Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

What a hilarious email. Its not just desi MILs then who lose it. Its a universal issue. One email to encompass lots of threads in life1! LOL

Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law’s Manners Guide

A bride-to-be has been given a very public etiquette lesson after an email from her future mother-in-law, attacking her “uncouthness”, went viral over the internet.

Carolyn Bourne, 60, wrote the message after her stepson Freddie took Heidi Withers to meet his family in Devon - and made it clear they had not got off on the right foot.

Mrs Bourne slammed the 29-year-old’s “lack of grace” and branded her “an ideal candidate for the Ladette to Lady television series”.

The situation got out of hand when a stunned Miss Withers, a PA, forwarded the stern email to some of her friends who, astonished by the tone, decided to forward it on.

The email has since gone viral on the internet, reaching tens of thousands of readers.

Mrs Bourne said Miss Withers’ behaviour had been so rude it had left the family dog, Bomber, traumatised, depressed and anxious.

And in a stinging pay-off, she remarked: “One could be accused of thinking that Heidi Withers must be patting herself on the back for having caught a most eligible young man. I pity Freddie.”

Mrs Bourne, who runs Whetman Pinks nursery near Dawlish in Devon, has refused to comment.

: This is the full email from Mrs Bourne to Miss Withers:

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.

Your behaviour on your visit to Devon during April was staggering in its uncouthness and lack of grace.

Unfortunately, this was not the first example of bad manners I have experienced from you.

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. You would be an ideal candidate for the Ladette to Lady television series.

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.

I have no idea whether you wrote to thank [your future sister-in-law] for the weekend but you should have hand-written a card to her.

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

[Your future sister-in-law] has quite the most exquisite manners of anyone I have ever come across. You would do well to follow her example.

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

It is tragic that you have diabetes. However, you aren’t the only young person in the world who is a diabetic. I know quite a few young people who have this condition, one of whom is getting married in June. I have never heard her discuss her condition. She quietly gets on with it. She doesn’t like being diabetic. Who would? You do not need to regale everyone with the details of your condition or use it as an excuse to draw attention to yourself. It is vulgar.

As a diabetic of long standing you must be acutely aware of the need to prepare yourself for extraordinary eventualities, the walk to Mothecombe beach being an example. You are experienced enough to have prepared yourself appropriately.

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.

One could be accused of thinking that Heidi Withers must be patting herself on the back for having caught a most eligible young man. I pity Freddie.


some real gems in there :smiley:

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

Most of it makes a lot of sense, some (like getting married in a castle) is more of a cultural and generational difference, I think.

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

gotta agree with pretty much all of it.....

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

LOL I read it to my mum, she's like 'these are all our values, get used to it' LOLOL.

I agree with the MIL, the to be DIL sounds like a turd.

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

I don't think the writer "lost it", she simply chose to let her future DIL know her feeling as opposed to being passive aggressive about it, an I don't disagree with most of her comments.

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

Lol!!!!!! A hand written card to say thankyou?!

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law’s Manners Guide

**The MIL sounds like a right old dragon…abhi tho shaadi bhi nahi hui :hehe: !!!

If you re-read the whole letter from the point of view of a DIL you may realize how trivial things have been dramatised by the MIL and twisted into looking as unseemly as possible…

e.g She says

This was most likely a situation where the DIL being a diabetic politely refused a helping of English Pudding and the MIL bein the MIL took offence rather than understand that the DIL’s condition prohibits it…again clearly the DIL explained the reason for refusal of food but AGAIN it has been trivialized by the MIL as nothing extra-ordinary…

Anyhoo…that’s just my observation …there are always TWO Sides to every story ! :chai:**

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

Although MIL is saying the right things , but she does not have grace in her mannerisms either , she is too blunt that is why she failed to deliver the right message and this email went viral. If MIL had followed her own advice and would not be so blunt then this email would not go viral.
Any advice will fall flat if tact and diplomacy is not used while delivering it.

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

Ermmmm nobody else thought this was kinda messed up? Just me? Okay.[/lazy hungry materialistic]

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide


I agree. I am pretty sure this is fake.

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide


What's messed up about this?

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

I was commenting on whoever said these are ini line with desi values:

-I have never heard that you have to be asked or you have to ask permission to take a second helping.......maybe i've been around too many people who encourage it or are just not stingy. and she probably did have to take a second helping because she "stated" she didn't have enough the first time.

-again I don't know any host who would make their guest wake up before/the same time they did. and she was a guest in their home.

Is it her place to give tanay on why her parents can't contribute as much money to the wedding?!

Not to mention what sheyn pointed out, perhaps the girl declined an offer of sweets and explained why and that's why the MIL made her two points (about not declaring what you do and do not eat, and going on and on about being diabetic.)

She's just being a drama queen, most of these things can be lacking manners but it's hardly anything to get depressed or traumatized over.

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

[QUOTE]
You do not take additional helpings without being invited to by your host.
[/QUOTE]

I found this part really strange. I would NEVER consider it bad manners if my guests took additional helpings without waiting for me to invite them to do so. If I prepared the food for them to enjoy, I want them to enjoy; not sit and eat like birds, all worried about looking proper. That point really makes it seem like she was just looking for whatever faults she could pull out and add to the list, because otherwise why would someone be so upset about something like that

QUOTE
[/QUOTE]

That part just made her look cheap. There could be a hundred and one reasons why the parents cannot contribute

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

I don't disagree with her....I do think if you have children then you should slowly save up for their weddings, but if for whatever reason if the parents didn't save up or aren't able to contributs she should plan a wedding that she and her fiance can afford.

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

w.e.i.r.d

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

Why are you calling Ramsha weird ?

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

Mirchi, I said that in anticipation of you.

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law’s Manners Guide

:smiley: preemptive strike ?
I recommend a ban for insulting a mod in anticipation. :snooty:
Someone please give her 500 infarction points and a permanent ban from GS. :silly:

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law's Manners Guide

she needs doggie.. not dIL...

Re: Bourne Ultimatum: Mum-In-Law’s Manners Guide

How is this even funny?! :khums:

The mil makes some good points but … I don’t see anything wrong with the guests taking additional helpings. Infact if anything is wrong in this its the fact that the host didnt offer them more, Now THAT is cheap. Yes, the mil’s tone is quite stern but the dil didnt help it much by forwarding such a personal email to her friends.

p.s she must be british :D.