Slightly miffed at In-Laws buying us food.

[Christmasbeach]

MIL has always bought DP and his brother food since they both moved out. BIL stopped MIL years ago (apart from when she offers him steak/high end meat) but DP still accepts the occasional bag when she's insistent. DP does try to reject these bags but sometimes she'll sneak them into his back seat etc.

I joke with DP that she's playing ready steady cook with us as it's always bizarre items that she's found a good deal on. Usually it's a bag of biscuits/cakes/bread/microwavable rice/crisps with the occasional newly released burgers/seasoned meat. I've always found it slightly bizarre that two men in their thirties are treated like uni students but i've heard that other mums do the same. A lot of the bag of food is cupboard things that DP usually just takes to work for a free home if he's not interested in and if we're given meat he'll have it for lunch.

Now the bit i'm feeling a bit miffed at, if not slightly offended, is that since we've announced that we're pregnant she's been sending food for us both. By that we've received a lot more meat/things for meals but it's all asda essentials. Asda essential sausages, chicken thighs (the original packaging was damaged therefore she put them in a freezer bag for us), wafer ham, ready made mash potato etc.

She quite often makes digs that i'm too much of a health freak (because i've ordered pasta/vegetarian meals out) and 'she ate everything while pregnant'. She knows that I do care what goes into my body, I'm not a huge meat eater and I enjoy cooking. We really do not need hand outs as we're both on good salaries and buying us all this Asda Essentials has only came about after we've announced we're pregnant.

It's also very inconvenient too as we meal plan/do the weekly shop therefore we're either left eating a meal we don't particularly want to eat or unfortunately it goes to waste. I have tried being polite to MIL that either we don't have room in our fridge/freezer or we're not going straight home/there isn't any need as we do our own shops.

MIL has now made a comment to DP that i'm not appreciative. AIBU that as a pregnant professional I'm not exactly jumping for joy at the lowest end chicken thighs in a non labelled freezer bag that needed to be eaten that day?

I think she is trying to be kind and offer food to make sure no one is going without. I see it sweet buying her boys little bits here and there. Maybe Asda essential is all she can afford and wants the best for you all especially the baby.

We also purchase higher end food especially meat, but I would feel snobby at rejecting a kind offer based on this.

Either politely but firmly decline (maybe say just biscuits in future to give an outlet for her), give to a food bank or accept graciously and buy some bits back for her (if she doesn’t like it she may come to realise).

Please remember not all MIL give a rats about helping, and underneath it all that’s all she is trying to do.

Oh god, maybe I’m like this woman!

I am simultaneously reading this and agreeing how frustrating it is while texting my student son asking what I should cook to bring over when I see him next week. 😳

Be blunt, kick the task back to your partner to deal with and stay firm, OP.

… also, would you a fish pie and some homemade shortbread? 😉

This!

It’s not about the receiver in such cases. I notice the people that usually do this do it to brag to others and say how “nice” they’re and/or use it as ammunition in a later date to say “I did xyz for you when I didn’t have to” and when pointed out the defect in their logic, want to call the receiver ungrateful.

The first time she handed over food would have been nice and out of love. After being told several times that this is not needed, the food is not being eaten, and it is not wanted - continuing to do so is controlling, not done out of love. It is not about the receiver (who is being ungrateful for receiving something she doesn’t need, like or want, something g that is not a special or rare treat), but to put herself in control. “I’m giving you chicken without a date so you will have to eat it tonight”.
as the receiver I would not want to have to arrange for someone to come and pick this up, or have the responsibility to bin it.
as to the food bank… should they be grateful to get any old rubbish food?
a food bank/ charity shop is not a place to drop off your rubbish to make you feel good - it’s to donate quality things to help others.
please don’t ever drop off your past sell by/ going off tomorrow foods off at a food bank. How devastating for a food bank user to get food they cannot use.

To people who have rational normal family this might seem from the outside as a kind gesture.

As someone who has been on the receiving end of this sort of behaviour for years I can tell you how oppressive, controlling and judgmental it is

I wish I had some advice on how to stop it. But despite numerous conversations over the years as it's just me who pushes back (sister and brother and dad who just let her get on with it for 'an easy life') it's still going on. I'm 43

I visited this weekend with my Dc. Said explicitly we didn't want lunch. We had plans. Will pop in after that. Got a text from my dad asking if we were coming for lunch. No. I've already said we're not. Get there. She's made a whole load of sandwiches and picnic style lunch. But no one's hungry as else are out.

Dinner time and the Dc and I have plans. But dear mother kicks off about all this food she's made. There's no one else to eat it. So we get rail roaded into staying. Eating the sandwiches no one wanted. And then she had the audacity to make pass agg comments about people not eating enough as she had so many leftovers. From food no one wanted and no one asked her to make.

And I'm annoyed as she repeatedly overrules my kids when they say they're full and tries to keep feeding them. I've already told her not to do this. She does not fucking care.

But like I said. To anyone outside they would say oh but she made you lunch. Be grateful. She fucked up our plans. Made everyone eat food they didn't want. Then made my kids feel guilty for not finishing it all.

It's control. Pure and simple.

My ex mil was lovely. She would always bring food over but would ask first to see what she could bring. And if I said nothing would have a little bunch of flowers. She was always thoughtful. And more importantly respected me.

DP should tell his mother that neither of you want the bags of food. If she really wants to help a supermarket card with a tenner on it would be much appreciated. If she doesn’t want to do that then that is great too. Just stop with the food. It isn’t wanted and will be returned as she has now been told numerous times not to do it.

If she is offended then that’s fine as she isn’t being kind or considerate, she is trying to impose her values and will on her grown up son and pregnant partner who have neither asked for nor wish for bags of food.

If it continues further (surely not?) then DP needs to dump the bags of food in his mother’s bin. It’s not about food waste or need, it is about control and it is about time OP and her DP took back their own autonomy.

I don't usually post on here but usually just read the posts but i felt the need to reply to this one.
you sound really ungrateful and unappreciative. How lovely of your mother in law to think of you both only for you to take it for granted.
Your husband and his brother may have grown up but to their mother thry are still her children, she must feel like she is helping out by doing this and it is really thoughtful.
I get that financially you don't need it but to be so ungrateful as you are and not see the thought behind it is really rather rude.
My mother also does this, even though I don't need her to I am thankful she thinks of me to do this and it does help.
I am sure there are lots of people who wish they had this kind of help but have none.

@RachyAnn34 , you think it's really kind to give someone perishable goods that they don't need or want, and have no space for?

I would be more than slightly miffed if somebody kept giving me food that I said I didn't want or need. It’s clearly more about making her feel good than anything else. Continually trying to force you to have it seems incredibly controlling and wasteful. I can't believe all the posters suggesting you should be grateful to continually get food you don't want or that it's your job to take it to the food bank either. She should do that if she wants to give people food. Your DH needs to have a word.

I'm with @FayCarew.

Kind is buying people something you know they want and use.

So for example I visited my elderly DPs today and brought some frozen chopped garlic because she wanted some and they don't stock it at Morrisons and some posh chicken kievs,from M&S as theirs is smaller and doesn't have as much stock.

In return she gave me some frozen beef mince and a couple of bottles of wine that they think we like. But all agreed with us that we wanted it.

Kind is not buying bags of perishable meat items for someone you know is practically a vegetarian.

My mom does the same, today I have come home with butter, strawberries, nectarines and KitKats 😋

Come on. The first time this happened, the DIL may have thought 'OK, this might be kindly meant', but as time goes on, and MIL has been left in no doubt that these gifts are not welcome or useful, it's not kind. I remain convinced she thinks her DIL needs to be eating meat during pregnancy for the sake of the baby, but for some reason instead of force feeding her with top quality steak, which she's tried in the past with her sons, she's giving her DIL value sausages and yellow sticker chicken. She is imposing her world view on her son and his partner. It doesn't bode well for how she will behave when the baby arrives.

Use the olio app to pass it on to soneone sho wants /needs it locally
Or nextdoor or fscebook
Maybe you conbr t with a local fsmily in need znd just keep passing it on
In a month or so tell mil that fzmily xxxx are ever so grateful

@RachyAnn34 Why should OP be appreciative or grateful that her MIL is trying to force food on her even though she knows she doesn't want it? Would you like someone trying to force you to eat things you hate and don't consider healthy? There's nothing nice and thoughtful about it.

No to the perishable goods she doesn't want but yes I think she ought to be grateful for the high end meat and steaks I think she mentioned.
How very rude, my mother in law came round today and you never guess what she did? she tried to give me high end seasoned meat, the horror.

Presumably it is food you like, and she didn't insist you had to have it whether or not you wanted it though?

Ah you're one of those.

You think when a woman says no she doesn't really mean it and you can do it anyway.

I am expecting to see the Food Bank in Tesco full of half opened packs of 6 day old chicken reeking and oozing slime all over the cans of beans and packets of pasta - and I will know that people have been reading MN and taking the excellent advice to be found here.

You are obviously not British if you think “essential” meat is “high end”. Not everyone eats or wants meat anyway.

Do you honestly think the mother in law would go out of her way to buy these people food other than to be kind, yes it might not be appreciated but that doesn't mean it was done to be nasty and spiteful. I'm pretty sure it was done to try and be helpful and it hasn't been taken that way. May be instead of coming on here slagging the woman off and taking the piss out of her inferior food choices to the posters standards they could sit the mother inlaw down and say something on the lines off,
I am really very grateful for the food you have given to us but we aren't able to get through it all and it's going to waste, I would hate to think of you wasting your money like this on us but we are really thankful ECT. direct this as you will

that's really lovely of you.

She's tried that

The op has said no

The mil has decided not to accept that.

You think that's all fine. So you think when someone says no it's okay to ignore them and stampede over their boundaries.

Whether it's for a 'good' reason or not. It's still going against someone's wishes. Repeatedly.

Read the posts from women who've been there. This is will not be the only thing she tries to control.

@RachyAnn34 , what's ECT got to do with it?

Can you ask your DH to have some gentle words with her to explain that although you both appreciate the loving gesture, you both meal plan and buy ahead so any food donations are unfortunately going to waste.

Maybe he could also add that you would both love her to donate the food to a local food bank if she feels the impulse to buy it, as it seems wasteful to give to people who don’t need it. If she tries to foist food on either of you again, hand it back and thanks for the thought but you can’t take it. Hopefully she will eventually get the message.