Dh & MIL Christmas gift

[AreThereAnyUsernamesNotTaken]

DH came home from visiting his DM at the weekend and told me MIL has ordered a present for our young DC’s for Christmas. She showed DH what it is before clicking buy.

It’s basically a massive table that you lay out train tracks and buildings on - looks lovely, the DC’s will enjoy it, however, the space in our flat is MASSIVELY limited.
We’re already over run with the toys that we have (and we don't exactly have a lot in comparison to most families) and the purchase of this table means I’m now going to have to throw out a toy box that we currently have in our front room just to make space for this table as there’s literally nowhere else we can put it. As a result of getting rid of the toy box, I’m going to have to go through so many toys and either throw them away, or give them to charity shops. I recently bought DC’s a couple of toy ‘houses’ - think batman cave play sets etc, which I now have NO IDEA where I’m going to put, as again, the table will have to be put where all their current stuff is.

I’ve literally utilised every single area of our front room (there’s no space whatsoever in DC’s room for toys), we have a book case with fabric storage bags (one for cars, one for action figures, one for blocks etc etc), under our tv unit houses some toys too, and of course, the toy box held the bulkier things like toy guitars and wooden pirate ships.

AIBU to be annoyed at DH for agreeing to something that he knows we simply don’t have the space for, and also at MiL who is well aware that something of that size just isn’t appropriate for how small our home is?

I’m now in the awkward position of either having to tell MIL to cancel the order, or throwing away so many of my DC’s things just to make space for this poxy table that’ll be arriving at Christmas! Grr!

(Awaiting to be told I'm being ungrateful and should just get on with it and accept the gift, but I'm legit pulling my hair out over the prospect of trying to create space when we have none )

I've told him he needs to seriously think about telling her to cancel the order

Why did you say that to him? 🤦🏼‍♀️ You're being too wishy washy! You don't have the room so TELL him he needs to tell his mum to cancel the order or grow a backbone and just tell her yourself.

If she never visits, what's the stress?

I can't even begin to imagine the relationship if neither of you actually visit each other......................

I agree with not doing anything else to sort this out, it’s not your mess. Is your DH the type to even get it out of the box? If not it can swiftly go up the attic or be sold.

Cross post sorry OP! Glad you're finally taking control!

@BertrandRussell if you've never had a family relationship where one easily becomes the other, then you're very blessed in life.

OP has explained that she does not have a warm close relationship with her MIL. She thinks she will be blamed as a trouble maker given DH was fine with it.

Why walk into that?

I don't think it's that big. Just tell him he needs to build some high level storage into your living room to store the toy currently in the box.

Or don't get rid of anything and just ignore the situation until christmas and leave it entirely to him to construct it and then fit it in somewhere.

Just look at the mental load OP is now meant to carry just because her dolt of a husband is too dim or too much of a baby to just say no.

All kinds of pretzel-style manoeuvres of potentially shifting the layout of storage/flat, potential time spent deciding on which toys and items to keep to facilitate this, thinking of less-than-ideal ‘solutions’ to a problem that was wholly avoidable.

Potentially being painted as unreasonable or making an issue, possibly being blamed for any hurt feelings, having to engineer a course of action to smooth things over, when all he had to do was think for a minute.

It’s not awkward to ask her to cancel it.

Of course he laughed, he thinks you’re going to do all the work.

Exactly. Which is NOT going to be the case, IS IT, @AreThereAnyUsernamesNotTaken?

You're not going to clear out and throw out his toybox (although for goodness sake please sell or charity shop not throw out if still serviceable!) - you've said your piece to him, now you're going to sit back with a cuppa and do what @MilesJuppIsMyBitch suggests and defer the problem of putting it up and finding space for everything to Daddy.

She never visits DC's or asks how they are so she'd never know what we did with the table or if we sold it straight away. I've invited her over several times over the past few years, or asked to see if she'd like to come along to some outings we've had, and I'm usually either ignored or she's almost always busy, so I stopped asking in the end.
We currently have an almost 5 week old newborn that she's yet to come round and see. Think she sees our DC's on average of 2-3 times a year despite living a 10 minute drive from us! (FWIW, we don't drive so lugging 3 DC's, pushchairs and bags on the bus is a nightmare to go and visit her, but she knows she's always welcome at ours for lunch but never bothers! 🤔)

I'm not purposely trying to make a meal of things! I'm trying to avoid looking like a bad person for rejecting a gift from a woman who I don't particularly get along with!

We rent, we can't build anything or put up shelving. Again, if we could do that, I'd have more space for stuff and wouldn't be on here moaning about the situation!

DH will definitely get it out the box and build it, so sadly it's not even like it could be shoved in the loft straight away. Someone mentioned about building it in the loft for our DC's to use up there- the ladder to our loft is sketchy as hell and our eldest is dc is not quite 3... so that wouldn't work.

You don't have the problem, your dh needs to tell his mum to cancel the order. He should have said something at the time.
I would be quite mad if my dh did something like this and didn't sort it.

I feel your pain. My house is a tiny back to back that one person would fill up by themselves, with 3 of us (and a cat) we're bursting at the seams.. I put my foot down early on with presents for dd, just in a blunt honest way, "oh, we'd have to move house if you bought that! Haha".. I know it's minorly upset a few people over the years but like you, we've used up every available space as it is and we're the ones that have to live in it! Just be honest, and if you don't want to tell her yourself, get your dh to tell her that it just won't fit. After all that isn't even a lie is it..

Sorry, cross posted a little there!

Your DH is being an arse. You don't have room. I agree with the PP who said tell MIL no but with a suggestion of what they would like ie'Lovely idea, MIL but it just won't fit. They would love XX instead if you can still cancel the table.'

Having seen the table (crikey that is a big thing to expect people to fit into a small flat!) Am I right in thinking everything inside the top will come apart to be put away? In which case a work-around could be that you acquire/make/beg a handy friend to make a false top for the table that is either just a rectangle of wood or that has a simple lip just a bit larger than the outside dimensions of the top so that it can't slip or be pushed off - and then toybox or something else can sit on top of it when not in use, and it could double up as a table to draw or paint on?

Look. This is ridiculous.

It doesn’t fit, it’s ludicrous to accept something that is going to just sit and be stored for years, and even more ludicrous to expect you to accept it. If it does cause any issues that will be your MIL’s fault for being utterly ridiculous about it, and more so your husband’s fault for being so stupid about it.

Do your dc see your parents regularly? If so, could it live at their house?

If not I'd leave the train stuff on top, then use the bottom drawer for their other toys.

Tell her to keep it at her house!

Just tell her it's a lovely thought but she would be wasting her money because it would never be used in your home. Maybe send her suggestions of toy trains instead if that'd help.

Find something that is his of equivalent size and get rid of it to make space.

Sit yourself down and relax. This is not your problem it’s your DH’s. He can assemble it and work out where to put it. The other thing to remember is that just because it’s sold as a table doesn’t mean you have to put the legs on it - that way it will probably just slide out from under a sofa or a bed....

As your dh is such a fucking wet blanket and won't tell his mother, you should just send a text today and say he showed you the table and while it's a lovely thought, it simply won't fit into the living room or kids bedroom given the limited space you have. Fuck her if she takes the hump. Sure you hardly ever see her anyway so what do you care? If she whinges to Dh about it then let him suffer it. He was an idiot to agree to it in the first place.

There's no way she'll keep it at hers, plus, our DC's are never there so that would be pointless.
The drawer isn't really big enough to house any of their other things - they have bulky cars, sit on diggers, houses etc!

If we had the space for it, it really would make a lovely gift and I'd happily accept it, but I'm going round and round in circles looking at my front room and all the things that will either need to be given away or thrown away just to accommodate this thing.

Why is my DH so bloody stupid 🤦🏻‍♀️

Tell your husband that if he doesn't tell his mum to cancel the order, then you'll be giving the gift to the charity shop as soon as it arrives. And if his mum asks what happened to the gift, then practice your innocent face "you ordered it even though DH told you not to since we didn't have the space, so we had to take it to the charity shop as it was too big. Oh, DH didn't tell you not to order it??! [shocked face]"

You’re kind of taking on this mental load of your own accord though. It’s really not the huge deal you are making it out to be.

You tell your DH to tell her it will have to be cancelled. Job done.

Or if he really is not going to do so, you will have to do it and just accept that if your MIL chooses to take offence that will be her problem - you can’t be painted to be unreasonable by any stretch of the imagination.

If that still doesn’t work I would sell it on as soon as it arrives (fgs don’t let your children see it!), and if anyone has a problem with that you can put the blame right back onto your husband, where it squarely belongs.