Cut off MIL sent a storybook about bereavement but no one has died

[JedwardHair]

As title. MIL’s latest weapon is to send passive aggressive crap through the post because she is blocked on every other media.

The latest is a book for DC about a dead grandfather, but DH’s father is alive and as far as we know, well. He’s on Facebook looking fine (and drunk) quite often.

I think DH is supposed to panic and ring. I think DC are supposed to cry for their grandfather they do not remember. They’ve been cut off for years. Book is in the bin.

That's where it belongs. No doubt if he had really died the news would have filtered through some way. Would you even go to the funeral if either of them died? Don't react, don't even mention it to anyone in the wider family so she won't even know it was delivered.

Send one back about a wicked witch....

send one back about a wicked witch

Hilarious.

Head over to stately homers OP, this sounds like a very widely practiced tactic amongst the parents there.

You did the best thing, binned it, and not talked about it. Treat it as a non-entity. It was designed to cause distress and reaction, give none.

Wow this sounds extreme

Head over to stately homers OP, this sounds like a very widely practiced tactic amongst the parents there.

Gosh thanks I will

My cut off mother used to send me lengthy letters about her “cancer” investigations. She’s never had cancer in her life. Fucking nasty tactic trying to get me to panic and get back in touch.

DH may go to a funeral, don’t know. We have never discussed it. I wouldn’t of course.

We have no contact with DH’s family at all. MIL poisoned the well there. I don’t think DH cares as he’s never bothered to reach out to them after MIL told us she’d tell them to cut us off. I think he knew it was futile.

I do think one of his siblings would tell us if someone died though. Or perhaps not 🤷🏻‍♀️

There have been weddings and babies born in the years since we were in touch and no one has told us. It’s all put on Facebook though (public pages, I can see with a club profile I have, we’re not Facebook friends or anything) which I found out when I looked to see if FIL was dead. Haven’t bothered telling DH though.

I’ve often thought about that, not meaning yourself op but if someone is nc with the family do they still stand in line looking for a handout when that family member dies?? In Scotland I don’t think you can disinherit children? How can anyone take money if they haven’t been in touch for however many years?

How can anyone take money if they haven’t been in touch for however many years?

Dunno, sounds like there’s not much choice? Bit like in France, you have to jump through lots of hoops to stop children inheriting.

Could be just one out of a set of books and she hasn't bothered to look.

I remember when the PTA did Santa and bought sets of books from the book people for Santa to give out. My dc, and roughly one in eight children, got one called something like "Ben's grandad".
Started off all lovely with them doing woodwork together... and then Ben's Grandad died and it was clearly meant as a help book for a child who'd lost a grandparent..

That went down somewhat badly with many parents.

About a year after we cut off the in-laws, my husbands batshit sister phoned him up, breathless, asking him how to do CPR. He asked her why and she just said ‘dad’. Having been through this kind of bullshit so many times before he told her she knew full well how to do CPR given she was a nurse and if his dad really did need CPR then she’d be better getting off the phone and administering it. Twenty minutes later we saw FIL waking his dog, happy as Larry.