To not want to be repeatedly bulldozed into receiving gifts I have already said nicely that I do not want

[DontMentionThePrunes]

The backstory to this is that my MIL will NEVER, EVER take no for an answer, even if for a very good reason. She does not give up, never mind if it's an important thing or a completely trivial thing, she won't accept no.

She is obsessed with tulip bulbs. Last month she rang to ask if I would like some pots of tulip bulbs which would sit in the garden and flower in spring. Ordinarily I would say yes, thank you; but we are moving soon with luck, and so this year I would like one less thing to bother about etc. (Also, I just don't really care for them, and we have talked about that before. It's just a question of taste really. I haven't been rude about it but I have said I really don't love bulbs.)

So when she asked, I explained clearly that I didn't want extra pots in the garden this year because of the move.

DS visited her today and was not supposed to tell me but has spent the afternoon potting tulip bulbs as a present from him to me.

Before you answer, please consider that this has happened again, again, again, over and over: I say 'no thanks because X' and I find she has gone behind my back to make sure my response is disregarded. Also, even if you like tulips, that's not the point

AIBU to feel completely undermined, furious at not being allowed to say a polite 'no thank you, for X very good and clear reason' and doubly furious that she is using my son as a way around my very reasonable refusal?

she wants me to love the things she loves

this.

If only we could divert them onto things we do actually love. My MIL started out giving me thermal underwear and had saved her children's old vests, never mind their toys, for my DC. Now she just gives me money :)

And yet... I find I am saving my DC's old toys for my DGC not yet conceived. But only Lego, so that's OK, no? well, and the dolls house, and the hornby, and the sylvanians, and the beanie babies, and the finger puppets and the classic books and...

I was telling a friend about this today and she said "What IS IT that happens to these women?!" We wondered if it is an age thing.

Or were these mothers/MILs always like this? Mine has always been controlling but this sort of random, tulip-based crap has ramped up in the past few years.

tulips
jars of crab apple jelly
bookends
small coats
baby tights
cushions
cacti
bathroom frippery
soap
bathroom stool
margarine pots
inherited beds
hanging baskets
more tulips

It's never: fine wines, Georgian silver, books by interesting authors, perfect mugs, chocolate... Why do they fixate on the perfectly mundane?!

YABU on crabapple jelly, I'll have yours. A friend dropped some round last night, bless him.

Bathroom frippery, if sufficiently expensive, would also be fine. Think Santa Maria Novella, not Tesco.

Cheap chocolate, OTOH,

But I think its because they dont know us well enough as people, that we get given generics. Our DH need to talk about us more as people to their DMs. It is a nightmare getting DSs to talk about their GFs as if they are humans. I find it really hard to buy a nice Xmas present for my DS's GF as he wont discuss her enough for me to know.

You're welcome to the crab apple jelly. I have three years' worth in the fridge and she told me the other day that the harvest this year will be extraordinary.

I quite like the stuff but how anyone can use more than a tablespoonful a year is beyond me.

DD is only 4 months but MIL will not stop buying toys for her. We have a tiny house and nowhere to put them. I have learnt that sometimes I can direct this towards things we actually want, "I say, wouldn't it be great to get a baby gym..." [hint hint] but rumour has it she's bought a giant toy giraffe for Christmas, big enough for DD to "ride" on. I am not supposed to know. Argh!

My MIL is no way near as bad as yours OP or some of the classic stories of bookends or donating to the charity shop the MiL works in (take the hint!!!) but she used to offload her mouldy on the turn fruit because I used to make a lot of smoothies. It doesn't matter if it's over ripe but mouldy no thanks! Although TBF she's just regifted me a bunch of flowers she got given because she is going on holiday and they'll die while she's away. They're very nice so can't complain. It's not all bad. But it sounds like with the OP she just doesn't understand no. And the other poster's story about 'would you like a bathroom stool?' No no no. And yet at Christmas you're expected to change your mind? You tell my MIL something once and she logs it forever. I told her once I think Jack Whitehall is funny. She now texts me about every programme he's in. He's been quite prolific of late unfortunately

MILs are sometimes the loveliest and sometimes the densest creatures in the planet.

My DM does this slightly, and I do it a bit myself, but the motivation is not control, it's more hating to throw out/give away something that has some use in it (and much preferring it to go to family/friends rather than strangers).

But in our case it's NOT a control thing, just a wastage thing (e.g. I gave lovely cushion covers that no longer matched my redecorated sitting room to a mate of mine. She put them on the cushions in her DS's playroom, and she was a bit loath to show me in case I thought she wasn't respecting the gift - I was just delighted they were being used!)

Has she any sort of a shed/garage that you could secrete the unwanted gifts in while she was out? Build up a good stock of them, then when she discovers them, say "Oh, you must have got duplicates, perhaps you should talk to the doctor about your memory?"

my MIL is lovely, sweet, kind, patient and generous but still drives me insane. she is not bullying or calculating like some of the MILS here, but gah, I feel like a right ungrateful cow sometimes.

She planted tulips all over the garden with DDs - pink ones, I hate pink tulips, and anyway, if she wanted to gift us tulips surely she could have asked about the colour we would like and where we would like them planted?

Booked a holiday for us all to go on with her - very generous - but without checking the date with us first!

She asked what DD aged 2 would like for xmas, I told her the 2 things we thought DD would really really like and asked her if she wanted to go look at them in ELC, and decide which one she wanted to get (we would get the other ) she bought BOTH so not only did DDs 2 favourite gfts come from MIL and not us, but we had to think of something else to get her, and it also hurt me that our gift was cheaper, even though I know MIL was just spoiling DD as she had never been able to afford to spoil her own kids.

I am dreading being a MIL, its a bloomin minefield!!"

But WHY do you think it's a minefield? Just don't do things that people have asked you not to do! The MiLs above have all blatantly disregarded the feelings and preferences of other people. Don't do that!

no, I wont do that, obviously, I promise - it's all the other stuff. So many examples on here!

Comes round too often/not enough
Never offer to help/interferes all the time
Expects to be catered for/takes over my kitchen uninvited
Wants to take over my baby as if its hers/never offers any help or guidance and am struggling with new baby

getting it right is a worry - damned if you do and damned if you don't!

Oh god I have had an email about...tulips
It is a grooming email, so nothing actually being asked of me. Just that it's a good time to put tulips in round about now and I can still get them in garden centres (she ordered hers back in the summer of course).

So dontmention what are you going to respond with?

I would go for something like.....

Thanks MIL, but as I have mentioned before, I won't be planting any tulips. I know you really like them, but they are not for me and my garden.

Short and sweet

If she likes gunnera and not umbrella plants she sounds like a bit of a garden snob (I like both she said quickly). You could have fun giving her things she really doesn't like garden-wise. Like a pot full of red salvias perhaps, or many things out of the Thomson & Morgan catalogue - it specialises is very Bright new plants, often in clashing colours ( not all: some things are lovely)

YANBU.

You are all my people!

My own MIL is the same. Arrives at each visit laden with pots of food, milk, bread, vegetables.... and hanging baskets, and plants, and books and toys and stuff and more stuff.

She's starting to remind me of Santa as each time she arrives the kids end up with about 6 new books and about 2 outfits each.

I vote for the houseplants. The more tacky and/or complicated to look after the better. Get her a load of poinsettias for Christmas and be sure to make a big deal of handing over a pile of sheets printed off the internet with instructions of how to make them come up with the red bracts or whatever they're called on the dot of Christmas next year (have never done it myself - apparently if they get 5 minutes of light at the wrong moment it's all over- which is why hardly anyone bothers and just turfs them after Christmas). Then you can turn up next year and get all disappointed if they aren't looking great. Or houseplants that attract loads of aphids.

I am currently in the middle of a battle with my DM over my dining room table.

It was once my Grandparent's dining room table. It is solid oak and I love it. My mother hates it because she and my DF (now divorced) used to argue around it.

EVERY time she comes to stay she offers to buy me a new dining room table. I politely decline. She says how much she hates the one we have. i tell her I understand but it is my link to my grandparents and I love it very much. I explain that I have totally different memories of meals at that table to her. I point out that she is at my house a few weekends of the year.

She does the catsbum face.....

Then she comes to stay again and offers to buy us a new dining room table.........

Is there a plant that you do like?

I'd reply as has been suggested - short and sweet 'that's very kind of you mil but don't you remember - as we've already discussed several times, I don't buy tulips as I REALLY dont like them - whether they're planted in my garden or in pots. Now, if you'd said [insert favourite plant name] that would be of interest! But tulips - once again I have to say no thank you'.

Good luck!

Not quite in the same league, but I have a MIL who leaves things in our house by stealth if she asks if we want them and we say no. This mostly happens with towels and bed linen - all hers but now unwanted. I've found random beige towels and lurid pink pillowcases recently.....

Conversely, my DM steals back stuff she's given us that she's decided we aren't using and wants herself. I still miss a nice wooden handled pallet knife...

Since my MIL handed back a present we had bought her saying that she couldn't use it (fair enough), I have no qualms whatsoever about regifting or charity shopping anything she gives me that I don't like!

Needles we must share a mum!

Prunes I can't believe she is emailing you about tulips!!

This is a brilliant thread and I had no idea how widespread this behaviour is. and how insane

By the way beast you need to send those toys on their way. They need to be played with, not stored away for 30 years. Believe me. Haven't you seen Toy Story!?

I haven't replied yet. I have a lot on atm and aside from posting on here every now and again, I'm trying not to devote too much brain to it as my brain is needed elsewhere

I'm thinking that before Christmas I need to get ds doing some seriously naff macrame. Because who wouldn't love a spider plant in a macrame plant holder made by a kid? It would need to have pride of place!

(NB ds's other grandparents actually would love that and more power to them.)

With my mil it's food.

'Would you like a coffee?'
'No I'm fine thanks'
'What about a yoghurt?'
'No that's fine'
'How about....?'.

Etc. Until she's offered me the contents of her fridge. In the end i'm grinning through gritted teeth & feel like shouting 'fine just give me the bloody biscuits'!. & I eat something I don't want just to shut her up.

Then when we leave the whole thing starts again!

'Would you like to take.....with you?'
'No that's fine we have some at home'
'Oh, so would you like to take....?'

etc etc

Oh god!!!!!!

My (thankfully) now ex MIL was prone to giving me and ex H godawful tat for the house. I could deal with the embroidered tissue box covers, they could be hidden out of sight upstairs, but sometimes it was worse. I remember when we'd just had our kitchen done, in a modern style I should add, she presented us with this horrifically twee country cottage style utensil holder thing for display on the wall. It was hideous, totally her taste not ours, but ex H would rather have hacked his own balls off with a rusty knife than ever potentially upset his DM so the bloody thing had to go on the wall (I made sure it was in the most discrete place possible). She meant well I know, but I still come out in hives thinking about some of the things she foisted on us.

Prunes before you reply to the email, open a new email account and name it IHateTulips

Op I can sympathise with the PIL surprise forced gifts. DH and I have a similar problem with MIL and FIL. Really frustrating. Below are some examples:

• moved into new property in December 2012 and MIL/FIL had decided to buy us a surprise antic dinning room table and chairs spent a fortune from what we know. Their intention was to have it delivered on the day we moved in. . Good thing we found out before moving. DH told them they had to take it back because we had no idea how we wanted to decorate the dinning room and taking it would then determine how we decorated in the future.

• we need a breakfast table in the kitchen and MIL/FIL knew we were looking for one. They had again spent a fortune on a kitchen table which they couldn't then use long story. They kindly offered it to us but it wasn't right and we turned it down and it felt really awkward but it just wasn't right for us. Didn't go down well with MIL/FIL

• we have been decorating the necessary and they knew this had been in the pipeline for a long time. So rather than speak to us about getting the baby something for the necessary they decide to wait until after we had purchased everything then they spring yet another surprise on us. But now we don't know if their surprise gift will fit in the room. So had to tell them we don't know if we can take it and they need to wait till the room has been done to see if their gift fits. Again didn't go down well.

I could go on and the problem is a lot of their surprises aren't cheap so its awful when we decline. I just wish they would speak to us first before just buying stuff and expecting us to take t. At least they wouldn't keep wasting money and we wouldn't keep feeling awful.

Please don't get me wrong I like my MIL and FIL, but I just wish they would respect our privacy and speak to us before going off and buying stuff that we may not need and/or want. The other issue I have is MIL is very opinionated and can be interfering so I tend to keep her at a comfortable arms distance. This is proving to be difficult as she is now retired and I am due with her first GD end of the year. Dreading the fact she will probably want to spend more time with me than I will be comfortable with.

Sorry for ranting on your thread Op but I started and couldn't stop..

Your MIL does sound a bit obsessed with tulips. I love tulips, but I don't keep going on about them!