Does every family have one?

tyllwyd

LEJC wrote: »

Harry is happy to stay away and yes we are happy to explain his abscence.

Also, remember that this is only one event - your son is 15 now, so over the next few years things will change quite a lot - he will grow up, maybe move away so that he wont necessarily be expected to automatically come to every family event. If you give him a bit of space now to make his own decisions, hopefully over time he will gain confidence and make the decision to come along to future events, but on his own terms as an adult (or nearly an adult), not because he is forced to.

seven-day-weekend

If your son is old enough to stay home alone, I don't see why he need go.

duchy

Is Harry the only youngster in the family .....or have other family members also got older kids who don't/won't go (that maybe you didn't realize the reason for before)

Have a nice time and drink red wine so if he calls you a "posh bint" you can accidently spill it on him

LEJC

duchy wrote: »

Is Harry the only youngster in the family .....or have other family members also got older kids who don't/won't go (that maybe you didn't realize the reason for before)

Have a nice time and drink red wine so if he calls you a "posh bint" you can accidently spill it on him

Harry's not the youngest...he would thinking about it possibly be one of the oldest there...he has a couple of older cousins who are not attending as they have just moved away for college and we touched on this when speaking to him about it last night.

I think he feels that as his nearest in ages have "flown the family" gatherings and the others are probably not really in his age group the next oldest being 10 followed by a few smaller ones,he feels that it may prove difficult for him to bypass the relation he doesnt like if he mingles with the adults...but also that he's outgrown the younger family members.
Its not a huge gathering only about 15 in total so its not going to be easy for any of us to avoid eachother in a crowd.

Red wine sounds delicious...just a shame I may have to sacrifice half a glass!

cloudy-day

duchy wrote: »

Oh and if anyone in my OH's family called me "Posh bint" rather than by my name repeatedly (not just a one off zinger) my OH would be telling them where to get off. I'm sorry OP but your husband needs to look at his part in allowing this situation to escalate to where it is now. You don't need one liners -you need him and his family to show you a bit of respect.

This.

Sorry OP, but I can imagine my DH allowing name calling with any members of his family. They wouldn't even get a warning, they would be told straight away that's unacceptable and to use my name. And I'm putting that very politly - DH would go balistic if anyone was so rude about me.

Why does your DH put up with it?

sassyblue

LEJC wrote: »

Harry's not attending tomorrow...its a decision he's made and as parents we fully support that.

We will attend for a short while and should the subject of his abscence be raised we will explain that he's made the decision not to atternd as he feels uncomfortable in the precence this relation.

Good for you all coming to a conclusion...

Just another thing should this obnoxious creature ask where 'Harold is' answer 'who?' with a quizzical look.

Answer only with a 'Oh, you mean Harry! He's...... (insert excuse)

or:

He didn't want to come, he knew you'd do this Harold routine
He didn't want to come, can't think why, can you? *filthy look*

I don't have a relative like this but l do have a pathetic narcissistic sister who loves to cause a drama and play the victim at every get together, boooooring!!

nickj_2

if you let people whose sole intention is winding you up know that they are getting to you then this is like a red rag to a bull, the best way to deal with these sort of people is to agree , so in your sons case when the bloke asks how his rug is , just tell him to say , yeah it's really coming along now , in a few months time i'll nearly more hair on my chin than is growing out of your nose/ears etc .
if you agree with these people they have nowhere to go with their windups ,as soon as you give a sign that you're bothered by it then it's a red rag to a bull
my in laws used to go out with a few work friends , one of their husbands was a real wind up merchant whose sole intention was to annoy my in laws and the other couple , which he did every time , this is because he would say something that would wind them up ,so they would argue with him which without fail meant that their evenings ended in disaster ,when me and mrs j met him when he was around the in laws and at the time mrs j worked at waitrose , he spent the evening slagging waitrose off and we just kept agreeing with him and had a good laugh , my fil ws so annoyed that he walked out

LEJC

cloudy-day wrote: »

This.


Why does your DH put up with it?

there seems to be a general acceptance of this persons behaviour in my husbands family.

As ive said throughout the thread,he's not my blood relation and have no one on my side of the family who behaves in such a manner....hence a throwback to the title of the thread."does every family have one?...but it seems acceptable to my husbands family to allow him to "jibe,jest,mock bully" etc etc...whatever you wish to call it.

Personally I think the man is incapable of holding a reasonable converation with anyone and has no respect for politeness....and to cover his inability to communicate effectively he sees this way a perferable option to him....his family seem to humour him along or just dismiss any protestation as "well thats what hes like......"

I dont think he'll ever change and I think that potentially we just attend the gatherings not because he's there but because of the others in the family that we genuinely want to see.

securityguy

nickj wrote: »

if you let people whose sole intention is winding you up know that they are getting to you then this is like a red rag to a bull, the best way to deal with these sort of people is to agree

Or stay at home and watch TV instead. People like that do not have a right to an audience, and unless there is some pressing reason to put yourself in their company, why bother? I long since got past the point of seeing any reason to spend time with people who aren't pleasant company. Why waste the time? That's why I find all the threads here about people needing to deal with their unpleasant relatives visiting them, inviting them to things, meeting up, going on holiday so bizarre. Why are you spending time with people you don't like?

sassyblue

nickj wrote: »

if you let people whose sole intention is winding you up know that they are getting to you then this is like a red rag to a bull, the best way to deal with these sort of people is to agree , so in your sons case when the bloke asks how his rug is , just tell him to say , yeah it's really coming along now , in a few months time i'll nearly more hair on my chin than is growing out of your nose/ears etc .

haha that's actually a great idea...:rotfl: