Husband is furious at me for telling his mother to stop talking down to me at dinner

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m on OP’s side. MIL overreacted and got what she deserves. Checking a phone at the table is fine.

+1

MIL was acting like a self-righteous ass.

[Anonymous]

Checking a cell phone at the table as a guest is rude, especially after a certain age. I’m 42 and would find it odd. You’re 37 and you know better too. I would expect this of teens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Checking a cell phone at the table as a guest is rude, especially after a certain age. I’m 42 and would find it odd. You’re 37 and you know better too. I would expect this of teens.

And many parents try and break their teens of this.

[Anonymous]

What well-mannered person of any age checks their phone at the table? Unspeakably rude. So OP is definitely the AH here. Did MIL overreact? Sure. But OP bears the most fault. Plus I would guess that she is regularly glued to her phone and has been corrected by ma y others before.

Also if I were her DH I would be embarrassed by her behavior, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Checking a cell phone at the table as a guest is rude, especially after a certain age. I’m 42 and would find it odd. You’re 37 and you know better too. I would expect this of teens.

It’s not really a guest situation if someone begged you to sleep at their house for the holidays for no reason at all. It’s you doing them a favor.

[Anonymous]

OP-- I think your MIL was rude, but I also think you did not need to be confrontational. Smooth it over.
As for phones at the table, I think it's rude-- but one adult should not be talking to another adult in that way.
To be honest, I think your DH may be wanting a separation. Leaving for a "friend's house" on NYE, stating that you create chaos, all of this seems like excuses to be somewhere else. I don't mean to be harsh- but my DH was really into criticizing me (warranted and unwarranted) during his affair.

[Anonymous]

OP are you asian american? The family group chat thing is something I've only seen Asian American families do (I am myself). If so there may definitely be some subtle cultural tensions at play here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You were absolutely wrong to use your phone at the dinner table/during a meal.

You could have avoided the whole thing if when she called you out for your poor table manners, you'd said, "You're right Molly, I'm sorry. I won't check my phone at the table ever again."

Yes, this would have been simpler.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So yesterday my husband and I were over at my mother in laws house for New Year’s Eve. My husband wanted us to spend the night there as MIL requested we spend NYE with her as she is lonely with just my father in law who has Parkinson’s and is in decline.

My husband wanted us to spend the night at their house which is 20 minutes away. I was tired but decided to pack up and join them. We arrived there and everything was going well. My MIL is a great hostess and served us appetizers and some wine. Then we sat down to have some dinner at the kitchen.

I thanked her for the thoughtful dinner she made for us of crab cakes and scalloped potatoes. We started eating and were having a nice time all around.

I am an immigrant so my family lives abroad. I communicate with them through our family group chat. As my MIL was snapping at FIL for not being able to cut his broccoli, I looked down to check my phone.

I look up and see my MIL looking at me. She starts telling me about how I have a problem with cellphone use and how using the cellphone for hours and hours and hours is the worst thing one can do for your brain! And just talking down to me in a reprimanding tone that…frankly embarrassed me. I thought briefly about ignoring her but then said, “ Molly, I am 37 years old and don’t appreciate being reprimanded like I’m 5 years old. I was quickly checking my family group chat.”

Her eyes go wide and she stares at me as if I’ve done some horrible thing. She says, “ that was very rude of you. Apologize now!”

She gets up and continues now yelling, “ your mother would roll over in her grave if she knew how rude you’re being! I am older than you! You are so rude!”

I say, “ please don’t speak to me like that. Please don’t raise your voice at me.”

Now my husband says ok we are leaving. I am kind of shocked. My heart is thumping. I’m disoriented. I am unsure how to feel as we were just having a nice time and now everything is a mess. I tell my husband I will drive back home but he can stay here with his mom.

He insists he will come with me and tells me to get in the car. I truly am kind of in shock and get in the car. My husband says “ I don’t want to talk about this!”

We come home and I take off my coat. I tell my husband I feel bad about leaving abruptly and if there was a way to have stayed. He said he did not want an awkward situation where his mom and I were yelling at each other at her house.

I said I feel sad as we were having such a nice time. He says he is so angry at me for being so rude to his mother. It was rude of me to check my phone and to be disrespectful to her after a nice meal she prepared for us while being in her house.

I look at home confused as I felt like I was being attacked and I had to stand up for myself. He said he is so embarrassed of my behavior and doesn’t want to be around me. He packed up an overnight bag and said he will spend NYE at his friends house at a party.

I spent NYE alone by myself.

This afternoon my husband tells me he is so embarrassed of me as I create chaos everywhere I go and i cannot let things go.

Was it truly my fault? Was I the problem? Or did MIL overstep?

Your MIL overreacted a bit, but she has a husband with Parkinsons and still hosted/cooked a nice meal for you guys. I think you should have let it go instead of trying to "fight back."

That being said... your husband's reaction also seems disproportionate for a one time incident. It's more typical of someone who has been simmering for a while and unhappy with the marriage. So, you have a bigger problem here than if your MIL overstepped at dinner.

[Anonymous]

In case you are real - do not have kids with this man.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. I do not believe taking a quick glance at your phone during a major holiday while having dinner in your in laws kitchen merits the pointed dressing down my mother in law gave me. It is incredibly rude and disrespectful. A normal person would have ignored it especially as I was NOT sitting there with my face in my phone the entire time. As she was focusing on berating her husband for being unable to cut his meat, I took a look at my family group chat. That was all.

I felt embarrassed at how she talked down to me. I could tell she was in a mood and wanted to pick on me. She has a habit of routinely picking on her kids or me when she is in a mood. I do not like to be disrespected and told her so, calmly and politely. She decided to escalate, compounded by my husband.

I do not appreciate that both she and my husband are intend on bullying me for "upsetting" her when she started it to begin with! I do not appreciate my husband making ME the problem instead of telling his mom to back off!

Bringing your phone to the table at all is rude.

Ruder than my MIL and husband's horrible treatment of me? My husband watched his mother give me a dressing down. And when I told her to stop he decided to blame ME for abandon me on NYE.

You are the one who set everything in motion.

[Anonymous]

You checked your phone during dinner??? Yes, you are rude. That is incredibly rude. If there was some big thing you needed to check (sibling having a baby or something), you needed to say that before the dinner started. Otherwise if this is normal for you, I would divorce you, even without telling off my kind mother.

[Anonymous]

Idgaf what happened between you and his mother.

Where did he sleep?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Idgaf what happened between you and his mother.

Where did he sleep?

+10000. The phone thing is a red herring. The real issue in this troll post is where the DH slept. OP, please fill us in on this piece of the fiction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So yesterday my husband and I were over at my mother in laws house for New Year’s Eve. My husband wanted us to spend the night there as MIL requested we spend NYE with her as she is lonely with just my father in law who has Parkinson’s and is in decline.

My husband wanted us to spend the night at their house which is 20 minutes away. I was tired but decided to pack up and join them. We arrived there and everything was going well. My MIL is a great hostess and served us appetizers and some wine. Then we sat down to have some dinner at the kitchen.

I thanked her for the thoughtful dinner she made for us of crab cakes and scalloped potatoes. We started eating and were having a nice time all around.

I am an immigrant so my family lives abroad. I communicate with them through our family group chat. As my MIL was snapping at FIL for not being able to cut his broccoli, I looked down to check my phone.

I look up and see my MIL looking at me. She starts telling me about how I have a problem with cellphone use and how using the cellphone for hours and hours and hours is the worst thing one can do for your brain! And just talking down to me in a reprimanding tone that…frankly embarrassed me. I thought briefly about ignoring her but then said, “ Molly, I am 37 years old and don’t appreciate being reprimanded like I’m 5 years old. I was quickly checking my family group chat.”

Her eyes go wide and she stares at me as if I’ve done some horrible thing. She says, “ that was very rude of you. Apologize now!”

She gets up and continues now yelling, “ your mother would roll over in her grave if she knew how rude you’re being! I am older than you! You are so rude!”

I say, “ please don’t speak to me like that. Please don’t raise your voice at me.”

Now my husband says ok we are leaving. I am kind of shocked. My heart is thumping. I’m disoriented. I am unsure how to feel as we were just having a nice time and now everything is a mess. I tell my husband I will drive back home but he can stay here with his mom.

He insists he will come with me and tells me to get in the car. I truly am kind of in shock and get in the car. My husband says “ I don’t want to talk about this!”

We come home and I take off my coat. I tell my husband I feel bad about leaving abruptly and if there was a way to have stayed. He said he did not want an awkward situation where his mom and I were yelling at each other at her house.

I said I feel sad as we were having such a nice time. He says he is so angry at me for being so rude to his mother. It was rude of me to check my phone and to be disrespectful to her after a nice meal she prepared for us while being in her house.

I look at home confused as I felt like I was being attacked and I had to stand up for myself. He said he is so embarrassed of my behavior and doesn’t want to be around me. He packed up an overnight bag and said he will spend NYE at his friends house at a party.

I spent NYE alone by myself.

This afternoon my husband tells me he is so embarrassed of me as I create chaos everywhere I go and i cannot let things go.

Was it truly my fault? Was I the problem? Or did MIL overstep?

Your MIL has a point. Being on the phone for hours and hours is terrible for your brain. Checking your phone during dinner IS extremely rude. I'm surprised as a 37 year old you don't understand this. I am not a boomer, I am 35 and feel like we are the last generation to have not been ruined by the smartphone. I would be very annoyed if someone in this age range could not go phone free for the duration of a dinner. It does not matter if your company is boring or distracted. Your MIL also has a point that, I'd think given your immigrant background, you'd be sensitive toward - that it is EXTRA rude to be doing it when you are at dinner with people who are quite a bit older than you and are your hosts.

That being said, she did not need to go on and on. Either of you could have de-escalated the situation but neither chose to. Also, your husband is probably really unhappy in your marriage to have reacted the way he did. So either he's a terrible person or you need some more self-reflection about why he is so unhappy.