Just remembering the time MIL approached us with a very generous gift. She asked to fully fund, new vehicle for us included, a cross country family roadtrip to a destination she knew we had always wanted to take our children to. Her terms were “you guys plan everything and I’ll just pay for it and enjoy 2 weeks on the road with you”. So we started planning and were very careful to be as frugal as possible with everything. The kids were involved in helping pick our travel routes and any fun stops we’d make along the way. We had a map up on the wall as ideas were solidified and they excitedly dreamed about it for months. About 5 months before the trip MIL purchased a van for us and put it in DH’s name. We were really floored by the generosity. When it came time to start booking hotels and things, MIL asked us to hold off for a bit because she decided she wanted to turn the trip into more of a family reunion for herself, stopping at every place along the way that contained an old relative she hadn’t seen since her own childhood. Dh told her we’d gladly drop her off at those places but its not much fun for little kids to sit and have tea for days on end with people they dont know, not when they’d been promised the adventure they’d always dreamed of. MIL got upset about that and continued to waffle on solidifying the plans. We were getting worried because there was only a month left before we were leaving. Thats when MIL took DH aside and “I just cant imagine being ok with spending two weeks with your wife. I’d be stuck in a van with her, trapped, and I’d be miserable!” For context, I’m literally 99% introverted. I’m quiet, non-confrontational, and a people pleaser much of the time. Dh asked if she was canceling the trip and she said she wasn’t sure. Then she added, “When you guys seemed so ungrateful for everything i tried to do for you, I decided not to save for it. So there’s no money.” DH asked how we seemed ungrateful. She said, “Well when I said I was funding it, I think that should have bought me some exclusive time spent with you to plan it. Its my money and I bought you with it. I was sure that entitled me to more phone calls with you, more visits, and more time spent alone with my son but that never transpired and now I dont want to give my money to ungrateful people. Maybe I should just give you guys the money so you can take the trip yourself. You never wanted me along anyways. All you do is take advantage of me and now you’re going to take the trip using my money and leave me behind and I get nothing that I wanted out of the deal.” DH said, “You literally told us to plan everything because you didn’t want to be involved in that part and said you’d just pay … we did exactly as you asked! You were purchasing a family vacation, not my exclusive time and devotion to you alone. I have a family, mom. I choose them. And for myself and my family I am rejecting your vacation offer. You dont get to hold it out like a carrot on a string to get your way and then demonize us when we never met any of your uncommunicated expectations. True gifts dont come with strings attached and I won’t be your puppet. Keep your money. You cant buy me with it.” She was livid and acted wounded to the core. Later she called and said she’d stopped payments on the van because she wasnt going to buy a van for ungrateful people and she was glad she wouldn’t have to spend two weeks on the road with me. Only then to turn on a dime and fully pay the van off and say keep it, no strings attached … just to try and prove she could give a gift. It was such a weird mess. Our poor kids managed their disappointment and we scrimped and saved for the next year and took them on this dream vacation ourselves a year later and it was truly awesome. And MIL was so upset we did it without her and gave her nothing to take credit for.
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And this is why even though my mom has air BnB houses we never stay at any of her homes anymore. She’d block it off for family gatherings and then dictate who slept where, what we could drink and how much, etc. I’m just not willing to have her treat me like I’m 18 anymore.
I’ve posted this before – They aren’t generous. They are putting money up so they can impose a future obligation and if you resist you’re uNgRaTeFuL. Be wary of accepting money in the future.
Good for you guys for standing up to her.
Mines been trying this in a smaller scale but is equally baffled we’re all saying no and it’s not working. But the thing is- trying to buy relationships shows, that’s all you’ve got. And yours played herself- she could have had this nice family time, but she got too wrapped up in her own BS and so, got nothing. Money can’t buy happiness? 🤷♀️
Sounds like a reason to go NC if I ever heard one
It sounds like it was a big secret test to see if money would make you organically pay attention to her more, and go against her stated wishes by giving her more than she said she wanted? Absolutely bizarre.
Honestly, it sounds like even she wasn’t sure what she wanted, and is too emotionally immature and insecure to even communicate about it.
Sell the van, get something else. Extra cost to get this icon of MIL’s bad acting out of your lives is worth it.
I’m sorry. She sounds like a truly awful person.
There is no such thing as a free lunch, or a free van/vacation. MIL is going to keep this over your head forever. Personally, Inwould had given the van back to MIL immediately. You and husband are going to regret keeping the van. Your MIL has this planned all along, and you and husband fell for it.
I’ve followed your previous posts, your MIL is quite the mean girl. I will ask, are you planning on getting a pedicure & wearing those fab heels 👠 before another meeting?
I don’t accept gifts from my own grandma for the same reason you should never accept a single thing from your MiL again. Make sure she has nothing to hold over your head but she’ll probably lie to everyone who listens anyway.
This is why I didn’t let my MIL and FIL buy us a house. I knew it would be something she used to control us. Plus she said she would have a room there. When we were younger she wrote us a check for 22k to pay off all our debt. It was a gift and we took it. I lost count of how many times she threw that in our face. Especially when she didn’t get her way. Then over ten years later she asked when we are going to start paying that money back. She got mad over something and decided it wasn’t a gift anymore.
My Dear OP, you and DH are a true Force to be Reckoned With!! Allowing your JNMIL to have the opportunity to Live with the Full Consequences of her Actions might not ever actually teach her anything about How to become a Better Human. Not for the long term, anyways. However, it has shown her that she cannot Purchase, Push, Pull nor Guilt you into doing as she wishes! This is Marvelous, and shows just how strong a family becomes when they have a United Front! ❤️
I’m so proud of you both and so relieved that he stood up to her.
My MIL was awesome for about 15 years, truly wonderful. Then she lost her freakin mind. We had just moved into a house so we were broke and needed to replace the roof. We were going to wait about 6 months to save up since it wasn’t urgent but MIL offered to let us borrow the $3k so we could get it out of the way and then we paid her back every penny within a few months. This went perfectly fine, no problems.
Cut to a few years later, she started lying to everyone about everything she could think of to try and triangulate everyone in her family to be against everyone else (we think its an attentionthing?). All of us realized what was going on and we all eventually went no contact. She had medical tests done to see if she had a stroke or dementia or something because of the personality change (she was almost 70 at this point) but she was diagnosed to just be an asshole.
Our last straw had been when she came over out of the blue and had a lil talk with us. She said that since she paid for our roof by herself (as in, she said we didn’t ever pay her back the $3k which we did), she DEMANDED that we cash in the $30,000 of equity that we had in the house and give all of it to her. Because she deserved it. We promptly showed her the copies of the checks where we paid her back in full and told her where to shove it. Never talked to her again.
What a roller coaster ride!
This is not a freebie. There are so many strings attached.
Argh! This is why I get anxiety when my mil sends gifts for my LO!
Even though we are NC, I worry she will try and hold all the gifts or money she’s spent over my child’s head when’s she’s older. But no one else thinks it’s a problem.
My Mil already tried to guilt trip DH, thinking that because she worked multiple jobs to put him through private school and he always had extravagant birthday parties as a child that, that meant she should have unlimited, unfiltered access to our toddler to do whatever she wants with them & it not be our business.
Im sure it was so difficult seeing the disappointment on your kids faces when you decided to cancel the trip because of MIl, but I love that your DH stood his ground and wasn’t willing to let his mother control your lives!
So glad you got to take the trip with your kids 🤩
This is precisely why I am against my wife taking money from my MIL. She feels entitled to it for all the trouble MIL has put her through in life, which… I can see. But those uncommunicated strings can be deadly. The poisoned gifts are almost worse than the outright abuse.
I cannot believe the nerve. She bought him???!!!
This attitude is why I will never accept money from my mother ever again. It’s a hard lesson to learn, thinking you can take someone at their word only to have them completely backstab you.
Please add paragraphs. The wall of text is too hard to read
Oh my good gravy. That’s so bad. Sounds like something my MIL would try 🫠 I’m sorry OP. Glad you guys were able to stand up for yourselves and still give the kiddos the fun road trip vacation
My mum once lent me $100 and wanted 2 daily 1 hour long phone calls a day because of it. I realized that she thought lending me money meant more access to me. I paid her completely back and stopped answering her calls for a while.
Literally going through this with my FIL. Talks about “wanting to help his kids”, “set his kids up for life”, “here have this, i dont want anything in return” and then months later throws it back in their face and tells them they wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if it wasn’t for his help. What an absolute prick to say that to their own kids.
I was about to feel so sad for your kids but I’m so glad you guys managed to do it without her and take the kids anyway. What a shitty thing to do. I hope in future your DH will remember what happened and be very wary about anything like that if it happens again. Gifts are never just gifts.
“It’s my money and I bought you with it.”
Said the quiet part out loud, didn’t she? Yikes.
It would have been very hard for me to not drop off the van in her driveway. Holding crap over my head like that…no way.