AIBU to feel so angry over a Xmas present

[Allegf]

Ok bear with me it could get long

My GrandMIL has always been cold with me. We visit her regularly and I always make polite conversations with her. Over the last year things have got worse with the way she is towards me.For some reason anything I do is wrong.

I’ve been with my DP for 7 years, we have 2 kids and are getting married next summer. My DPs uncle recently got married and had a baby. His new wife and him were only together around 6 months before marriage but she has only been in the picture for around 3 years - relevant

Anyways this brings me to Christmas. Every year my DP small family (12 people) exchange a gift for everyone. I always get a joint gift with my DP from both of us spending around £30 on each person with a thoughtful gift. Over the past 3 years from my GMIL I have recived a keyring with the wrong initial, used hand soap and this year a bloody fruit cake?!
GMIL is not short of money. She actually previous has gloated about this so that isn’t the issue, my DP, BIL, FIL and my DP uncles always get generous gifts or money.
This year as I open my fruit cake and stare down in disbelief I look up to see my DPs uncles new wife hugging my GMIL thanking her for the generous gift clutching a handful of cash. The response was ‘I know, the men always get everything from me on Xmas I thought it was time I spoilt the ladies too so I got you and (MIL) a little treat

I didn’t know how to react so walked out the room and into the toilet where I actually welled up. It not the money. I wouldn’t care if it was a voucher for £5. Its the fact I was never considered.

AIBU or do I need to just shove fruitcake in my face and shut up!

Lolol at ALL of you saying OP should be grateful. Why should ANYONE be grateful for a used, skin cell covered bar of soap. That is why she is upset.
To be given nothing would have been preferable.

when you go home , leave the cake behind .

did she not think that your partner would share the gift with you? My Nan addresses our gift to both of us and my husbands nan does the same. We split the money 50:50 for some guilt free spending.

Sostenueto When I was in a children's home other kids got new toys wrapped in Xmas paper. I got second hand toys wrapped in newspaper.

That's just so nasty. I'm sorry you had to endure that.
I'm guessing that it was families who gave gifts. How rotten that the home didn't intervene to ensure kids living together were treated the same but i guess that would cause other problems.
I hope Christmas is better for you as an adult

You have my sympathies. 20 years on I can say these individuals don’t get any better.

Toxic people don’t sadly suddenly change. They have got away with their behaviour being unchecked for so long they feel invincible.

My OH didn’t notice or gave excuses for my relatives shocking behaviour towards me. Essentially any outside not related by blood is given short shrift if a female. Males new in however are hailed as heroes and their career worshipped.

My husband has lived through this behaviour and seen it as normal so he won’t understand it nor will he stand up to it.

It is only now it is affecting my children that I have started to make a stand and I would suggest to you having been through this that you really need to make a stand. You need to value yourself and say to your husband to be that you won’t put you or your children in situations where you are treated so badly.

Stop visiting her, stop enabling her to be rude to you.

That truly is the only way

Well she clearly doesn't think much of you. You are highly unlikely to ever know why that is. I actually don't think the reasons really matter - if somebody shows you who they are believe them.

You could call her out on her behaviour/treatment and see what comes of that. But for my husband's granny honestly I'd just detach and remind yourself that her opinion of you is neither here nor there.

Thanks edthebear it was because of the colour of my skin, 1950s home run by nuns. But I got over it.

Sostenueto what evil bitches. .
I assumed the 'gifts' if you can call them that were sent by family not the people who were meant to care for you. I guess there were lots of other racial abuse too.

I totally get it. It has nothing to do with the value, it has everything to do with the fact that she seemingly deliberately excludes you. It is exceptionally rude and seems quite callous.

When she was putting the envelopes together, she deliberately made all of the gifts the same (and lavish) except for one. She then made that one gift completely and utterly different and obviously lesser. Sort of 'here's a fruitcake for the fruitcake'. She knew what she was doing.

Honestly, I would just be politely quite dismissive of her in future. Smile say thank you, then look away and talk to someone else.

That's really fucking rude, those aren't gifts they are reminders that she doesn't like you. Used soap??? And then a comment about treating other girls, that's a rub in her dil or not.

Seriously just back off and don't bother. Leave the fruitcake and any expectation she will like you. She isn't going to do a 180 after you get married, you'll still get joint gifts. If she had given you a nice token gift, boots set or something, fair enough. But she's made it clear through coldness and this that she doesn't like you for her own reasons.

So disengage and leave your fiance to visit her.

How are the rest of the family?

Can't imagine why you or anyone would get any gift at all from your boyfriend or partner or even husband's grandmother!

Your partner and your two children get a really generous gift that you share the benefit of. Would it make it better if your name was on the envelope with your partner? That it was more clear that the gift was to the family?

Another here who thinks you need to let it go. There's massive inequality in our family but I just ignore it now for the sake of my stress levels. I have coeliac disease which my FIL (and his unbelievable bitch of a wife - my husbands stepmother) should know if they'd paid any attention to us whatsoever in the last 15 years now (married and 3 DC of our own). I was just given a pack of very gluten full biscuits this year! Our DC get far less time and thought than their other grandkids too. They never visit us (45 mins away) but fly to other side of the world to see her kids and grandkids! We just look after ourselves now. Unless you can honestly be arsed to see if she is different next Christmas once you're married, my best piece of advice would be to avoid these stressful situations. Do your own lovely Christmas with your children and be done with it. No brainer.

It her partner’s grandmother, not her ‘grandmother in law’ if that was even a thing. I wouldn’t expect a present in this situation and I doubt anyone else would.
She gives your family £200 and you buy her a £30 present.

Just forget about it. Tell her you don’t need a present next year (you don’t) job done.
You can’t compare yourself to her daughter in law!

My mother in law is comparable. She got us an umbrella for our wedding present. This year she got the children a secondhand Dave Allen DVD to share. We got her a cashmere cardigan and some leather gloves plus her usual holiday in our cottage.
Over the years we’ve learnt to laugh it off and take the moral high ground. Bitterness and anger hurt you not her. If it’s a conscious decision to be disproportionate or unkind then a response that shows distress is going to please her, even if only at a subliminal level. It also hurts my husband more than me since I’m not unduly bothered what my mother in laws opinion of me is. I don’t want to make it worse for him.

We’ll send fulsome thank you notes explaining how much they enjoyed St Stephens Day afternoon watching Dave Allen together with a roaring fire whilst we prepared for our Boxing Day drinks party. How they loved these historic, long dead comedians that nobody else had heard of. Etc etc.

Don’t allow yourself to be jealous or upset. Find humour in it. Write three pages about a bar of soap and how much everyone who came to your party commented in on scent. Leave the fruit cake in her bin though.

She might also be making a comment about you “living in sin” if you are not married but your brother in law is. She might feel strongly that children should be born in wedlock. That is her entitlement.

People who are from the older generations - mid to late 50's and older - will judge people for being unmarried, (especially if you're unmarried with children,) moreso than people in their 20's, 30's, and early 40's will.

Absolute offensive generalizing bollocks.

How they loved these historic, long dead comedians that nobody else had heard of. Etc etc.

Do watch it. Dave Allen was one of the best comics of his generation. (Although some jokes would be unacceptable now. Especially the Mi L ones!)

Please don’t let her upset you, anyone who gives anyone else a piece of used soap is simply not worth worrying about.

It would be interesting to see if you get a better present next year, once you are married. Do let us know!

FWIW, I’m one of these dread ‘stepmothers’ and I have always been kind and supportive to my now adult stepchildren (their mother died before I met their father). The person who has been poisonous to me, with utterly crap cheap but quite calculating presents, is the MIL of my lovely stepdaughter. She is also condescending and dismissive of me.

I try to follow my advice to you, of not getting upset by her, but it can be VERY difficult, and I have almost resorted to sticking pins in her effigy, but have now hopefully reached a more zen like approach to her. Plus not seeing her of course, unless it’s absolutely essential! 😉

watching Dave Allen together with a roaring fire whilst we prepared for our Boxing Day drinks party. How they loved these historic, long dead comedians that nobody else had heard of. Etc etc.

Dave Allen was a bloody genius, try watching the dvd before you judge someone? I still get my dvd out when I need a good belly laugh when life is shit.

People who are from the older generations - mid to late 50's and older - will judge people for being unmarried, (especially if you're unmarried with children,) moreso than people in their 20's, 30's, and early 40's will.

Away and bile your heid.

What agist crap. I am in my 50s unmarried with kids so dont make such stupid generalisations. My Aunt is in her 80s and never judges anyone unmarried, her neighbours are unmarried with kids and they are in her house all the time like extra grandchildren, spoiled rotten with home made cakes, and presents for birthdays and Xmases.

God if you are over 50 on mn some people think you are brain dead!

I'm in my 40s and I loved Dave Allen. His humour is much missed.

I am in my fifties. No judgement here on unmarried couples, with or without children.

DH and I "lived in sin" for several years before we got married. That was 25 years ago. Don't generalise.

I used to love Dave Allen's humour too.

Cherrypavlova That is not comparable. First of all that’s your mother in law not partner’s grandmother. The grandmother spent £200 on Op’s family, she didn’t just get them a crap CD. She spent £50 each on her GREAT grandchildren then gave £100 to her grandson. I honestly think people are reading a different thread.

I honestly think people are reading a different thread

Nope, I'm reading a thread where the DGM gives generous presents to the men/bloodline, less generous presents to their partners/mothers of her grandchildren/great grandchildren and an insult to the OP.

If she wanted to spend less on the people she considers unimportant she is entitled to do that but its possible to buy a low cost but new presents. Used soap and a key ring with the wrong initials is just a calculated insult and appalling manners.

If the 'batty old DGM' line had any merit then it would be rubbish for all of them or randomly, not consistently targeted at one person.

Of course she gives more generous presents to her own sons rather than her grandchild’s partner.
Their family gets £200. I guess I’m just less grabby than most people on here. I wouldn’t expect a thing from my husband’s gran!