MIL is attempting to punish us for moving

My husband got promoted and relocated in January, and my MIL hasn’t been handling it very well. We used to see her at least once a week, but now we live in a completely different time zone. It’s been hard on the kiddos too, so we’ve been FaceTiming on Sundays.

After an incident at the school my daughter would be attending next year, DH and I started talking about going private instead. It was a really difficult conversation especially since his entire raise would basically be used to cover tuition, and we have other kiddos.

So we looped in his mom. Together we told her about the incident, the community’s reaction, and the response from the school and school board. Later, DH reached out to her privately and asked if she thought we should go private and if she would be able to help.

You guys, she was so supportive! Said her grandbabies deserved the best, she would help, how proud she was of DH for doing what was best for the kiddos, blah blah blah.

And yes, he shared the cost of tuition and explained the financial situation. Probably TMI on the last part, but he’s always been super open with her. She says she’s writing a check and putting it in the mail “today,” but he told her to wait because we haven’t even talked to kiddo about it!

Talk to kiddo, she’s up for it. She knows other kids who go there and one of her besties is transferring next year too. So we tell MIL that it’s a go and start the application process.

So imagine our surprise when we get the check in the mail today and it’s for… $200.

That’s it. That doesn’t even cover the $500 enrollment deposit. We were both just like, wtf? Like, $200 is $200, but did she forget a 0? Or did she get confused…?

DH calls her and thanks her for the check and confirms that she meant to write it for $200? And she says “yes!”

She’s decided that the grandbabies are getting $200 from her a year and she can’t give more to Oldest Daughter because it wouldn’t be fair?

Which… okay… but that wasn’t the impression we got from the previous conversations! Like, even before this situation she sending $500 for their college funds for every major holiday plus a “big ticket” item for Christmas and birthdays. We wouldn’t have asked for her help if we thought we would be putting her in a difficult financial situation!

DH talked to his sister and she confirms MIL is not having financial issues, hasn’t been having health issues, but….

She’s been cursing our names since we moved and this is probably punishment.

DH is devastated because he’s always been a mama’s boy. I’m shocked because she’s always been mildly rude to me, but I never expected her to do something like this to our kiddos.

It does feel like she’s trying to punish us for moving, but the jokes on her because she doesn’t know it, but we have the opportunity to move back next year and if she thinks we are going to do it or have a close relationship with her after this stunt she’s crazy.

Ugh. Thanks for listening.