AIBU not to share wedding gift details with my MIL?

[grapevinewine]

Short version: my MIL has asked me to share details of her friends’ wedding gifts to us. I don’t want to. AIBU?

Longer version: My MIL is a kind and generally laid back woman with lots of close friends. She has always attached a lot of meaning to gifts and cards. Every birthday she makes a point of counting them and telling us how many she’s received. Gifts don’t need to be fancy, but she clearly appreciates the recognition. Not a problem.

Her son and I got married recently. Quite a few relatives and family friends were invited to the wedding and, although we didn’t have a registry and said no gifts, a few still kindly gave us small gifts or amounts of money.

MIL has now asked for details of what their friends/family gave us for the wedding. She knows that I kept note of everything to write thank you cards. I feel uncomfortable with this. There are no secrets but it feels like it’s not my information to share. I suggested she ask her friends, but she said it would be easier to just get all the info in one go.

I honestly don’t think she could even say why she wants to know… it would probably make her happy to see her friends being generous, although there’s a small chance she wants to compare the info with amounts she’s given to their children in the past. Either way, she won't do anything with the information. But it feels like a tacky fixation and I don’t want to facilitate it!

My preference is to say no and repeat I’m very happy for her to ask her friends directly. DH thinks we should just send the list and not make it awkward. WWYD?

YABU - send the list
YANBU - don’t send the list

I agree with the response that you feel it is not your information to share and she should ask the friends directly if she wants to know. However, I would give DH the part of the list for his family and friends and tell him to do what he wants with it, including sharing it with his mum if he wants. Tell him your family will be getting thoughtful thank you cards arranged by you but it is not your job to sort out his family. Start as you mean to go on.

I think I would want to have a conversation with her about why she wants to know. Things I can think of include:

• Perhaps she thinks it will be awkward when she's next chatting to her friend Sheila, who then mentions that she hopes you liked their gift, and she then has to say that she doesn't know what the gift was?
• Maybe she wants to also send a thank you, since they're her friends, and somehow feels she ought to send a note as well?
• Maybe, as a PP said, she wants to make sure she is reciprocating of equal value when their children marry
• Maybe she's just nosy/controlling

I can so see my late mil asking this!
I'd tell her no and say its on polite to ask

She should ask her son, not you,

It's not unusual, sometimes it's just meant kindly, to make sure people give enough when they are guests themselves

There's nothing strange in discussing gifts you received with your family. Not everyone has to be bitchy about it.

When Ds and Dil married they were living in a part furnished rental, but in the process of buying. Most people gave them money so they would be able to buy new furnishings when they moved into their own property. Apart from telling us that some family and friends ( without naming them) had been particularly generous, I have no idea who gave what. It's not my business and as long as everyone was thanked properly, it's nobody else's business either.

to add: if it's something else than cash, then it's absolutely a normal question.

This came up at work one day. I had never heard if it but it was a big thing for a group of my work mates and they had a shared culture (that I don’t want to name) where cash gifts are common. It was important to keep things even or comparable. So with that in mind I would share. Plus your MIL sounds lovely and if you don’t share the list it could create a thing that could otherwise be avoided.

To me it’s weird but not worth damaging relationships over.

She’s probably just curious and wants to know what things her friends picked out for you.

If it was your own mum she’d probably just informally ask you while chatting and you’d tell her without issue. The weirdness comes in because she probably knows her son wouldn’t be able to tell her / wouldn't understand her desire to know and therefore she’s reduced to asking you for the list.

Is it cultural at all?

Needing to make sure she at least gives back what they have given you come their children’s wedding?

Otherwise she can keep her nosey nose out.

I would ask my own kids I think. I don't really care if I am being "too generous', because I am not embarrassingly extravagant, but I would like to check I am being generous enough at weddings.

Everybody does the same, you more or less match the presents from birthday parties when they are kids.

There's nothing "mean" about the question, just curious what the average is.

If it's a physical item, then it's very awkward if you know nothing about it in front of your close friends, make it sounds like the gift was really not liked.

Can you not just give her a non specific list.

Ethel- jug
Jo and John -photo frame
Bill- vase

Personally I would probably like to thank my friends in passing for named gift irrespective of their value.

If I were your friend, I wouldn’t like it if that list with my name on it was given to your MIL.

She doesn’t need to know I agree, but also can’t see the harm in her knowing, especially as you think she won’t do anything with the info.

“Sorry MIL, I deleted the list off my phone after writing the thank you cards.” And leave it at that. If she asks again, let your DH deal with it.

Alternatively give a vague list eg “a mixture of cash, vouchers and some lovely photo frames - I can’t remember exactly who gave which present as I didn’t keep the list, but they were all much appreciated and we have already sent thank you notes. Your friends are so kind.”

Prefect. She's behaving very oddly to ask for such details.

Are there any cultural factors at play? I'm not being nosy just that my ex-MIL (South Asian) stayed up all night, opened ALL our gifts on our wedding night, made a list and gave me a copy so I could write thank you notes. She apparently needed to know to make sure she was giving gifts of commensurate value to her friends' kids when they got married. Needless to say, I was horrified, also because she didn't even ask/tell me she was going to be doing this. But I've been told not unusual given the cultural context. I wouldn't share the gift list if I were you.

It isn’t her business and is very nosy of her.

is she?

Friend: oh did they like the vase/ frame rubbish tat that no one needs
MIL: what vase? or what gift?

Unnecessary to be so awkward and unkind.

In normal conversation, it's more a "look at the vase your friend sent us, how lovely"

It's really not that deep

Brilliant!

I also have family from another culture which do cash gifts and want to know these sorts of details. I remember a funeral where the widow of the deceased was getting me to help count how much cash was in the condolence cards purely to see if she'd received more than her sibling.

It's always felt a bit knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing to me.

Wanting to know the amount so that you can give a gift of a similar value is still wrong. Your MIL should give a gift that she feels is appropriate, not one that matched the value that one of her friends gave to you!

I would eitherr just give a generic list as mentioned earlier (Susan - toaster, James - cutlery) or tell her a straight no.

Reminds me of FIL who was very weird about gifts. Prior to the wedding, I was told that a very wealthy Aunt of dhs wanted to buy us a canteen of cutlery (this was years ago) that we could cherish forever and that Aunt was, very kindly, going to spend a lot of money on it. I asked whether we could choose one we liked from whichever store Aunt intended to purchase it from, obviously, Aunt could tell us the budget but was told that was extremely rude of me to ask and I should just be grateful for whatever was bought. Hence, we have a very expensive but very hideous canteen of cutlery that hasn't been out of the case since the wedding, over 30 years ago.

Oh dear the list file got corrupted. Sorry I can't open or send it now you nosy cow.

I find it weirder that people do not have discuss anything within their own family 😂

Of course it's not wrong to check you are giving enough, why would that possibly be wrong?

I think you're being weird about it not your MIL.

She's displaying an average interest in something lovely that involves a link between her child and her friends.
She probably wants to take some pleasure in knowing that Barbara sent you one of those lovely cushion covers she buys/ makes.
Or Sue remembered that she mentioned you hadn't got champagne flutes.
It sounds like a nice little bit of pleasure for her to enjoy her friends kindness & generosity to you.

And you're treating it like some weird Data protection operation exercise.

It would seem like a perfectly natural conversation to me with my mother or MIL to let them know what their very kind friends had gifted us.