I find my DMIL’s behaviour a bit baffling. She doesn’t contact us unless she wants help and then takes the tone of ‘You will (ie: DH) do this or that’ or ‘I have a list of things for you to do’. She is comfortable financially but will walk off when bills are due to be paid or any other time she feels she might have to put her hands in her pocket leaving us to foot the bill (tho she doesn’t do this to DHs siblings).
Indeed, she loves to tell us how we need to ‘share’ as we are ‘family’ and it’s ‘only fair’. Now DH and I have a decent business we run that pays for a nice lifestyle but a decent chunk of our given wealth is because of investments and gifts (the house) given to me before we got together by my parents. As I say we are building up our own but 2/3 would still be because of that. I should also add that whilst DH’s siblings have had help from MIL, we haven’t on the context we don’t need it (which isn’t wrong but wouldn’t strike me as ‘fair’ as defined by her reasoning).
MIL doesn’t understand that whilst she doesn’t benefit from our wealth (and nor does DBIL who is cut from the same stuff so it is a family trait) DH does as well as our kids (who she pays scant regard for unlike her other grandchildren who are all geniuses - and unlike my parents who actually know the kids well).
Anyway, normally DH sees through this bullshit but in response to a point raised regarding a future influx of money from my side he commented that if Scottish devolution happened and the economy crashed (pls don’t derail this with arguments on Scottish independence) we could give her our current house because it would be one of a portfolio.
Of course all this is a theoretical situation (again let’s not focus on how likely it is or isn’t regarding independence) but am I right to be a bit concerned. When I asked where this had come from he waffled on about how poor she had been in the past (tho as I say she and FIL worked in very professional jobs and there is a good pension) and that it was his duty as she ‘had raised him’ and given him some money towards his undergrad 30 years ago... (god knows why it wouldn’t be his siblings duty in the same way)
To me it sounds like she has been laying it on thick to raise potential scenarios where there would be an expectation. There is a particular thing we are doing at the moment that she is very annoyed about because its not being shared wider but I feel this has been the trigger (she has said it should be shared and it’s influencing her reactions to other unrelated things). Or is it more likely the inherent brain washing that she has done in the past that is making him feel this guilt now.