AIBU to think this is very rude

I usually look at cards that are displayed. Why display them if you don't want them to be admired and looked at.
On nosey relatives. I always had to clean the tops of room doors before my sister visited after seeing her checking them once!

I am happy to see people looking and admiring cards but not reading all the contents.

As you see I appear to be the only person who thinks it rude. I am sure a psychologist would have a field day with my comments.

So your BiL had asked your son if he could look in the garage?

Seems you get irritated easily especially, possibly, by people who are "mere" inlaws.

By which I mean that perhaps you are a very private person and perhaps find things stressful that others wouldn't.

I think the garage episode was far more rude than the cards. I lock our study / office door when certain people visit !!

Overtly sentimental sexy birthday cards are displayed on the bedroom windowsill away from prying eyes.

In our house I should add

would you be annoyed if someone you liked looking at your cards..or is it the person and not the action that has pissed you off...I allow liberties with people I like .. Nanakate x

The cards were on 'display' but in a private place - your house - so I tend to agree with you NanKate! I don't particularly mind if people peek at my cards but I always ask if I can look at others - apart from my DD's when I just welly in and read them . You obviously have a problem with the in-laws and this is just another irritation to add to the rest.

If cards are on display I read the front only and if its a joke which is continued on the inside cover I would ask before picking it up to read it.

I wouldn't have a problem with anyone looking and reading birthday cards that were on display. To me that is a bit like looking at a painting on the wall. Anything personal would not be on show anyway.

However reading a letter or photo's in a pile, that had been left on the side should not be looked at by anyone without permission.

DS2's GF was thirty recently and there were cards everywhere. I confess I did have a peek at them when I was in their house alone for a few minutes. The contents were all lovely and it was nice to see how much her friends thought of her. I don't think I would ever write anything in a card which couldn't be put in full view.

(Now DS2 has finished university, at the age of 35! and started work, we hope she will soon be DDiL instead of GF.)

Thatbags I don't know where you got the 'mere in laws' quote from. I don't have any problem with other in law members.

The garage incident upset me as I did not want my DH mocked by his brother in our house, it was just plain unkind.

I will accept though that since I have been in my 60s I do get a tad irritated by some people.

I always look inside my children's cards, simply because I am a prying old sod interested in their lives. I wouldn't bother to look inside anyone else's. Would have no interest.

I honestly think it's relatively harmless really.

I do that with family ones.

There seems to be a wider issue. That of the relationship between your DH and his brother.

On my side of the family, we are all more , look into things and ask and share.
On my husbands side, they are more, stand back, and ask, and politeness with each other.
It is just how it is.
No mocking though.

Yes, I look at DD's cards and she looks at ours if she happens to be over at our house. I was visiting DS & daughter-out-law around the time of her birthday, I didn't look at the cards, probably because I don't know her friends. If I had any cards containing private messages I'd put them out of sight.

My in laws are nosy in the extreme, I once caught sis in law reading a letter she had found protruding between books on the shelf, she had to remove it from the envelope in order to do so. Now that's nosy. Not to mention disrespectful. I was not amused.

I think a bit of sibling mockery is fine. It's part of what makes families tick, at least as I've experienced the world. When I'd left for university, my younger brothers still always blamed me for scoffing my mother's chocolate when she asked who'd eaten it. I laughed when she told me. It was funny partly because of their cheek (the blighters!) but also because during my early teens I had even eaten the cooking chocolate when I was desperate. Did anyone else have a teenage Desperate for Chocolate stage?

Oh is the Desperate for Chocolate phase supposed to end with the teenage years? Ooops!

I ate some chocolate that I found in my mother's bedside drawer when I was about 7. It taught me a lesson. It was Ex Lax.

Nankate I wouldn't be upset about the cards, but I would rather object to someone inspecting a garage or a room and commenting on the state of it. If your brother-in-law is that concerned, it might be nice if he offered to help clear it out.

Katy

DBH and I always keep our cards to each other upstairs, ever since MiL looked at my valentine's day card to him and found some handmade 'vouchers'. Maybe it depends on your family, but we were taught that they were private, like letters. She obviously doesn't think like that. She is very nosy, so now I am nosy back - and yes, I do look in her garage and rooms when we go to stay, because she is such a hoarder and I am the only one who keeps on at her to get rid of stuff she doesn't want or need. She doesn't resent it, she needs it, she just doesn't want help doing it, only needs motivation to do it slowly by herself, so I ask if she has found anything interesting or exciting lately, any family jewels etc. I know she is nosy because I once hid something from her - and she found it! Now I have no qualms where she is concerned.

She found a whole box of her father's paperwork that she had never opened since a few weeks after his death almost 40 years ago, last year. I can't live like that. Sadly, DBH is also a hoarder, I have watched his study become more and more cramped until he cam barely get to his desk. I refuse to let him spread further, he has a loft access in there so he must spread upwards. MiL will be most upset when he does, she loves rootling around in there!

I always read cards at my daughters houses and the house of my best friend and they do the same with me. I would probably only do it at others houses of people I know if I asked first. I would be very miffed if someone read any letters I happened to leave around when they visited but again would not mind if the people mentioned above read them. I guess it depends on who it is and how comfortable is your relationship with that person, different families have different rules/boundaries which should be respected.

meercat