To think some people can be overly nice?

[spaintrotter]

My ex and his family have some close friends/neighbours who they lived next door to when growing up. They're very overly friendly when it comes to birthdays/Christmas etc and send lavish gifts and cards which is fine if that's what they want to do.

But there's something about them that comes across as really fake and like they want recognition for how nice they are. I've spoke to my ex about it (when we were still together) but he thinks the sun well and truly shines out of their arses.

We have no contact with MIL and FIL (their choice) and I've found out that one member of this family has been taking pictures of my dd at birthday parties etc and passing them onto MIL even though she refuses to come and see her.

This pisses me off and I can't help but think that it's all a front and they're actually reallt sly people covering their tracks with generous gifts etc.

AIBU?

Yup. My MIL is like this. Really nice in public, buys big gifts, posts everyone's birthday on Facebook with a gushing message about how wonderful they are, posts oodles of family photos with comments about how blessed she is.

Reality: she's an overbearing narcissist who controls her family through fear and guilt. Her children think they're all best friends but actually there's no trust there and they snipe about each other constantly behind each other's backs. The main reason they do everything together is that they're scared that if they don't go, the others will talk about them and their mother will be angry that they 'didn't make the effort'. MIL provides no support to her children at all; where my parents are always offering to babysit and help out, MIL insists on the DCs being brought to her house, where she then ignores them until it's time to go home.

But she comes across as lovely and people are always telling me how lucky I am to have such a great MIL and be part of such a special family.

Yes, and I dont trust them.

They're usually incredibly manipulative people who will cause you no end of grief. Many people don't spot it but the ones that do will be very nervous of them.

I know one and whenever I see them I'm thinking how lovely they are and I have to remind myself that it's all a performance and they're actually quite a nasty piece of work.

It kinda annoys me that only I can see through it and no one else can but I'm also sort of happy that I do know their true colours.

Yes I know what you mean. Sly and devious attention-seeking gushers.

You should congratulate yourself that your judgement is good enough to see through the shiny veneer. Like turds rolled in glitter.

There's 2 of us that know my one and see it, but only because the other person has first hand experience of it and I've witnessed it all from the sidelines. It is annoying that no-one else sees it but I congratulate myself on my good judgement!