First time poster, long time lurker. I’m sorry that this is so long, but if you get through it I’d be really grateful for any insights.
Short version: MIL has accused DS of hiding away chocolates in a box at her house. He says he didn’t do it, she says he is lying. What do we do to move forward?
My widowed MIL is a delight. Loving, friendly, helpful and generous. Adores our two DC (DD13 and DS11), her only GC. Treats me like another daughter (she has a DD, my lovely SIL).
DH was speaking to MIL on the phone one evening. She was clearly upset, so he asked her what the matter was. Eventually she said something was wrong, but she wanted to speak to us face to face, not on the phone. She didn’t want to spoil DS’s birthday (the following day) but said she’d come round while children at school. All we could get out of her was that it was to do with DS’s behaviour, which she’d just found out about the day before. We knew she hadn’t seen DS for a couple of weeks, so couldn’t imagine what about his behaviour she could have discovered in his absence.
Next day she came round, very distressed and tearful. She had found, pushed out of sight behind the small box of toys she still has for DS and DD at her house, a box that should have contained toy cars, stuffed full of chocolates. A couple of weeks previously, she had hosted DS, SIL and me for lunch. The adults prepared lunch, DS was playing with toys from the toybox. Clearly, she said, DS had taken the chocolates out of the dish on her sideboard and deliberately squirreled them away, carefully putting the cars that should have been in the box into another container so as to fool her. She was hurt and upset by this because it showed such deceit, premeditation and slyness, she said.
DH and I comforted her and were genuinely sad that she was in such a state, but considering the horrors we had been imagining, were a bit perplexed by such an extreme reaction. I suggested that since none of the chocolates appeared to have even left the house, how could she be so sure about DS’s motives? Perhaps he had been enjoying ‘sorting’ the chocolates (all the same sort from a selection box). No evidence of any chocolate consumption on his part (ie no wrappers found in her bin or ours). It seemed that she was determined to attribute the worst possible motives to him and not consider any possible alternative explanation.
We spoke to DS a few days later (after his birthday). I asked him (but in a light, chatty way) if he knew anything about how the chocolates got into the car box. Total incomprehension and bafflement. He says he doesn’t remember seeing the chocolates in the dish, and if he’d wanted one he would have asked as he 'knew he wouldn’t get into trouble for asking'. MIL would certainly have let him help himself if he’d asked, which we all know – there was no incentive to be so secretive about it (which is exactly why MIL found it so upsetting).
MIL insists that he’s lying and we are fools to believe him and will end up encouraging more underhand behaviour.
The chocolates were not bought until 13 September according to MIL, and DD hasn’t been to her house since then. It was the 16th when DS, SIL and I were there. Incidentally DS says he wasn’t playing with the cars that day, and both SIL and I agree that we didn’t see him playing with them (none of us remember the chocolates being there either, but SIL and I wouldn’t necessarily have noticed them anyway). DS does say that the last time he played with the cars (probably earlier in the summer when DD was with him) he couldn't find the car box and put them in the alternative container instead, but later found the car box and just put it away in the toy box empty.
It's such a trivial thing, and we’ve already questioned DS and DD about what they remember, and I don’t want to distress either of them by blowing it further out of proportion. But MIL is so upset. Is there a solution to the mystery that we're not seeing? And how do we all go forward?