'My mother-in-law won't stop this one weird dinner habit – I think it's incredibly rude' – The Mirror
A woman is fed up with the way that her mother-in-law feeds the family dinner after they’ve been travelling seven hours to come and visit – and others are unimpressed too
It is customary when you're hosting people to make sure they're fed, watered and comfortable. However, a woman has slammed her mother-in-law for a dinner habit that she thinks is incredibly rude.
She explained that while she doesn't like her husband's mother for a variety of reasons, she tries her best to be kind to her whenever they see each other. They live approximately seven hours away from her, which means when they visit, it can be stressful and exhausting, especially since they have young kids. Because of this, they often arrive around dinnertime, and they're always informed beforehand that the grandparents of her children will organise dinner for their arrival.
However, there is now rising tension around how exactly dinner is served. While the woman said she's appreciative of having food prepared for their arrival, she can't help but think that the way it's served to them is disrespectful. "Almost always we find that they have eaten before we have arrived and we get served heated-up leftovers. This even happened one Christmas when we left very early in the morning to make Christmas lunch," she wrote on a Mumsnet thread.
"[We] raced to get there and found they had decided to just go ahead and eat Christmas dinner 25 mins before we arrived (despite us keeping them updated on our journey as to the time we would be arriving). Last time we arrived at 5pm thinking surely we had got there in time, but no, they ate at 4.30 so we ate dinner on our own just after 5pm, picked through the cold leftovers, and they wandered off to serve themselves pudding separately.
"I was so annoyed I couldn't help myself asking why they ate so early and why they hadn’t waited on us and was informed they made a point of eating particularly early and before we arrived as they thought it was best if the dinner table wasn't so crowded." She asked other Mumsnet members whether she was being unreasonable in thinking this habit is 'really weird' and 'the height of rudeness'. She added that whenever they come to visit them, they ensure they sit down to eat together and the meal is served hot to everyone.
The majority of commenters were on the woman's side, slamming the mother-in-law for being inconsiderate. "I wouldn't be travelling seven hours with young children to see people that can't be bothered to wait 25 mins to sit and eat with us, nope," one person wrote. "Just don't travel to them anymore. Make them travel to you. If they ask why, just explain it's not nice travelling seven hours to be served a sh***y cold dinner every single time," said another. A third added: "So rude and it’s very deliberate. Don't make the effort next time."
However, there were people who could see where the mother-in-law was coming from. "From what you say I assume it's deliberate policy so as not to be sharing a crowded, chaotic table with young children potentially being messy or otherwise creating an unpeaceful atmosphere at mealtime. It's possible they think they're being thoughtful, leaving your family the table to themselves," a person suggested.
"It doesn't sound like they're trying to be rude, it just sounds like weird logic to me. It can't be good for them to eat at 4:30pm so they must have genuinely felt that it would be better for them to eat first and then you have the run of the dining room second. It's odd, but I wouldn't jump to assuming that it's all a planned attempt to be rude/offend you/upset you. Probably just mad logic and a misguided attempt to be helpful," another wrote.
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