I hate (former) FIL giving my daughter gifts

[user1489260705]

Widowed Single Dad to 10 year old daughter.

Basically, former FIL gives my daughter 3 or 4 gifts every time he sees her and it winds me up.
Last time I got very annoyed about it and it upset family that I was annoyed - AIBU or is this a battle I need to fight?
I feel 1 small gift maximum would be a good compromise

Thanks in advance for advice

It sounds like it's not the gifts per se, but the fact that you feel there is an agenda behind the gifts which you are not comfortable with and perhaps not sure what the agenda even is. Do you have any contact with him where you could try and raise the subject? Or could you ask the other grandparents to have a word with him? How did they feel about their gift being hijacked?

YANBU at all. This is ridiculous.
I'm sorry for all of your loss. But your daughter can't be spoilt for the rest of her life because she lost her mother. She still needs to be raised with boundaries. And why should you have to live with mounds of crap?
I'd send one firm message.
That he will either send one small gift or none at all.
If he can't respect this simple request then you will have to rethink the current argument.

*arrangement.

I get that it is annoying - my mother was a bit like that too. However I think when it came down to it, her ridiculously disproportionate "generosity" had a few reasons....

1. to buy affection/compete to be the "best" grandparent/adult in my kids' lives.
2. leverage for future guilt trips/emotional blackmail/control
3. to try to make up (or gloss over) for own bad parenting with own kids
4. also stemmed from an unacknowledged fear that we would disappear from her life completely Sad, but true. While it's annoying and weird, it is probable that he can see you moving on eventually and moving on with your life and phasing him out of yours and your daughter's lives. This could be his desperate way of trying to ensure that he's "entitled" to see her if you do.

Ask your FIL if when your daughter opens the door he wants her to look at his face or his hands? Because if he continues to bring gifts everytime he sees her she'll come to expect it. How will he handle it if she throws a wobbly should he not bring something one day?

I'm sorry about your wife but he's also lost a daughter. Maybe he's a control freak but your DD is old enough to explain to her that gifts don't have power over her. You parents responsibility to say no thanks, put it in a bank account for her

I think you should let it go. You clearly resent him but he is a man who has lost his daughter. Try to separate how he has been to you and who he is to your child and what he has also been through. He just wants to buy his granddaughter some presents. Who cares what his motives are. Just let him get on with it. It's important that your daughter has a good relationship with her mums family.

Sorry for your loss.

He is 'permitted' to visit at your parents once per month. Is that purely because you don't like him OP? Whether this is your way of controlling a situation for petty reasons influences my answer. ie. whether you are 'making him pay' for your perceived mistreatment by him.

If that is the case then yeah, yabu. He lost a daughter and you heavily control his access to his gd. Maybe it's his way of being a bigger part of her life, of being connected in a way that he can. Of course it's not the 'right' way but with what you have said, I feel sorry for him and he's NEVER going to win with you.

YABVU and coming across as being a bit callous towards him whether you realise it or not but grief affects people in all sorts of ways and you've all had a very rough time. Do you not realise how spiteful it looks to call him your former FIL?

It sounds like yourself and himself have similar personalities as you accuse him of being controlling but you're coming across just as controlling too. I'm not surprised the family were upset over you getting angry about the presents.

How often do your own parents see your daughter? If it's more often than once a month then he probably feels he needs to spoil his granddaughter to make up for having less visits with her.

Most grandparents love to spoil their grandchildren anyway, your FIL has lost his daughter so it's all the more understandable that he wants to spoil her. Why deny him the pleasure of spoiling her with gifts?

You could offer a compromise by suggesting experiences instead of it always being gifts so he takes her out somewhere be it the cinema, park, somewhere nice to eat etc as it will be the experiences of days out etc that will create longer lasting memories than most of the gifts.

If that doesn't work then it might be an idea to say you've no other option left but to bring in a rule that for each gift that comes into the house another (previous) gift must go to make room for the replacement as there isn't room to store everything.

I'm so sorry your wife died. I can't imagine how difficult things must still be. Your fil is still your fil (unless there's something you've not said) your daughter is part of his daughter and giving gifts may well be a way of trying to compensate for his loss, lots of people show their love by giving materialistic things. Has he alway done it? How often? If it's frequently rather than a few times a year perhaps you could gently explain something along the lines of your daughter loving the gifts but really one is enough she just loves to see you and spend time with you. My inlaws give my three loads of gifts for their birthdays which I dislike as I feel my own gifts pale into insignificance and I don't want them to expect lots... but despite the conversations it still happens and I've reluctantly accepted it's a way of them showing their affection

So am I correct in assuming that you have little or no contact with him? Would he even listen to you if you asked him to stop or scale it back?

And excluding Xmas and her birthday (when 'big' presents should be OK) exactly how 'big' are these presents? There's 'big' (an iPhone, iPad, Xbox, etc) and there's 'big' (video games, certain dolls, 'brand' clothing, jewelry). How exactly do you feel these gifts are hurting your daughter? Not the others in her life who cannot afford or choose not to shower her with gifts and may feel bad about him doing it, but how it affects her. And not that it makes you feel resentful. It's not about you, really, it's about your daughter.

Did your late wife (my condolences by the way) also feel that her father treated you unfairly?

If he really is a difficult man, you will only have the option of telling him to back off on the gifts or you will have to cut off contact. That's going to hurt your daughter and may result in much unpleasantness for you, including legal threats. Is it worth that?

No I don't think YABU. Yes it's sad and yes he's trying to overcompensate but 3/4 ever increasingly bigger / expensive presents a month is excessive.

Grief doesn't give someone the right to do as they please against someone else's wishes forever more

The relationship with him must be very bad if you refer to him as your former FIL (technically he is not, he is still your FIL) and if your DD has to see him via a contact centre.

Without knowing too much of the backstory I think YAB a little bit U. I understand it's difficult for you and you still feel he's trying to undermine you, but I don't think he is. He lost his precious daughter and your daughter is probably especially precious to him as a result. He only gets to see her once a month in circumstances that are probably a bit tense and awkward which is a shame. I understand that you don't want a relationship with him, but does his contact with your DD have to be via a contact centre? Is he not free to be alone with your DD, take her out for the day or back to his house, and if not, why not? I think showering her with gifts is the only way he feels he can show her what she means to him as they don't get to have a 'normal' relaxed relationship doing normal things. I imagine that hurts him greatly.

Would it be possible to consider changing the conditions of access? And/or tactfully suggest that as she doesn't need that many material gifts and you don't want her to become spoilt, could he look at setting up a savings account for her and put regular money into that instead? For things like driving lessons, holiday spending money, that sort of thing?

YADNBU. It's annoying. And gives the wrong message to your daughter. It doesn't matter if he is your daughter's grandfather...You are her father and you don't want her getting accustomed to bring showered with gifts on a monthly basis.
You are her dad and don't want to parent her that way. It has got nothing to do with him losing his daughter etc that's no excuse.
Even if you didn't have a difficult relationship with him, I assume this would still be an issue..?
Where do the visits take place..? His home? Your parents home? A neutral place? If she visits his home, an option may be..the gifts can be kept at his and she plays with/uses them there. If she doesn't go to his house, then you may have to be firm and get him to restrict gifts to Birthdays, Christmas/Easter (if you celebrate those), special achievements etc
But it's really up to you how you want to handle it. You are not being unreasonable.

I think it is odd and cold and very insular of you that you refer to your own parents as the other grandparents rather than your parents. Very weird and emotionally remote terminology. Also be careful not to spoil the relationship between your daughter and her grandfather regardless of how you feel about him.

When you say other grandparents do you mean your parents or do you mean MIL has remarried so she and her OH are the other set?

Yabvu

It is very odd that you refer to your own parents as the other grandparents

She's lost her mum for crying out loud. Let her have the presents.

I'm going to go against the grain here. My uncle died when my cousin was 4 and she continued to see her dad's family every fortnight (my aunt used to drive to theirs every other weekend and spend the whole day there). My cousin's grandma used to buy her presents ever time she saw her. And sweets. Birthdays and Christmas she used to spend an absolute fortune - anything my cousin asked for she got.

It totally undermined my aunt who was a lone parent and therefore didn't have a huge income to blow on presents. Plus my cousin knew that she could get anything she wanted by asking her grandmother. When my aunt challenged it there was lots of "But she's my only grandchild, I'm allowed to spoil her. And if her dad were here he'd want me to look after her. I'm a bereaved mother, can't I have some joy in my life etc etc." So she just let her get in with it.

My cousin grew up massively spoilt and entitled and got into all sorts of trouble and her grandmother just bailed her out every time. She paid debts, funded a drug habit the list is pretty much endless.

So whilst it all seems quite innocent now I think the OP is right to be concerned. It sets up a pattern of behaviour and could undermine his relationship with his DC in the future.

From what you have said, it sounds like a clash of personalities, you sound very controlling too. I think he is afraid of loosing her, it does look likely with the way you are conducting yourself. Think for a moment, if it happened to you.

From your update i still dont think YABU. He tries to buy the gifts given from other grandparents. That is strange.

Last year, the other grandparents bought my daughter a gift - FIL insisted on giving them the money for their gift - is that odd?

It's very odd if they took it!

Grandparents love to spoil their grandchildren but I can see it could feel like competitive spending and you might be uneasy she will start to expect a gift every time she sees her Granddad.

I think it was the right thing to do letting him see your DD in spite of frostiness between the two of you. To have him then disregard your request must feel like a slap in the face. But DD is 10 and is forming her own opinions. She will soon speak up if she tires of seeing him.

As long as she appreciates the company of other relatives and sees that time/ thoughtfulness is as valuable a gift as material goodies then she will know what's important.
Better to see what he gives her openly than drive him to form some secret alliance.

(I read 'other grandparents' and first thought of OP's own parents but like Batteriesallgone says, perhaps OP's late wife's parents had separated and there's an extra grandparent figure here and there?).

I get where you're coming from. My MIL brings multiple gifts for DD1 whenever we see them, and it annoys me as I find it unnecessary. I don't want DD expecting presents all the time, or to cause difficulty for my parents who don't bring gifts every visit. I assume the same will happen with DDD2, but she's only 11 days old so it hasn't yet.
It's difficult to say anything without causing upset though, as you appear ungrateful. It seems you already have a strained relationship so I don't know how best to overcome the issue.

Thanks everyone for your comments, they have been very helpful

It is hard to know if I am being unreasonable when FIL throws tantrums if I don't jump when he clicks his fingers, so your neutral opinions have been really good for me.

Batteriesallgone was correct - MIL and FIL divorced when my wife was a child. FIL wasn't always present in my wife's life (his choice).
MIL is v. happy with 2nd husband, they are happy to host FIL.
My daughter has 3 Grandfathers and 1 Grandma.

After my wife died, we moved to be near to MIL and she is the main female role model for my daughter. She's great. My daughter is a lovely happy girl.
FIL probably overcompensates for some of the above

Thanks again everyone

Ah, that all sounds rather complex and must make it so much harder to get it 'right'.

I suppose the key thing has to be to keep your own feelings about your FiL to yourself and allow your DD her own relationship with her grandfather. Not easy.