyed with your wife for not joining in with your sulk.

Is there a chance she thinks the guy is an utter bastard in general and is already essentially suffering him for the sake of GS? She may feel the need to make nice to keep things amicable

us too! Who cares if he started eating too soon. Maybe there’s a lot of southerners on here - 😉. Let people be unless they actually hurting someone

And what’s wrong with him trying to impress his religious friends? You’re just determined to paint this all one way, you’re right and everyone else is wrong.

I don’t think he did much wrong at all. I can understand his annoyance at the son as he is doing a lot in looking after the grandchild - which is massive. However there’s no point brooding on it longer than necessary - in time the hurt will fade

I guess we'll agree to differ, as he was initially bad mannered imho.

The son was terrible, if that wasn't exaggerated.

I think the grandchild is nothing to do with the situation really. It wasn't the child eating early - and actually if a child was able to wait, why couldn't a grown man.

And four months on, I think they should all move on. As the OP's wife clearly has. So on that point, may be we agree.

He wasn’t though- come on don’t be ridiculous

they were in what should have been a relaxed family situation. He simply asked was it ok to start serving himself- families do this all around the country without issue. The host went sure go on- as I would have said and lots of other people would too as the food would have started to cool.

the son (not the person doing the cooking so not the host) went mental about it. It wasn’t his choice to decide who could should start serving themselves/ eating. As a host I’d be annoyed if a guest of mine dictated what my guests could and couldn’t do.

What would that have to do with anything? Manners and etiquette exist country-wide. I’m from the NW.

Oh come on. It's always rude to start on Christmas dinner when someone is still in the kitchen. It's not a casual buffet or summer BBQ.

Originally he said started eating before everyone had sat down and not all the items were on the table when he asked "to start", and later he changed his story to "carving" 🙄
It's not reasonable for a fully grown adult to have begun eating before everyone is sitting down.

But regardless, the entire situation is ridiculous. The only person who is behaving reasonably is the OP's wife who quite rightly doesn't seem to want to be dragged into a drama that's already been going on for months.

Where does he say that he started eating? Sorry I might have missed it.

in the original post he asked ‘is it ok to start?’ Because the food was getting cold

I understood that to be start serving himself from the meat and the vegetables in the centre. That is what we do at Christmas dinner- we don’t have everything played up ahead of time. We all start picking the veg and stuffing from the serving plates in the middle.

We always say to start eating on Christmas dinner as we don't want the first receivers of food to have theirs go cold! My mum says grace and it's fine if people just put down their knife and fork to listen at that point. You checked with the hostess. I'd have waited till someone said "oh do start, don't wait" but honestly, it sounds a minor faux pas to me. Much much worse to give you a tirade of abuse for it. That's totally unacceptable.

Having said that I think you need to let your wife deal with him as she sees fit. Maybe she's be nervous to ignore this character when he sounds a bit unhinged?

Actually can see that now- I think he started to plate all up and then once am done he started to eat.

I agree with @RaspberryBeretxx - that is exactly how it plays out in our house. Serve up and start eating!

The father of your grandson sounds vile.

A verbally abusive druggy?

Did he take advantage of your daughter?

Cut him out of your life and the kids life , he sounds like a loser

Just a little jest.

It's a little later in the OP, it says, "The rest of the party sat down & I had already begun eating."

So he was already eating before some people were even sitting down.
Before he changed his story, of course.

What you did is not that big of a deal

Of course it his. He sat down and started stuffing his face when no one else was at the table. In what world is that acceptable? None that I know of

I would always support my husband but then again he doesn’t rush to the dinner table like a pig to a trough!

Even if the hostess said it was ok you should have been thoughtful enough to wait for everyone to be seated before stuffing your face.

As for encouraging your wife who is caught in the middle to continue your feud, this is rather petty and immature.

Well, I guess we all have different views and tolerance. When we eat with friends, we always tell each other to go ahead and eat so everyone can enjoy their food when it’s warm.

A lot of posters are focussing on lapse in etiquette, and seemingly ignoring the apparent verbal abuse that followed. Odd priorities, in my opinion.

I think there are bigger things to worry about in this life. If a lapse in etiquette is so offensive to some people, then I really wonder how they get through the day.

Expecting apologies from a verbally abusive druggy who may have abused your daughter (?) - it's a nice thought, but I think your expectations from this waste of space are too high.

Please reconsider the lack of child maintenance payments. You could save it up for your grandson as a nest egg. Because he is unlikely to inherit from his parents.

I will take thread as a lesson when meeting new people. NEVER start before others! I have been very lax up to now

Agreed. And you’re right about the testosterone thing — in one of his posts, the OP says he ‘led the way’ and ‘started carving’ the meat. I think the grace is a red herring. This is willy-waving between the OP and his grandson’s father — who is the alpha male carving the joint/turkey/whatever?

I agree that the OP’s wife is correctly refusing to engage and focusing on the welfare of a four year old with a complicated and tragic-sounding start in life, with an apparently absent mother with a significant disability which means she’s ‘incapable’ of looking after him, and a father who apparently impregnated someone without capacity and who takes an interest in him o e day a week. His welfare is the priority here, not who has the power over Christmas dinner.

I’d forgive you! 🤣