To return “gift” to PIL?

[Pollypanda]

Made an account just to post this as I really don’t know if I’m BU or not!

My PIL are very very overbearing. Don’t want this to become an essay but for example, we once went on holiday and came home to find they had rearranged our kitchen, put down their own bath/shower mats and thrown ours away, etc. It got worse when DS was born 8 months ago.

MIL in particular has no boundaries, literally ripped DS from my arms when he was a newborn, has said I’m selfish for still BF as it means she can’t give him a bottle, had a shit fit when we said we weren’t getting him christened because “how will I ever look the ladies at church in the eye again!”, I could go on... she’s always trying to tell us how to parent, make us feel our choices are stupid. DH and I are both guilty of not speaking up as we don’t want to rock the boat.

So a couple of weeks ago they said they’d like to buy DS some new toys. Very kind. They asked did we want them to buy him a garden swing, we said no thank you as we are saving to buy him a wooden swing/slide set for his 1st birthday. Fast forward to a couple of days ago, they show up at the house unannounced with a horrible cheap plastic garden swing for DS. I couldn’t even hide how upset I was. It’s lovely that they buy him gifts but I feel completely undermined that they’d buy him a gift we’ve specifically told them we want to get.

DH told them they knew we were getting a swing ourselves, this wasn’t quite what we had in mind and why don’t they keep the swing at their house for when DS visits. Well needless to say they flew off the handle, called us ungrateful and told us to fuck off. Haven’t spoken to us since.

So my question is... WIBU to return the swing to them anyway? I’m torn between wanting to put my foot down to start establishing boundaries, and returning it because I do think DS would love playing with it. Am I being unfair on DS to return it because of my own principles?

@Blackpoolforever - my MIL does very similar to yours.

MIL has often walked out and gone 'missing' and waited for DH or his siblings to notice and go looking for her.

Usually she wouldn't even say she was going, we would just notice she had disappeared. If we didn't, there would be a phone call to say she was ill in the street and needed to be collected.

We once thought she was in the toilet and she'd left the house, she sent a text to FIL from outside and he left without a word as well. They called us from the car once they had driven off to tell us they were never coming back. Then later on they called us about fifty more times to insist we let them come back.

Stories like yours stress me out now. It's a horrible way to be manipulated and guilt tripped. for you.

@CintacMrs "once we said sorry we will be out and they still turn up according to the neighbors they shouted at the house for about 20 min before going around the back and jumping the fence to check we were not in the house and shouting some more"

What the actual..... who even does that? They sound like they need a psych evaluation. Goodness!

Cintamrs

What kind of Relations after. I have 14 years Of being treated like shit, I'm mount etna about to explode.

Change the locks and put the swing in your shed or garage until they come back to apologise and then you set the ground rules going forward. Dump her bathmats and change back anything they have altered. Be firm with them, it's them that need you not the other way around, they want to see their gs so it's about time you told them how it's going to be from now on.

we meet up a few times a year they spend the day with kids and DH- but they do not take the piss any more. the kids have no idea of the difficulty of the situation so they get grandparents and we don't get them trying to control every second

Return the swing and keep away from them until they learn some boundaries.