Fifty Plus (50+) - Bike shop owner has "mother in law from hell."

Today's internet sensation is Carolyn Bourne, a British gardening expert who sent a withering email to her future daughter-in-law, castigating the young woman in detail regarding her poor manners and uncouth behavior. The email has now gone viral.

Delightful story on the original email:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009518/Bride-left-red-faced-email-criticising-future-mother-law-goes-viral.html

Now the father of the bride weighs in:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009881/Shes-Miss-Fancy-Pants-After-wrath-mother-law-fury-bride-bes-father.html


The bike connection? The poor guy whose mother wrote the email apparently owns this online bike shop in London:

http://www.capitalcycles.co.uk/

After reading the email his mother sent, I don't know whether to send him a sympathy card or buy a bike from him.

Here's the email (from the mom to the future daughter-in-law) that has now gone viral.

It is high time someone explained to you about good manners. Yours are obvious by their absence and I feel sorry for you.

Unfortunately for Freddie, he has fallen in love with you and Freddie being Freddie, I gather it is not easy to reason with him or yet encourage him to consider how he might be able to help you. It may just be possible to get through to you though. I do hope so.

If you want to be accepted by the wider Bourne family I suggest you take some guidance from experts with utmost haste. There are plenty of finishing schools around.

Please, for your own good, for Freddie’s sake and for your future involvement with the Bourne family, do something as soon as possible.

Here are a few examples of your lack of manners:

When you are a guest in another’s house, you do not declare what you will and will not eat – unless you are positively allergic to something. You do not remark that you do not have enough food. You do not start before everyone else. You do not take additional helpings without being invited to by your host.

When a guest in another’s house, you do not lie in bed until late morning in households that rise early – you fall in line with house norms.

You should never ever insult the family you are about to join at any time and most definitely not in public. I gather you passed this off as a joke but the reaction in the pub was one of shock, not laughter.

You should have hand-written a card to me. You have never written to thank me when you have stayed.

You regularly draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you should ask yourself why.

No one gets married in a castle unless they own it. It is brash, celebrity style behaviour.

I understand your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the cost of your wedding. (There is nothing wrong with that except that convention is such that one might presume they would have saved over the years for their daughters’ marriages.)

If this is the case, it would be most ladylike and gracious to lower your sights and have a modest wedding as befits both your incomes.

Wedding bad. Bring pain.

I like this woman! :thumb:

I had the mother-in-law from Hell. She died from breast cancer, and no one cried at her funeral except for the mentally deficient young man who worked with her at K-mart. She was mean, and smoked 4+ packs of cigarettes a day. I have nothing against breast cancer, even if I get it. She was not well written as this woman, nor evidently as intelligent.

I like this woman! :thumb:
Which one?

(just kidding, Norman!! :D )

Sounds to me like the lady has a point. Good for her! The bride-to-be sounds like a self-centered brat.
MIL's approach may need a little work however.

My grandfather told me that when most people get married, they are also gaining new family members. So, you better investigate and know what you're getting into. While it doesn't hold true in many cases, it turned out to be something I paid attention too and don't regret.

I feel for Freddie. His step-mother is a self impressed, pompous ass. Where is Freddie's father?

Not sure I disagree with the mother-in-law based on the examples. There's always the other side of the story but the prospective wife may be a self centered brat.

If someone little known to me ended up a house guest here and immediately started dictating their menu requirements, not at all good.

Can't say I have much in the way of opinion about the marrying-in-a-castle bit.

BTW: My perspective is that of someone who had a definite self centered type marry into the family. I lent my car to my nephew's wife for 6 weeks while Steve was in Iraq yet again and their vehicle was in Germany. Not only did I not get the first thanks (or even eye contact), she returned it empty of gas, filthy inside and out and with a flippant comment about how her BMW was much nicer. This is one anecdote of many.

It sounds like the stepmother is looking to find fault, since she sent the email three times. She might have a point on some of the issues, but she needs some etiquette lessons herself if this is the way she chooses to address them with the future bride.

The stepmother is on her third marriage. I wonder if she'll soon have her third divorce.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Chapter 1, first line ...

It's tempting to comment, and I'll try not.

But an observation. Someone's Type 1 diabetes is being used as either a justification or a criticism of behavior.

In my experience, as a 37 history year T1, 'Excuse me, I'm feeling a bit wonky, could I please have something like a coke or a glass of milk with a couple of sugars' or 'That looks lovely but I have to treat sugar very carefully, could I have a sample size, bit like a marble?' has never so far got me any critical emails

I'm sure the bride to be is watching for Freddie's reaction. Hopefully he'll choose to side with the bride over her future step-monster-in-law. What a witch!

They all should read the children's book "What do you say, dear?" It's great, and, IIRC, is British. It presents a host of situations, including the absurd, and asks the title question, then explains how to handle the situation politely. My MIL (who could be from either Heaven of Hell depending on the day) read it to my children constantly... not that it sank in particularly well.

Not sure I disagree with the mother-in-law based on the examples. There's always the other side of the story but the prospective wife may be a self centered brat.


I don't take a side regarding the alleged behavior of the bride-to-be. I do feel that the step-mother's way of dealing with it is way off base.

I do feel that the step-mother's way of dealing with it is way off base.

One of the comments I saw in one of the British papers reflect on the fact that the mother was raised in an era when the appropriate thing to do, when ticked off, would be to sit down and write the person a letter. So she did the modern version of that, not thinking how easily it would be for the electronic version of a letter to go viral (or perhaps even dreaming that the person would think of forwarding the email).

Makes me appreciate my family.

One of the comments I saw in one of the British papers reflect on the fact that the mother was raised in an era when the appropriate thing to do, when ticked off, would be to sit down and write the person a letter. So she did the modern version of that, not thinking how easily it would be for the electronic version of a letter to go viral (or perhaps even dreaming that the person would think of forwarding the email).

It was also (I'm guessing) an era when racism and sexism were common, perhaps accepted in most places. We all have a choice....grow or stay rooted in unacceptable ways.