In-law gifting..AIBU

[isitme333]

I’m not sure if I’m being unreasonable, and I’m open to hearing other perspectives.

I’ve been married to my DH for 18 years, together for 25, and we’re in our mid-40s.

Every year, I write and send cards to his family parents, siblings, and many nieces and nephews. All the children get £20 in their cards for birthdays and Christmas. His parents receive a nice gift, and a couple of his siblings who don’t have children get a restaurant voucher for them and their partners at Christmas.

In return, we get very little. His parents will put £10 in a card for our birthdays and Christmas, and that’s absolutely fine I don’t give to receive. What bothers me is that, apart from the occasional birthday card, we NEVER get a thank-you, or a simple ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy Birthday’ message. My husband is one of 9, and some of his siblings have 6 children, so we send out a few hundred pounds each year.

We don’t have children, something we’ve never been able to change and recently we lost our gorgeous little Springer Spaniel. I posted a small tribute on Facebook with a photo, and not a single member of his family offered condolences. His mum sent a brief message saying, “sorry for the loss of the dog,” ‘the dog’ couldn’t even use her name that was it.

Am I being unreasonable to think about just stopping? I hardly see them from one six-month stretch to the next, and honestly, I’m tired of putting in so much effort with nothing coming back.

My DH will just say send it all as normal to stop any issues but i’m honestly thinking of just not bothering any more.

Eeeek That's pretty bad.
I have 18 aunt and uncles (both parents are 1 of 9) so have grown up in big families

i'd pull back and not discuss it AT ALL unless they have the ridiculous balls to raise it with you.

I'd do a card a box of celebrations or whatever crap chocolate is on offer for each family
If i was feeling generous / didnt want to be listening to any bitching I'd add a "family puzzle" from the works or similat that way they cant complain the kids didnt get anything.

Birthdays - in our family the rule is kids get £10 in a card until 18 if you can remember and if they arent little shits!
Adults get a card unless its milestone or you happen to see them on their birthday.

I'd keep your powder dry and be tactical...

This year I'd do christmas so you control the budget and continue kids bdays into 26 but let dh know he needs to remember and organise all his siblings birthdays for 26 (spoiler alert: he wont)

then in 26 i'd continue the slow fade... hand over kids cards and then finally xmas that way the precedents will all have beem set by you (hell do what was previously done at most) and your outings reduced massively.

Stopping dead is fairly nuclear and you risk your dh "throwing money at the problem which would fuck me right off.

If he still wants to then he can. Then you're still paying the money but at least you're not having to organise it. And I bet he doesn't bother...

Do the other childless couples who you get a restaurant voucher for reciprocate with presents for you? Or do you just get them something and get nothing back?

This is why I only do "let's just do presents for the kids" with other couples with children, not ones who don't have any! Very unfair on you to be giving money as presents to all these kids and not even getting a card or a thank you in exchange, let alone a gift. No you don't give to receive but you give because you care about the recipient and it doesn't seem they care very much about you.

I think you could simply say to your DH that you, yourself, are not sending cards, etc to his family this year but if he wants to take over the task, then that’s perfectly fine with you. Then don’t remind him or make reference to it again.

Is this your DH's idea or is it wifework that you took on and now resent?

Either way it's easy to phase out. Gifts for nieces and nephews stop at 18. No gifts for partners of siblings. Start matching their energy - box of chocolates, no restaurant vouchers.

Even better make your DH do it. Guarantee within one year everyone will be getting a card and some of those will be forgotten.

Absolutely stop sending money to people (or their parents) who never say thank you.
Cards are up to you - sending them could be a kind of "halfway house"?
And I don't know how many people still use Facebook, so I wouldn't hold the lack of comments against them.

Match their energy. If DH wants to continue as you started, let him take it over.

Just stop! Can’t believe you’re doing all this gift giving. We stopped with all this nonsense years ago. If your DH wants to continue with it, let him do it. You can rest assured that will be the end of it.

I would say that your DH should do his own family. If you are concerned that this just won't happen and you're worried about a sudden withdrawal of gifts, could you send 'family gifts' that are the same to every couple/family? A box of biscuits or a tin of sweets, something very low energy, with a card saying that you're cutting back on Christmas?

And next year tell him to sort out his own damn family.

Yeah, I’d be knocking all that on the head!
If your DH wants to carry on doing it more fool him then so be it but I sure as hell wouldn’t be. Mind you, I wouldn’t have taken on that job in the first place.
Do the other siblings without children give you a gift?

Why are doing all this work, first of all? I’ve been with my Dh about a similar length of time. In all those years, I’ve never sent anyone in his family a card (barring when we collectively do a big pile of Christmas cards). I’ve never purchased a gift for anyone. He does that. They’re his family.

You need to match their approach though. It sounds like you’ve made cards and gift giving a BIG THING. They might be to you, but it sounds like they aren’t bothered, about giving or receiving. Stop making it a big thing. Do what they do. Not everyone does cards and gifts.

Really bad! My uncle never had children and has always been generous to me at Christmas and birthdays - I’ll always ring him and say thank you! We always make sure he has cards and presents too, even though it amounts to less than what he spends on me!

I have a colleague that has no children but adores her cat - I always ask about him the same way she asks about my little boy. He means to world to her and if something was to happen to him I would be so sad for her!

Oh OP. How thoughtless and rude of them. Agree you would be justified to just tell your DH that you won’t be doing it and leave it up to him to organise.

If you are keen to avoid conflict I would wrap up an inexpensive box of biscuits or crackers for each family. How can they kick up a fuss about that considering you get literally nothing in return?!

Did your husband ask you to do this in the first place or was it something that you thought you should do. The fact that they didn’t buy you anything in return but you still carried on is on you really. They don’t want to do gifts. Thats ok. With 9 siblings it would be a nightmare. They should say thank you but maybe they are trying to dissuade you.

If you want to stop because you aren’t getting anything back then stop, there is no need to worry about it.

This happened with my in-laws. There are unusual age gaps in my DHs family, so his nieces and nephews are all similar ages to us and have children of their own. We were expected to buy for all of their children, but even though we were at the same point in life with young children, they never said thanks or even sent us a card and our children received nothing from them. The gift giving was costing us a fortune and so we knocked it on the head. Initially we dropped it to just buying each family a tin of sweets/biscuits, but we even stopped that in the end. There was outrage about it though - it seemed it was ok for us to not be given anything, but we were branded tight, mean and nasty for stopping! Takers take.

Just stop. Lack of thank you is really bad.

Tell your dh he can do it if he wants but remind him of the ingratitude. Hopefully he won't bother.

Oh my God, your DH needs to do it himself if he's that bothered. I bet once the wifework falls on him, this tradition will soon stop... You are absolutely and definitely not being unreasonable.

You are being treated awfully, stop allowing it for sure!

I'm so sorry about your loss, it must be really hard especially with Christmas coming up and to not even use your dogs name is really disrespectful.

This is the year that your husband becomes the gift finder/giver general @isitme333

A wee announcement in the family group gives everyone else the heads up 🙂

Wow I can't believe there was outrage! Cannot imagine someone complaining about not getting a gift!

I think you’d be unreasonable to continue rather than be unreasonable to stop.

I can’t believe no one messaged you about your dog. Everyone with half a brain knows how important pets are to people.

I am sorry for your loss.

You say “I send…” so on that basis I’d definitely stop OP. Apart from the money the amount of time it must take you. If your DH would like to continue then that’s up to him to arrange and execute this whole thing. I suspect if he was handling it he’d have a different view to “oh just carry on to avoid issues”!

ETA so sorry about your dog.

I wouldn't have been giving adults gifts in the first place, so you can stop that straight away!

When you look round the shops its piles of stuff that will be in landfill by February. What’s the point.
The kids, I’d probably carry on with a tenner in a card for birthdays and a family game/tin of chocolates for Christmas.

it definitely sounds like you’re giving too much. and I know you don’t give to receive, but they don’t deserve your generosity, especially if they aren’t there for you in tough times.

If your husband is hell bent on continuing this to keep the peace, pass the responsibility over to him.

I really don’t get this buying for every man and his dog at Christmas, and it’s quite clearly a contentious issue for many people judging by the amount of threads on here every November onwards.
Write and send cards to those family members you actually like and see. No need for gifts unless, again, you actually like them and see them regularly. Although, really, as it’s your husband’s family, it should be his responsibility.

Well since YOU are doing all the work for no acknowledgment but HE thinks ‘send as usual’ I would just leave him to it.

But honestly, I would restrict it to kids and his parents.