MIL has a problem with gifts, which makes family gatherings - birthdays, Christmas, weddings etc - increasingly hard. To give you some background: when dh and I met 10 years ago she invited us for Christmas dinner, so off I go choosing stuff I think she'll like and enter her home with dh (then dp) and 2 gifts. She looks from one package to the other, standing in her kitchen doorway cos that's where she was when we arrived, then back again, her face slowly going puce, and then hands clenched she shouts 'No! I give the presents! You don't give the presents - I GIVE THE PRESENTS!!! I might have walked in all smiley saying 'Merry Christmas', but apart from that, that was the entire conversation. Then about 6 years ago we were invited to dh's cousins for Christmas, dh, MIL and I, and MIL insisted that they didn't do presents, gifts were for children and they would be utterly embarrassed if we got them anything, so of course we didn't, they'd got us wine all gift wrapped and we were totally embarrassed. To make up for it I got them a little round rug as they were worried about computer chair ruining new wooden flooring. They were visiting MIL and dh and I were to join them after work, well we did but they'd already gone, not sure why as they usually stayed til 7pm and we arrived 4pm. 'What's that' MIL asks of rolled up rug in a bag so stupidly, stupidly I takes it out and shows her and she says 'I'll have it!' and grabs it off me so greedily that I'm knocked off balance a bit. And of course like a mug I just let her. When their dd was 2 and 3 years old, she said they didn't want anything because they were too busy to have a birthday party - they had birthday parties - and that besides she was sending a gift acrd 'from all of us'. When another of dh's cousins had cancer and asked for donations to cancer research she went nuts saying we couldn't donate because 'you don't ask for money, that's disgusting', but no we couldn't send her a nice Hermes scarf because she'd already sent a bunch of flowers from all of us. Then at some point she said to dh, about him sending the nieces of another, and closest cousin, birthday money every year 'why you give for them the money, you're making a fool of yourself. Do you know how much more than you they earn?' And dh completely assumed that this must have come from his cousin and that he had instigated it. Otherwise why would his dear old Mum be saying this? Cousin had no idea, whole family still p'd off and we had no idea till little comments such as 'oh the girls are so grateful for whatever they receive, no matter how small' last Christmas when we were over, we hadn't really realised until last year. So when dh clocked that actually his Mother was pulling the wool over his eyes as well, he was a bit gutted. You may have noticed from the above sentence that dh's Mum is foreign although dh was brought up here, so it's very easy for her to say they do things differently and for us to believe. But it's got to the point where we just don't want to do family occasions at all anymore. Obviously MIL hates me tremendously for stealing her precious one and only child, but it's pretty much impossible to gloss all this over.
Big family wedding this year of one of the nieces his Mum got him to stop sending birthday money to, we've agreed how much to send but dh is vehement he's not sending anything just yet and continually says he doesn't know what will happen before then. Birthday of other cousins daughter month before. Birthday of our daughter month after. We've agreed it would be best not to do birthdays anymore but don't know how to broach this. Even last year when the other cousins 2nd daughter had her 1st birthday she was telling me not to get them anything because she'd got a gift card but I said I'd got her stuff already, and I got them loads of stuff for Christmas but the damage is done.
How do we just bail out forever?
Gonna hit create conversation button before I can chicken out posting (again)