MIL gave heirlooms to favourite son

[Gpates]

I'll try to be short.

Very recently found out that MIL gave all her family heirloom jewellery (quite valuable but more sentimental) to her other son (she has two sons, I'm married to her younger son).

She gave it to him 10 years ago, as he has two daughters and she said she never thought DH would get married or have kids as he was a 'bachelor'.

He was 25 at the time!

We met, married and have a daughter of our own now. AIBU to feel this is unfair?!

She has history of favouring BIL, DH is very hurt.

Keep out of it.
Not a word.

Do you really want someone else’s dusty crap?

Count yourself lucky you’ve dodged the pressure of having an heirloom.

I was supposed to be heirloomed a particularly ugly and clearly haunted doll. I declined. It went to auction. Goodbye, you creepy fucker!

You'll get weirdos on here saying she can give her belongings to whoever she wants but your dh is not wrong to be upset by it. Don't think you can do much about it though, especially as she favours bil anyway,

Sound advice other than supporting your DH if he’s upset.

Inheritance destroys families

You’re falling into the trap.

Remember no one owes anyone anything.

It's such a weird thing to do, to give heirlooms away while still alive, and writing DH off as a forever-single guy at 25! She's batty.

It's done. It's just stuff at the end of the day. Could your DH ask for something else sentimental for your DD instead?

There's nothing else with that level of sentiment, sadly. It's more than value of the jewellery, it was heritage and culture.

It's so sad to see DH hurt yet again by her.

It's hard to see your DH hurt but I would honestly stay out of it. It's their family dynamic and you won't change it. At the end of the day, it's her choice who she gives her stuff to. It's yours and DHs choice how much involvement she has in your life - if DH feels that she very obviously favours his brother, he can distance himself from her and let her get on with it.

What's you AIBU?

MIL can give her dusty old crap to whoever she wishes, for whatever reason she sees fit.

Don't get drawn into any communication regarding possessions, for fear you'll be labelled the Golddigger outsider wanting hands on the family jewels. Support your DH, but stay out of what MIL does with her heirlooms

I don’t think your DH is unreasonable to expect to be treated equally with his brother. Unfortunately parents don’t always think these things through and they can treat adult children differently. it’s more obvious when it’s about large sums of money or jewellery than smaller, everyday ways of treating them unfairly.
A similar situation occurred in my dhs family where in-laws paid for the first child to get married ‘s wedding and then didn’t offer to do the same for their other two children’s wedding (which were the year after I might add) as they didn’t have the money.
Your DH could speak to his mum and tell her that he is sad that he doesn’t feel that he is treated equally - but I suspect she will say it is her property and she can do what she likes with it.

So some years ago your MIL gave her granddaughters some of her jewellery. It never, ever ceases to amaze me that people somehow think that they have a claim to what their parents own. Not while they are alive you don’t they can give it to whomever they please. Actually our beautiful legal system gives us the right in law to leave our estate to whomever we please also although it can be challenged under certain circumstances.
You sound (as so many have before you) dreadfully grabby. It’s grubby to be grabby. 🤢

I can understand it could be upsetting, but it’s her choice and you must respect it.

I have valuable jewellery and only sons. I’ve specified that I want my 2 closest female friends to have specific items despite the fact I also have 3 sisters.

We had this with mil except it was favourite granddaughter, £20k ring, others got a choice of her costume jewellery worth less than the petrol to go and have a look. It happens

@Gpates YANBU that is very hurtful. However I echo other posters say nothing, support your DH and keep out of it or else you'll end up painted as a money grabber.

However your MIL favouring one son over the other frees your DH of any obligations to his mother. I'm gonna hazard a guess that DH and yourself do a alot for MIL and golden boy does fuck all? If that is true then you stop. MIL and BIL will of course paint you as the villain, mean and unreasonable etc but MIL has made her bed and will eventually have to lay in it including when she actually does need help and DH can reply to ask his brother who of course won't help because he's selfish. Is that correct OP?

I can see why you're both upset by it but it's done now your niece's have been given the jewellery. You need to move on and if you want your DD to have a nice piece of jewellery buy her something.

I think the wider context of your MiL favouring her older (?) son is hurtful.

But in this case, presumably the brother had two daughters ten years ago? So your MiL was simply making a gift of some jewellery to the grandchildren who already existed at this time. Rather than holding onto something on the chance that her younger son would not only marry but also produce a daughter (neither of which were guaranteed).

Yes it wasn't fair but despite the naysayers it was her possessions and her decision. Nobody is owed an inheritance honestly the smack of entitlement is loud!

Yes, DH does a lot for her - and she never asks his brother because she says he's far 'too busy to help'.

Truth is, he just wouldn't help unless there was something in it for him.

It's all come out now that he's sold a lot of the jewellery, it was valuable, after a family member visiting from overseas wanted to see it (one item in particular).

It's not about the money, I earn very well fortunately, but it's more about the heritage/narrative of the items, we'd have never sold the pieces, and poor DH feeling so disregarded.

We're supposed to have MIL over for Christmas but DH wants to uninvite her.

The people going on about being grabby and entitled are such Mumsnet cliches and completely missing the point in their keenness to criticise the OP. Most people would feel hurt in this situation. But unfortunately not much you can do about it. I’d be curious to know the brother’s view.

Please please uninvite her and (I'm not saying you aren't!) let DH know that you are backing him 100% on this. Sounds like his older brother is golden child and he's used to be being treated as second class and doing all the running round for them while precious first born doesn't get his hands dirty but laps up all the benefits.

It's similar in my family. My Younger Brother is golden child as he has given my Parents a Grandchild. He's happy to let my terminally ill constantly tired and knackered father drive across town at 6.30am to pick up for childcare because he can't be arsed to drive to their house to drop his child off. I've been the one who had to look after elderly Grandparents, and I know I'll be expected to look after our parents too as their health declines. Whereas he's not expected to do anything, because "but he has his own family". My parents have actually given me the silent treatment before now because I dared say I thought he was taking advantage of them.

Oh no! Update is awful. What does MIL think about this if she was gifting it for DGDs? Unless BIL needed money at the time and actually this was her way of gifting it.

I suspect if he is favoured son MIL will find some way of seeing as okay.

If your DH wants to disinvite her I would be inclined to support him. What do rest of family think? You and DH are likely to be unfairly blamed for any rift caused.

She was ready to part with those things at a point when there were only those granddaughters extant. She wasn't deliberately choosing one son over another. She gave them to the only granddaughters she had.

I'm now at the point of needing to part with a lot of things. I'm doing something along the lines of Swedish death cleaning. One of my DDs has children and the other does not. I don't know whether the other will, but factoring that into what I do with the items I'm trying to clear is not something that has occurred to me.

@FarmGirl78 yes it sounds very similar! His brother isn't expected to do anything/never asked. It's always DH that helps her.

I'll support him in whatever he wants, I think his eyes are well and truly open after this.

MIL was shocked that the items have mostly been sold, so I'm assuming she had no idea that would happen.

BIL isn't hard up but likes to spend - the monetary value would have far outweighed the sentimental value, for him.

The wider family don't know as yet - I suspect they'll not be happy the jewellery is gone, though.