'AITA for cracking open a beer in front of my MIL after she tried humiliating my dad?'
"AITA for cracking open a beer in front of my MIL after she tried humiliating my dad?"
My MIL (64) is a very opinionated person when it comes to alcohol. No one knows why. There are no alcoholics in the family, she isn't religious. Some of her kids say it's a control thing. Who knows.
She basically just tells my husband (36) every chance that he gets that he needs to stop drinking because he's going to be an alcoholic or tells him that he needs to "control" me because I drink and she feels I am going to coerce my husband in to drinking.
Do keep in mind that my husband has a few beers maybe once or twice a month and could make a 6 pack last weeks. If she "catches" him drinking, she goes up one side of him and down the other about how he needs therapy or AA.
Now, she found out I was having my dad over for dinner yesterday after a discussion she was having with my husband (she asks him near every night what his plans are) and decided on a whim that she was going to come as well. She didn't tell us and considered it a "surprise visit." Her behavior regarding how enmeshed she tries to be with my husband is a topic for another day (she's toxic asf).
But anyways, she shows up here. My dad was having a few beers and we were just chatting in the kitchen when MIL rolls in. She instantly turns her nose up at my dad because he's drinking. I notice it; my father and husband did not.
She doesn't say anything originally but after about a half hour my father had grabbed another beer and MIL said something like "don't you think you've had enough? I am very uncomfortable with you drinking around me. Its rude." I was honestly just having a petty moment and I grabbed myself a beer as soon as she started cornering my father and trying to humiliate him.
She does not know my dad. Has met him once. So, I grab a beer and I start drinking it while staring at her. She starts grabbing her stuff and as she walked out, she was saying something to the affect of "lord forbid I have a nice dinner with my son."
After she walked out, my husband just kind of looked at me with raised eyebrows and shook his head before turning away and excusing himself to the bedroom. Things got awkward after that and my dad left within 20 minutes.
I tried talking to my husband about it and all he would say was that I was being "childish" and if I had just given him 3 seconds he would have handled his mother. But realistically, when MIL was humiliating my father, my husband was literally just sitting there staring at the ground with his hands in his pocket.
I gave it at least 30 seconds from her not talking to me deciding to grab a beer and my husband hadn't said anything so I really don't think he was going to. That and she wasn't invited. My dad was. I can't tell if I am wrong here or not.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
BulbasaurRanch said:
You’re not wrong at all. Uninvited “guest” forces her way and tries to shame everyone else for not adhering to the bizarre rules she wants to enforce in someone else’s home?
Your husband wasn’t going to deal with his mother, he had 30 seconds already and the next three seconds would’ve been the same. He was hoping everyone would bend the knee to his mother and he wouldn’t have to address it. NTA. Your husband is weak.
Vdavwil said:
I might have laughed my butt off when she left. It doesn't pay to cater to busybodies. If she can't mind her own business, it's on her. NTA.
sog96 said:
NTA. Your MIL is the AH and your husband ain’t too far off.
Adventurous-Term5062 said:
NTA. Your husband is the childish one. MIL comes over, uninvited, and starts policing people. Yeah - she can get out with that. Your husband needs a spine. “Oh, you were going to handle it? After you stopped staring at the floor for one hour?”
ArrivalBoth6519 said:
NTA. So why is your husband tolerating this behavior? He shouldn’t have let her in and needs to tell her to leave when she starts that crap.
HugeNefariousness222 said:
NTA. The fact that this is an ongoing issue means you have a husband problem. He needs to call her out for being rude to your father, for inviting herself over, and for the constant alcohol comments. If she doesn't want to be around alcohol, she can stay home.