Lost birthday card with money - SIL insisting on a replacement

[deepsea]

Please tell me if I am being U.

I sent a birthday card with money to my niece for her birthday as usual, and it has been lost in the post.

SIL has sent a text demanding that I send another with more money, not only was the tone of the text rude and abrupt she also gave me the impression she didn't believe I hadn't sent it at all (I have been doing so religiously for the last 23 years to all three of her children)

My dh has been saying for some time he thinks we should stop now, they are all adults, the eldest being 28 years old. I suggested that the royal mail is not a safe way anyway maybe it was time to stop sending money now and just send cards given they are all adults (mine are much younger and will miss out but we are fine with that) she said no, she expects us to continue do this every year and we can transfer the money instead!!

We have two children and my two SIL have three each. All of them are adults and are heading towards their thirties and are not young. We have been generous over the years with toys for all of them, but is this going to continue? We are struggling to find so much money for birthdays and christmases. I am not close to SIL as she lives a long way away and she is hard work in every sense of the word.

Just to say she has missed my youngest child's birthday every single year barring one year (her first birthday) and doesn't seem to care very much about any of us.

Do I send more money or not? Do we carry on even though we don't want to? What would you do?

I am sorry to say, but I genuinely believe your nasty SIL is a simple thief! The very second I read that this had all "happened before" and she had demanded that you re-send the money, every alarm bell in my body started screaming. Who even knows, (since you never receive so much as a thank you from all these "adults") that every single card with money in, hasn't been "mis-appropriated" anyway? I would not trust her with a ten pence coin, I am afraid to say. The strange insistence that you keep sending money to ADULTS is completely bizzarre! Please make this your absolute, and resolute turning point! Good luck with it all. xx

You and your DH sound like nice people trying to keep the peace in a very trying situation. But life is too short to put up with all that. They might be blood relatives but they add nothing to your lives and in fact have a negative impact. No way I’d want to ruin my Christmas with such people! I’m sure you know now the present situation is ridiculous (also cash in envelopes in this day and age is unsecured and unnecessary way to send money!). Please use your bank account to transfer funds but never again to these rude, spoilt, ungrateful CFs

OP are you crazy?? No civilised family in this day & age sends grown up nieces/nephews etc birthday money! In our family everyone understood that 21 was the gift of all gits - end of! Cards are great after that if aunts/uncles remember. Should other family emergencies arise where you might want to help financially, then that’s a different matter. Put your foot down & stop being walked over!!

gift of all gifts hopefully!😳

I was friendly with my cousin and his other half a few years ago, they have twins and I posted birthday cards with next vouchers inside and didn't think any more of it until the nasty why haven't you sent cards etc txt arrived. I explained I had sent them etc but they never did believe me.

It's such a shame when families behave like this.

My aunt still sends me birthday money and I’m 42. I have suggested she stops but she likes doing it . There is no way on earth I’d be demanding it and I certainly wouldn’t accept it if I knew she was struggling to afford it.

Please stop. It is rude to even expect a card with money in and then complain and demand another one. If you have a receipt from the post office, try and claim the money back. They are working and too old for this now. I sent Christmas gifts to a relative who does not keep in touch, she did contact me to complain, start a family row by trying to make me look mean because I did not include a gift for the youngest. I have no idea how or why she expected me to know that she had another child, as she never kept in touch. And yes, you guessed it, they have never even sent me a Christmas card. it seems to be the ones who do not reciprocate who moan on these occasions.

We have never given nor received money for birthdays off aunties etc passed the age of 18.

She should however continue giving your children money to the age you stopped with theirs- that is only fair.!!

Bloody hell - I have read about some CFs on MN in my time, but this SIL takes the crown.

Send cards with no money from now on

They are ADULTS and presumably working. I would of stopped years ago. Good excuse to stop.

Absolutely stop sending money for Birthdays. One she’s a big girl now and two Royal Mail unfortunately have light fingered workers and know what envelopes contain money.
Sorry for all you innocent, trustworthy RM workers but I remember years ago two of my neighbours family members where done for helping themselves to mail whilst working there. 🤷‍♀️

I'd go no contact with people like this.

They are CFs, not to mention rude and clearly missing a few screws if they think it’s ok to demand money/gifts for adult children.

In our family it is presents for children until 18 and then it’s milestones only. I will admit to “forgetting” a teenaged nephews birthday one year when that auntie and uncle completely forgot both of my DCs birthdays that year already. It hasn’t happened since. I make it very clear that if people can’t afford to buy my kids presents it’s the thought that counts even just a chocolate bar and a card as a gesture and my kids will be happy.

If these are family members you avoid anyway then it’s worth stating your intentions and if they don’t like it you’ve can go no contact and to no great loss. You, your DH and your DCs deserve better and sometimes family are ones we choose rather than blood.

Are you mad? I dont believe anyone can have posed this as a serious question.

I agree it needs to stop, BUT if the other nieces/nephews have received money for their birthdays in 2018, I'd continue for the rest of 2018 birthdays. But I'd let it be known that beginning 2019, you are stopping the cash and you expect that the uncles/aunts will do the same regarding your adult children.

As far as replacing the lost money, I'd have done it if I had been asked in a roundabout way (XXX didn't get a card from you, is everything OK?). But actually asking for the money to be replaced is grabby.

She can’t insist you do anything. Man up, FFS!

People are scolding you a little for being a wet blanket OP, so I just want to let you know that I totally get it!

I think so many of our interactions as we go about our lives operate on the assumption that other people are fairly normal, reasonable individuals with perceptions and principles roughly similar to our own. So when you encounter someone being so bafflingly unreasonable, it can really shake you and make you question your own judgment.

The thing with these people is that they’re always SO INCREDIBLY OUTRAGED and so utterly convinced that they’re in the right that it is just impossible to argue with them. You can’t win, because they’re just arguing on a whole different planet to you. So even when you know you’re not being unreasonable (and have a whole thread of Mumsnetters confirming that ) it can still be really difficult to know how to approach the situation. Because you know you’re never going to hear ‘oh yes, you’re so right, how unreasonable I have been!’ You’re most likely going to get indignation and outrage and disbelief that you could be so awful. And really, who wants to hear that?

I think the key here is to realise that you will never change her mind or hear her admit that you’re right, but that’s ok. Because she isn’t the boss of everything. She doesn’t get to have everyone bow and acquiesce to her view of how things should work. If she gets annoyed then that’s her issue, not yours.

Stop giving her so much power in the situation. You don’t have to ask her if you can stop sending presents. You just stop! When she questions it and gets angry you just don’t have to engage. ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’ and ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree’ are all you need to say. It can be hard to fight the urge to argue back, but as others have said, there can’t be a family row if you just refuse to actually row with her.

She sounds like a nasty piece of work and it’s time for you to stop being so bothered about what she thinks, because she is clearly just operating on a totally different wavelength to most people!

In our family, the sending of gifts to neices and nephews ends at 18. After that we still do cards and phone calls and stay in touch and send good wishes etc. But the gifts end at adulthood.

It's daft of them to "insist" on you sending anything. How on earth can they make you? They are just making themselves look stupid.

I used to know a woman whose husband worked for the Royal Mail and he was prosecuted for intercepting birthday cards containing money. Apparently there is a knack for working out if banknotes are in the envelope. He had done it many many times and was sent to prison. This was a while ago and I know things are a lot more mechanised now but there will still be light-fingered people around just waiting for an opportunity.

Obviously if it were my side of the family I would have felt I can say no sorry no without my hesitation and if I had come up against any backlash I would have dealt with it swiftly. It is my dh side of the family and they seem to have a whole hierarchy thing going on.
Being a blood relative seems to mean you have more importance, and marrying in you are definitely category 2, add the fact I am much younger than they are and perhaps infinitely kinder in many respects, you end up with this...not an excuse but an explanation.

I have to all intents and purposes gone nc now, as this was pretty much the final straw.

my - any

Apart from the birthday money bullshit, what other stunts have they pulled OP?

I fear this is only the tip of the iceberg here.

Just to be totally honest, I have a family full of CF on both sides, so this is the smaller end of the scale