MIL offended that we didn’t use a free voucher

[Pinkfranny]

AIBU to think if someone gives you a free entry voucher (National Trust in this case) that they cut out of a newspaper, that you aren’t obliged to use it??

My MIL cut it out of her newspaper and asked me if we would like it as they wouldn’t use it. She had 2 and I said we might use one of them and I thanked her for thinking of us.

Since then she has asked me once a week when we are going. As it happens we’ve had a very busy couple of months and haven’t used it. We were at a BBQ today with her and she asked again as there are only 2 weekends left before it expires. We said we didn’t think we would use it and she then proceeded to ask exactly what we had on for the next 2 weekends which meant we couldn’t go 🤷‍♀️

She seems genuinely offended that we weren’t using it. I am baffled that it matters so much to her. Lesson learned, next time I won’t accept it unless I am 100% sure we’ll go!

Your MIL is being ridiculous. Just give it her back and insist that she takes it regardless of whether she knows anyone else who can use it, and make it clear to her that it's more trouble than it's worth because of the way she's behaved over it.

Was it a BOGOF voucher? I don’t see what the big deal is then?

Or was it a free entry voucher?

OP confirm she is not an NT member she got all 3 for free and she also had no one else to give them to.

To me OP taking them was more like ok thanks we may get to use it, doesn’t warrant hounding her multiple times to confirm if she had used it and questioning their plans for the next few weeks to see why they can’t fit it into their plans.

yes

I missed that post @electriclight.

I would have offered it to someone else though. I live in a very deprived area though. Perhaps that makes a difference.

I have a great mental image of you going door to door in a tower block trying to find anyone who wants your Daily Mirror NT voucher. 🤣

Would you give your DIL a voucher if you didn’t like her? Sounds like MIL is trying to forge a relationship with her.

Since you are so obsessed with trying to drag a man into this ( why do we always end up talking about men in every situation?) MIL could have given the voucher to him if she actually didn’t like DIL.

This

This!

God I couldn’t be doing with that hassle.

Is this something you do with every voucher that comes into your possession? I don’t know where I’d find the hours in the day…

I can see her point of view and yours.

You have a family and that sometimes means that plans change and things you thought you could do you now can't.

From her point of view she wants to feel useful that she helped you by thinking of you and giving you a free ticket for something nice, regardless of whether she paid for it or it was a newspaper voucher.

She may well have told friends about it and wanted to say, 'my children/ grandchildren had a lovely time at such and such a place, I'm so glad I got them a ticket to go!'

Stick it on Facebook local selling page in exchange for a bottle of wine or box of chocs and somebody will snap it up, pass the wine along to your MIL and say so sorry we didn’t manage to use it in time we would have liked to but instead passed it along to a friend of a friend and they said thanks and to give you this wine problem solved. Good luck.

I do it with everything I don't need or want @RemoteDesktop - putting a message on Facebook isn't a lot of hassle at all

My MIl sent me one of these unsolicited. I have no idea where it went.

She also had no one else to give it to.

She hasn't badgered me about it because she's lovely and I'm sure she thinks easy come easy go.

I haven't used it because my DC are teens and don't want to be seen in the street with me, let alone a stately home.

I appreciated the sentiment. MIL appreciated me accepting the gift.

YANBU, your MIL is not the arbiter of your social calendar.

Thank goodness a grown up has turned up! Why are people so bitchy about MILs? No empathy whatsoever. She was doing a nice thing and is probably a bit disappointed at the complete lack of two shits. National Trust entry is quite expensive and even if you didn’t use it for blah blah blah at least be grateful at the thought. After all, you accepted the offer.

"She may well have told friends about it and wanted to say, 'my children/ grandchildren had a lovely time at such and such a place, I'm so glad I got them a ticket to go!'"

Oh lord, and what will her friends think now 😱

What a load of dramatic tosh.

My nan used to do this to my mum! Only when I got older myself I realised my mum put up with a lot tbh, love my nan but I remember her being mortally offended when my mum wouldn't get on a carousel with her on Brighton beach...as in a merry go round horse LOL. We stood there as a family for about ten minutes and mum said 'I'll wait and take photos' and she kept going round and round with a face on then said about a week later that she was terribly upset about it. Years on and mum still cracks up laughing when I remind her. It was just a case as other posters have said that bless her she didn't have much else going on and to her that was a huge thing, we never quite worked out why lol. Try not to let it bother you, as annoying as it is!

As I clarified they are not NT members, it was cut from The Mirror newspaper. She ended up with 3 of them.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/partner-stories/national-trust-free-family-pass-29754267.amp

Yeah this. If the OP's MIL is basing her happiness and well being in her life, on what her SON and daughter in law and their children do, and how much they do what SHE demands, then she is in for a rough ride.

Like fuck would I have been doing things in my life to please someone else when I didn't want to do it, and doing what THEY say, and going where THEY say. My mother in law is not like the OP's thank God. Moreover she has never expected anything. She has never been demanding or needy or whiny, or thrown her toys out of the pram if me and DH said a polite 'no' to something.

OP's mother in law needs to get out more, get some hobbies, and make some friends. Sounds like she has too much time on her hands and is bored, and is making a big issue out of fuck all. This is common with people who have very little going on in their life; they make a massive issue out of nothing. Like to cause a drama, and get some attention to entertain and occupy themselves.

Anyone who supports the mother in law, and thinks she's right, needs to give their head a wobble, grow up, and get a fecking life. You don't get to dictate what other people do with their lives, no matter how much you guilt trip and bully and goad and manipulate.

My in-laws read the Express (I know because they bring all their leftover newspapers so I can line my rabbit's hutches with them - like I say, my MIL is bloody lovely) and I'm pretty sure ours came from them.

Was a cutting from a newspaper that I lost almost instantly not a magazine.

It is possible to get on with someone but not like/understand every part of their personality!

I should have done this a few weeks ago but I am really not organised enough! I will take a pic of it tomorrow and see if anyone else wants it

As it was free from a daily newspaper, there were over 250,000 in circulation. I'm sure there were more than enough to go round. The OP's MIL had THREE for starters, including one that MIL threw away herself.

Woah @EbonyRaven. Weird load of projection and aggression going on there.

Stuff like this bugs me too when someone gives you basically an obligation. And the constant questioning about it would piss me off too. You said you might use it. So she was happy with a maybe.

I'd get dh to call her and ask her to back off.