Future MIL's email goes viral

source: Huffington Post

Now making the Internet rounds: a set of obnoxious emails from a British mother sent to her future daughter-in-law. The subject of the correspondence: the bride-to-be's "staggering uncouthness and lack of grace."

According to the Evening Standard, Carolyn Bourne sent three harshly-worded missives in one day to Heidi Withers, who is engaged to marry Bourne's stepson Freddie, after the couple spent a weekend at the Bourne's family home.

Apparently the weekend did not go as well as Heidi might have hoped, as her future mother-in-law a.k.a. Emily Post Wannabe criticized her manners, her taste and her parents' finances.

Below is the email message that has been most widely circulated, as Heidi sent the email to a few of her own friends, who then sent it across the Internet.

We recommend reading this rude diatribe on rudeness in a British accent to get the full effect:

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.

Not one to be outdone, Heidi's father has now said that his future in-law, "has her head stuck so far up her own a*** she doesn't know whether to speak or f**t," the Daily Mail reports.

Needless to say, we're super-excited to hear how this wedding goes.

----------------------
I wonder what the fiance has to say...

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

Well, some of the points she made were to some extent valid but still...yikes!

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

She makes it sound like her future DIL is Eliza Doolittle from "My Fair Lady!"

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

is it wrong that I agree with her on certain points? lol

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

While not the best way to go about it she does make some good points that most people don't follow these days.

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

Its so Hyacinth Bucket! I love it! Ideas above her station indeed!

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

I think some of the MILs points are valid. I feel badly for the MIL that the FDIL sent this to friends who let it circulate on the net. Perhaps Freddie dear will see this and understand why his mummy is so upset. It might knock some sense into the boy.

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

i think she has alot of vaild points however it was done the wrong way.. Oh boy that wedding will be exciting! haha

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

The truth is somewhere in the middle and the FDIL may have been somewhat tacky in her behavior, but when you have guests, don't you want them to be comfortable? Wouldn't you want to ask for eating likes/dislikes? What if she's a vegetarian, for example? I think a good amount of this is probably generational- young people are a lot more relaxed about things than their parents and staying with your future husband's family should be more familiar. I bet this MIL hasn't liked FDIL from the beginning...

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

yeah, I would say I agree with 99% of her points.....however, she should have kept her mouth shut.

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

I agree with a lot of MIL points.

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

If I were the Bride to be, my fiance's reaction would determine if I would still marry him or not

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

I agree with some of the points. That being said. She should have kept her mouth shut, smiled, and let her stepson marry whomever he chose. Who the heck is she to send that email out. I think she is rude.

I bet the wedding never happens now and that is pretty sad. I hope the MIL feels really guilty. And I hope the DIL never speaks to the friend who sent it out again.

ETA: This line was waaaaaay out line!
"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."

Message edited 6/30/2011 9:11:21 PM.

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

Wow

While I don't disagree with some of what she is saying she is CLEARLY bitter, angry,and upset. I would need to hear another person talk about this weekend. For all we know she is blowing some of this out of proportion. Like laying in bed all morning....my mother is up at 6am and anything past 7:30 is sleeping in all day, and as far as food...while perhaps somebody else told her to help herself. This sounds like the MIL from HELLL and I would really take a good hard look at the family I was marrying into and make some decisions from there.

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

I once dated an Italian guy from a very, very Italian family and they thought it was rude if you didn't eat everything that they put out and take as much as you could possibly eat and then eat more! No need to ask for seconds (or thirds in their house) take and eat, that's the whole reason she spent the day in the kitchen, for everyone to enjoy!

Re: Future MIL's email goes viral

Sounds like some combination here. A future MIL with a whip in her hand and everybody must follow her rules. How to eat, when to eat, how much to eat. As well as when to get up. Poor girl...was probably starving all weekend.

Not everyone was raised with such schedule, manner. And maybe the DIL has no idea about the HOUSE RULES. Maybe some "prepping" should have been wise not to let her enter the wolf den without a warning.

Anyone getting up past 9am would have been seen as "lazy" in my house with my dad.