My SiL wants to tell me I'm a bad GP

Playing devil's advocate here, after hearing some hard truths about my own behaviour in recent weeks towards my DIL. Perhaps your SIL has been building up resentment and not said anything to rock the boat, and the incident in the restaurant was the last straw?

Perhaps he's a fun dad, and his kids love it, I'm thinking of my own wonderful father who was a bit of a Robin William's character, embarrassing at times but utterly wonderful. Your SIL perhaps may have felt you were looking down on him if you were unsubtly making a face and he may have felt hurt. Shouting does sound like a man's way of dealing with hurt, especially if as you say, there is a built up resentment of his perceived treatment of you.

I don't know your situation but daughter probably wants to keep the peace & SIL is fed up.

I had to do some big time apologising to my DIL, but hey ho, I made some mistakes in the way I treated my DIL and had to find out what I had done so I could apologise properly.

Speaking with my daughter in law, I realised I was repeating the same mistakes my MIL made to me. Mil used to 'hit me with her truth stick' and make very plain her thoughts about everything, when what I needed as a mother of two raucous boys was some support that I was doing a good job.

Probably making a face would have been better when your saw your close friends and recalled the trip away from your SIL.

It's hard to hear when you're in the wrong. Especially if you're anything like myself and think of yourself still no.1 in your kids life.

Good luck. Hope you're able to muddle through this incident and have a 'Waltons' ending. dilly x

Ginny 42 When you described the shock after his outburst that was a red flag. No one, absolutely no one should speak like that to someone 76 years old, what was he thinking of? No matter what has happened before that threat is most certainly ABUSE and can cause bad health and even kill.
It's like a threat of a beating.

It's good you have had counselling but both your DD and SIL must understand it must never happen again. It is dangerous. He is old enough to control his temper when with the elderly and children and if he can't he should get professional help. He is behaving like a big bad toddler and very irresponsible.

Your DD should know you are not going to accept those threats again, she should convey to him that this is serious abuse because of your age.

No one is perfect but most adult people accept the quirks of others and carry on with life. But a threat of reeling off what he thinks you have done wrong is not acceptable even if there have been mistakes. He is younger, probably louder and what if he decided to find a whole load of sick lies he has made up in his bitter mind? Nasty people use outbursts like this to control and frighten others.

If you DD knows he is doing this she also has to know it's not acceptable as it's coercive abuse AND abuse of the elderly. She should not be allowing him to speak to you like that.

It is impossible to "walk away" from something like this when older as there is huge shock and it could affect your health. He clearly has some immature issues which he and your DD have to deal with, you must not be the brunt of his bullying.

We have laws to protect us from family abuse because in the past the elderly really were vulnerable to any bully they were related to.

It happened to me, a family member I do not see at all now and who never knew me well. He had issues of maturity, never got on with his own mother, and a particularly abusive father who encouraged him to kick off around women. Out of the blue he began rattling off some terrible lies that had nothing to do with me but were intended to be the equivalent of a verbal beating. There is no way to reason with someone like that and once they say those lies they become "real" to them. The effect on me was devastating, I became very ill, in deep shock and it took several counselling sessions to et my confidence back. When his wife was questioned about the lies she said he had "made it up". If you allow one incident it will happen again and in my case it did, the next time a vile sexual attack. The police were called and it turned out he really does not like older women, has lost jobs because he was abusive to women.

His poor mother is still having lies spread about her so you are probably not the only one being subjected to his threats.

What he was going to list as all your faults would probably be everything he hates about every older woman with a sprinkling of bits of truth to cause maximum damage. People who do that are very nasty and need help. The result is like a beating.

I hope you are feeling stronger now and can start putting it behind you.

Oh my word I ve flown into a parallel universe Endre123 talk about over reaction and going completely over the top You have taken this from a nasty moody family incident to in your words ABUSE, and can cause bad health or even kill there is huge shock and it could effect your health family abuse this is serious abuse because of your age a whole load of sick lies he has made up in his nasty head you even go on to say next time a vile sexual attack

You Endre have obviously had a difficult time yourself and are completely replacing Ginny s story with your own situation

The son in law in Ginnys story reacted poorly but this huge over reaction is not helpful to her

She was in shock and had to speak to a counsellor! What does that tell you?

Why should bullies tell us what is and what is not acceptable?

So if a man beats an old woman and she needs medical help it's over reacting if the man is a family member?

All changed in December 2015, the law now calls it abuse and men and women are being prosecuted for harassment and/or coersive abuse.

It didn't sound like a spat at all. Shock to the elderly does kill.

Read the OPs again

Dilly, what an insightful post. You are right, we do need to ask ourselves if we are contributing to any tricky family situation. There are always two sides. As with all relationships, it’s all about compromise.

However, sometimes it is largely one persons fault and the problem is usually something within themselves rather than what the other person has done.

I have decided to move forward in a positive way with my son and his partner for the time being. If, I feel I am continuing to be sidelined, I will think again .... but nothing we can do if they don’t want us in their life .... just get on with our own. But there is always somebody worse off than us, so I guess we have to try and make the most of what we have. X

Oh please Endre You are OVER OVER reacting you’re now talking about an old lady being beaten and needing medical treatment where did that come from? ..the original post says nothing about any of that, just that she didn’t like the way she was spoken to and my advice was and still is apologise for pulling a face( if you want to) and carry on as normal .....you have totally run away with this and got people being bullied beaten and put in hospital

You have driven about as far off course as you can totally ridiculous You obviously have your own problems which sound as if you still need help for

endre123, I think your experience is colouring Ginny's experience and I am sure that she doesn't have to worry about the sorts of things you have been through. We must all be careful not to catastrophise a situation as these are real people's lives here. So far this immature man has been accused of narcissism without any real evidence and we have to remind ourselves that we only have one side of the story. The OP admits she didn't speak directly to her SIL for two days either. It sounds like this is one of those situations where a storm in a teacup has escalated into a tornado. Yes, he was out of order for shouting but we've all behaved badly on occasions. OP's daughter knows whether her husband is an out and out bully, we don't. Yes, she chose to go to counselling but some are more ready to choose that route than others. It seemed a bit extreme for someone who is just visiting to go for counselling but, if it helped and it seems to have done with all her planning meets with her daughter, we're all different.

I am afraid what really annoyed me about endre123's post was her huge generalisation about what someone of 76 is like. To say it could cause bad health and death (because the OP was 76).

To say It is impossible to "walk away" from something like this when older as there is huge shock and it could affect your health., the inference being that this was because the OP was 76, made me really cross.

I am sure some people of this age could be very distressed by such an event, as indeed could someone of 66 or even 56, but there are plenty of people of 86 or more who would have squashed this guy as if he was a mosquito and then walked over him.

Never, ever, make judgements of what people can or cannot do, can or cannot deal with on age alone. It is ageism in it's purest form.

Perhaps I can add some perspective which may allay Endre's concerns. I only see this SiL on average twice a year.

The counselling was for my daughter and I accompanied her, so of course it was for both. I had counselling 10 years ago when my ex left and know the value of talking to a professional who can contribute an unbiased perspective.

I was hurt and at a loss to know how to deal with the situation I found myself in and thankfully thought to ask for advice on here and what a lot I got! It really helped and kept me grounded.

SiL has a lot of issues and we've always made allowances for them, but he really needs to let go of some childhood issues which continue to haunt him and my DD will try to persuade him to go for counselling. I tried to explain to him that my reaction was because my upbringing tells me that being loud and doing stupid things at the table, particularly in a restaurant, is unacceptable. It fell on deaf ears, hence my appeal to GN. My 'shock' was related to him wanting to bring up 7 years of whatever he perceived as my shortcomings.

We still haven't spoken but he's asked my DD to forgive him and we'll see how things are when he returns after the weekend away. Apparently last week he met up with old friends and they were teasing him about having his MiL to stay. Could it be that?

I have now risen above it and I know I'm not a bad person. I just lost my nerve a bit in light of what was to me a bizarre attempt to belittle me.

Perhaps after the weekend you could behave as if nothing has happened Ginny and just chat normally and hopefully the whole thing will blow over. I hope so. Good luck.

Well thank goodness you are beginning to let this event which unnerved you, but really has grown huge wings, go
I m sure you are not a bad person and I m sure your son in law is not a bad man Going back to your original post he was singing loudly with the children whilst waiting for their dinner Is that so terrible? is it not your strict upbringing and an overreaction on your part that has caused all this If he was being embarrassing your daughter should have shushed him

This has got hugely out of proportion I think the son in law did the right thing to cool off away from home and leave you and your daughter to finish the rest of your holiday together I m sure things will probably settle down for your daughter and him when his mother in law has left the home

Are you sure you’re not too involved with your daughters marriage I find it a bit worrying when you say We ve always made allowances Ginny your daughter must sort her own marriage out without your intervention

As for Endre please get more help

Two things that I obviously wasn't aware of:

1. A request to talk about things that one had done wrong equated to one being characterized as a bad person.

Why would your train of thought go to SIL trying to tell you that your a bad grandparent simply for he wanted to tell you things that he perceived as being wrong? You say you're not a bad person, but who said you were? When you don't even know the specifics of what he'd planned to discuss?

2. A father chanting away with his own children in a restaurant being considered as, "loud, stupid and unacceptable." Why? - just because this is how YOU were brought up? But that may not his upbringing. Considering that you only see SIL twice a year, did you ever stop to think that this may be the manner in which he always interacts with his children when they go out to eat? And that he really shouldn't have to adjust this family routine solely for you were present and felt a certain way about it?

When you say: "SiL has a lot of issues and we've always made allowances for them," - whose we? You're daughter and who.......YOU?

It wasn't a request for a discussion from what I gather...

Ginny42 I suspected your SIL had issues from his past which made his reaction to you a bit menacing and of course shocking. I'm glad it's come out into the open for you although if he doesn't get help he's likely to kick off another time you visit.

Someone said that some are more inclined to see counsellors, in most cases they are referred by a GP. Most see them privately after referral and they are very expensive so they are not used lightly.

Action against abuse of the Elderly has done a great deal on these abuses and threatening the elderly is certainly high on the list. Unfortunately family and carers are on top of the list of possible perpetrators. And the reason why they highlight is because it causes great ill health and sometimes death if the shock is too much.

If that is not recognised we will continue to have a lot of cruelty happening behind closed doors and nothing done to stop it. Bullies always hope their victims do not speak of what has happened to them but the law has changed that.

Lots of over 70s have medical issues they know about and some they do not know about and a younger person should never threaten or actually kick off in a way to cause shock. And shock is a medical condition.

Message deleted by Gransnet for breaking our forum guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

... how much money will you then need for us to meet up? or will you need help with medical expenses and whose photo are you using?

I am surprised admin hasn’t deleted photo.

BlueBelle, Dilly and LiveLaughLove are the only folks in the thread who seemingly have their heads on straight. What a lot of fuss. You should never ever have chastised SIL like he was a naughty school boy. You aren’t his parent and he’s a grown man. If he embarrassed you, then don’t go out to restaurants with him. You then gave him the silent treatment for 2 days while a guest in his home. Most folks would be furious at that point. He then wasn’t eager to accept what was clearly an unwilling/unrepentant apology - and wanted to tell you a few truths about yourself. I can’t fathom how you are surprised by all of this. Don’t pull faces at your SIL. Don’t give your host the silent treatment. And next time you visit DD stay in a hotel! Goodness gracious. And for Endre- telling off old ladies isn’t elder abuse ?

the OP didn't chastise him, she just pulled a face.
He gave her the silent treatment.
She apologised.

And next time you visit DD stay in a hotel!
I don't suppose your family stay with you either OutsideDave

Ginny42
Something you need to work on is: you are not responsible for other people's behaviour. You might think or feel that people looking on are judging you: they're not.
Would you judge the company of someone making a fool of themselves, I hope not.

‘I tried to explain to him that my reaction was because my upbringing tells me that being loud and doing stupid things at the table, particularly in a restaurant, is unacceptable.’

That was her attempt at an apology (which was really another attempt at shaming/chastising him). Given her view of what an apology consists of, it’s no wonder he keeps declining her apologies.

And yes, at various times when we lived far away and if my parents and DH weren’t getting along splendidly, they absolutely did stay in a hotel- especially for the sort of lengthy visit that OP is undertaking. It was essential to preserving their good relationship, and they are good friends now as a result

Yes.
Don't pull a face.
Do the w**k*r sign behind his back.
Joke! Before anyone takes umbrage.

Just be yourself and as normal as possible, don't apologise again, he seems very full of his own importance, you don't know how the marriage is, what he said to your daughter about your failings over the last seven years as a grandmother was unkind and she shouldn't have told you. Can't think wht she did really. It's all very childish behaviour.

He may have embarrassed himself. He seems to lack knowledge of how to conduct himself in public and knows it.

I guess your apologising would annoy him even more. Can you make a joke of it all?
Everyone and anyone can have a list of faults they have committed over the past seven years. Unless he is actually going to attack you violently he needs to be laughed at when he is being absurd.