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Original poster

Should my wife support me on this?

555 replies

OzzyGrandad · 10/05/2025 07:19

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.

OP posts:
RickiRaccoon · 10/05/2025 08:26

I just read that he's your grandkid's father and you have FT care and drop him to the father and mother on weekends. (I had assumed it was a random angry uncle.)

It's ungracious but hardly the worst thing to start eating (Christmas) dinner before others. OP did check and the host even okayed it. It's much ruder to abuse a guest. And the swearing text response later is just horrible.

I would have very little to do with anyone so abusive. Unlike others, I would support my DH if someone spoke to him like that too over an error in etiquette, at least in part because I don't think anyone should think it's okay to talk to others like that. So you have at least one supporter!

Pumpkinpie1 · 10/05/2025 08:27

Two silly men making a mountain out of a mole hill. It’s not a competition to see who behaved worst , you both were rude and obnoxious.
Life is too short to bear a grudge.
Stop being an idiot and move on. You are setting a poor example to your grandchild by sulking for 4 months x something I’m sure you wouldn’t want to do x

Youvebeenframed · 10/05/2025 08:30

So this feud has been going on for nearly 5 months?!
Ridiculous!
You were ill mannered to ask, let alone start eating.
He was a dick to make a scene.
You should meet like grown adults and talk about it rather than carry on with this daft feud for your wife and grandson’s sake

SeventeenClovesOfGarlic · 10/05/2025 08:31

Why is the child's father not raising him?

Jk987 · 10/05/2025 08:31

Christmas dinner in May??

Whoarethoseguys · 10/05/2025 08:31

Your wife is her own person . The dispute has nothing to do with her and she can her have her own relationship with this person who I assume is your daughter's husband.
He shouldn't have shouted and swore and you, you shouldn't have started eating until everyone else was at the table but you sound very childish and petty to be still thinking about this 5 months later.

SelinaPlace · 10/05/2025 08:35

OzzyGrandad · 10/05/2025 08:07

Not sure of the format here but I am replying to IButtleSir. My wife & I are the full time carers of our grandson. (Our daughter is incapable)The person who verbally abused me is the father of my grandson. We give him & his mother custody of our 4 year old grandson at the weekends. We spent Christmas at the in his mothers house since he was born. (Just to help clear it up).
Had the son politely admonished me for my error, I would have been fine, but the verbal abuse & belittling that he subjected me to in front of everyone was beyond acceptable. Many of them have agreed that it was not acceptable.

Why isn’t your daughter’s DH looking after his own child if your daughter isn’t able to, for whatever reason? Is he ‘incapable’ too? And I’m pretty sure you don’t have the legal right to ‘give him and your daughter custody’ for weekends. I’m assuming there’s huge backstory to this situation, which explains this blow up over your poor table manners.

MsBette · 10/05/2025 08:35

Don’t you think your wife has enough on her plate bringing up a grandchild without adding 2 men arguing to the mix? You and the other man need to sit down and sort this out.

Cucy · 10/05/2025 08:38

You were rude but he was even ruder.

However, it’s not fair to drag your wife into the middle of it.

This is between you and him.

I wouldn’t ask my wife or my daughter to take sides because that’s not fair on them and no good will come from it.

You need someone who is civil with both of you.

IButtleSir · 10/05/2025 08:38

OzzyGrandad · 10/05/2025 08:07

Not sure of the format here but I am replying to IButtleSir. My wife & I are the full time carers of our grandson. (Our daughter is incapable)The person who verbally abused me is the father of my grandson. We give him & his mother custody of our 4 year old grandson at the weekends. We spent Christmas at the in his mothers house since he was born. (Just to help clear it up).
Had the son politely admonished me for my error, I would have been fine, but the verbal abuse & belittling that he subjected me to in front of everyone was beyond acceptable. Many of them have agreed that it was not acceptable.

Since you seem to only be capable of looking at this situation from YOUR point of view, let's look at it from some other points of view.

From an outsider's point of view, you were extremely rude and your grandson's father massively overreacted. Clearly, he's a dickhead, but you must have already known that, because if he weren't a dickhead, he'd be parenting his own child full-time, not 28% of the time with his mummy's help.

From your grandson's point of view, he has a mother who is incapable of looking after him, an aggressive father who is incapable of looking after him, and a grandfather who lacks manners and who wants to involve strangers on the internet in a dispute with his grandmother, who has done absolutely nothing wrong and who sounds like the only reasonable and mature person in this poor little boy's wife.

From your wife's point of view, she is raising her grandson, which I'm sure wasn't in her life plan. She'll be worried about her daughter and the reasons she's unable to raise her own child, and worried about what happens when her grandson is in the care of his awful father. She is probably desperate to maintain a decent relationship with that awful father for the sake of her grandson, and perhaps to avoid the risk of he and his mother seeking more custody. She was almost certainly massively embarrassed by your faux pas at Christmas, and more so by the ensuing reaction, which she was probably busy trying to protect your grandson from. She'll have just wanted to forget all about it and move on, but you are forcing her to relive that mortifying memory and pressuring her to jeopardise your grandson's family relationships.

You need to put your wife and your grandson first and shut up about what happened about Christmas. If you want to be angry at your grandson's father, be angry that he's a useless father to your grandson, not that he was rude to you.

ARichtGoodDram · 10/05/2025 08:38

My issue is with how the son treated me that day, extremely disrespectfully.

And in his view you were extremely disrespectful to his mother, and the rest of the guests. Have you apologised to your host for that.

And given the situation you are all in what are you expecting to happen if your wife joins in and makes handovers more difficult for everyone?

Even your wife doesn't agree this is something that needs to be kept going - two men were both rude. Why does it need her and grandson involved as well?

Original poster
OzzyGrandad · 10/05/2025 08:42

Replying to EllasNonny I did have a conversation with the son in law. I explained that I regretted starting before everyone was ready, but felt justified when his mother said it was fine. He refused to apologize in anyway for his behavior. Since then I have been courteous but not friendly. I had hoped that my wife do the same until he realizes he was wrong to treat me the way he did, & simply apologize.

OP posts:
AnonWho23 · 10/05/2025 08:44

I don't think you did anything wrong. You asked if you could eat and you were told to get stuck in. The prayer before the meal wasn't expected and was out of the norm. I wouldn't go to theirs again to eat. Also, I'd be pissed if my partner didn't support me. How old is your grandson? Does he talk to him in this abusive manner?

Chiconbelge · 10/05/2025 08:44

The person you need to put first in all of this is your grandson.

We don’t know what set of circumstances has led to the family set-up you describe but it is very sad for your grandson that your DD cannot look after him at all.

It was nice of the family to invite you and perhaps they did so not because they thought that they were serving a great meal but because they wanted you to have the opportunity to be with your grandson on Christmas Day. Very importantly: they wanted to do it for him.

You were very rude and behaved in an extraordinary way - it’s absolutely normal that someone in the family should have said something. As a guest, your job is to wait. If the food is not very nice, so what, you needed to deal with it. (I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here, I agree that if you had been looking forward to the meal and you could see all the food was going to be cold it would be disappointing, but the only thing that it’s acceptable to do here is to conceal your disappointment so well that no-one could possibly notice it.}

Yes he should not have been so abusive. Your text to him was silly and annoying, you should never have sent it, equally he should not have sent such a rude and childish reply. But you need to look at yourself more. Are you such a Grinch all the time? Don’t be that person.

But your SIL and his mum are caring for your grandson every weekend and your job is to support your grandson’s relationship with his Dad. Also to support your wife and not embarrass her.

Back to your grandson: I very much hope that he is not old enough to have been much affected by this scene. He already has a lot to deal with. Please start putting him first.

Agapornis · 10/05/2025 08:45

I'd be interested in the legal decision and back story resulting in the father not living with his own child fulltime. Are the weekend visits court ordered?

Your wife isn't the problem.

tara66 · 10/05/2025 08:45

OP - You are a me, me, ME person!!

Viviennemary · 10/05/2025 08:47

If I were you I would not visit them again. They sound rude and aggressive. But don't control what your wife does. That's up to her.

HopingForTheBest25 · 10/05/2025 08:49

I think the other guy was a complete prick to react the way he did. I agree with OP that he's entitled to more loyalty from his wife - if someone spoke up my husband like that, there's absolutely no way I'd be acting like everything was okay.
What the OP did was not good manners but it's hardly crime of the century and doesn't deserve verbal abuse. The person who criticised his manners has shown far worse manners himself!

Whoarethoseguys · 10/05/2025 08:52

AnonWho23 · 10/05/2025 08:44

I don't think you did anything wrong. You asked if you could eat and you were told to get stuck in. The prayer before the meal wasn't expected and was out of the norm. I wouldn't go to theirs again to eat. Also, I'd be pissed if my partner didn't support me. How old is your grandson? Does he talk to him in this abusive manner?

This doesn't alter that this man is the grandson:s father and presumably the grandson was at this Christmas dinner.
The grandmother seems to be the only person here putting this little boy first. She is maintaining a friendly relationship with his father because it's best for her grandson.

Even if you think you are in the right sometimes you just have to get over yourself and shrug it off for the sake of other people and especially when that other person is a child. This situation must be horrible for him. The tension will be obvious and it will be affecting his mental health which has probably already been affected by feeling abandoned by his mother.

HopingForTheBest25 · 10/05/2025 08:53

Is it court mandated that the father has custody on the weekends? Someone who is capable of completely overreacting like that really shouldn't be around small children unsupervised imo.

Original poster
OzzyGrandad · 10/05/2025 08:54

Replying to SeventeenClovesOfGarlic He had sex with my disabled daughter which produced my grandson. He is too busy with his own life & only has time to see him on the weekends, (For which I am grateful). He was supposed to be paying child support, but we waived that so that he could pay off his mortgage etc & to ease his financial burdens. He still thinks it is ok verbally abuse me.

OP posts:
itsanamechangeforme · 10/05/2025 08:55

Sorry but what you did was the height of bad manners

skippy67 · 10/05/2025 08:57

I think your wife is right. Your mess, you clean it up.

Bigearringsbigsmile · 10/05/2025 08:58

IButtleSir · 10/05/2025 08:38

Since you seem to only be capable of looking at this situation from YOUR point of view, let's look at it from some other points of view.

From an outsider's point of view, you were extremely rude and your grandson's father massively overreacted. Clearly, he's a dickhead, but you must have already known that, because if he weren't a dickhead, he'd be parenting his own child full-time, not 28% of the time with his mummy's help.

From your grandson's point of view, he has a mother who is incapable of looking after him, an aggressive father who is incapable of looking after him, and a grandfather who lacks manners and who wants to involve strangers on the internet in a dispute with his grandmother, who has done absolutely nothing wrong and who sounds like the only reasonable and mature person in this poor little boy's wife.

From your wife's point of view, she is raising her grandson, which I'm sure wasn't in her life plan. She'll be worried about her daughter and the reasons she's unable to raise her own child, and worried about what happens when her grandson is in the care of his awful father. She is probably desperate to maintain a decent relationship with that awful father for the sake of her grandson, and perhaps to avoid the risk of he and his mother seeking more custody. She was almost certainly massively embarrassed by your faux pas at Christmas, and more so by the ensuing reaction, which she was probably busy trying to protect your grandson from. She'll have just wanted to forget all about it and move on, but you are forcing her to relive that mortifying memory and pressuring her to jeopardise your grandson's family relationships.

You need to put your wife and your grandson first and shut up about what happened about Christmas. If you want to be angry at your grandson's father, be angry that he's a useless father to your grandson, not that he was rude to you.

Show quote history

This post is really good.
All of this.

YesThatsATurdOnTheRug · 10/05/2025 08:58

All these people saying the OP had bad manners are just blindly choosing to ignore the facts because they don't like the tone of the OP and have decided to attack him.

OP asked the host as the food was cooking, host said get stuck in. OP did nothing wrong, the Son in Law sounds like an awful human being, I'm so sorry for what you've had to go through with him. He never will 'realise' or apologise though, so I think you will just have to let it go. I wouldn't be going for dinner again though.