Christmas presents from estranged relatives - keep, return, bin?

[wasabipeas]

DH and I were away with his family over New Year, and while we were away, my DB and SIL spent a couple of nights in our house while visiting friends in the area.
They had left before we got home, and left us a bottle of wine, chocolates and some food in the fridge to say thanks for letting them stay, along with 2 wrapped presents, with each of our names on the paper. No card or gift tag.

We opened them (nothing special, traditional 'Christmasy' things), and I sent a text to my DB to say thanks for the pressies, and let's catch up soon.

I've just spoken to him and he said the presents were from my father, who I haven't spoken to for nearly a year. I asked why he has bought us presents, and DB said it might be an 'olive branch'.

The last contact I had with him was by email, in which I said that until him and his wife were prepared to apologise for something they had said and done, DH and I would not be seeing them.

We still haven't had an apology, they still refuse to accept they did anything wrong, and I'm not inclined to accept a cheap present in lieu of clearing the air and getting an apology.

My first reaction is that I should return them, but I've spoken to DH and he thinks that is both passive aggressive and closes the door permanently. He thinks we should keep them and not acknowledge receiving them.

Thoughts?

The OP confirmed what I always suspected; that her father is a weak bystander of a man who has acted appallingly throughout this whole sorry situation, also the roots of all this go back years. I may have assumed a great deal to some people but I really have not done so here. How wasabi's father has behaved is not untypical of disordered people and is a type of scenario I have seen many times before now. Its about power and control.

Unfortunately you cannot apply normal familial rules when dealing with toxic family members; it does not work and dysfunctional people never play by the rules. They want the relationship on their own terms only; they are not interested in healing any relationship but want the OP and others like her to fall in and tow the party line. Your opinion to these people does not matter.

OP has also agreed with my responses.

Read the initial post Atilla and your first reply.
All OP says is that she has not seen or spoken to her father for over a year, that her last contact with him was an e-mail saying that she needed an apology from himself and his wife for something they had said or done and the apology had not been forthcoming.
In that first post there was no allusion to a complicated history.
In your immediate response you refer to her brother as a flying monkey and assert that the gifts are loaded with obligation.
I do feel that this is an assumption based on the limited information given in the first post.
You may be right-you may not.

I can see why he's afraid to stand up to an abusive wife, given that last time he and his children were abandoned as a response.

This should of course not be at the expense of his relationship with you. If you want to remain N/C I would just ignore the gift entirely and give no response.

zencat,

"In your immediate response you refer to her brother as a flying monkey and assert that the gifts are loaded with obligation".

That is correct and those gifts certainly are loaded as such too.

I may have assumed a great deal in your words but the OP has not criticised my responses or stated they were wrong.

Her brother was used by their dad to do his bidding for him. Leaving basically unwanted presents after no contact for nearly a year (and that happened after that OP had simply had enough of her dad's own poor behaviour) is not on. It was done purely in his father's own self interest because such gifts are never sent in such circumstances without a degree of obligation attached to them.

Such gifts are never sent in such circumstances without a degree of obligation attached to them.

I know this not to be true but I'm not going to prolong the argument.

Why do you think that, its a genuine question by the way. Is that based on purely your own experience?.

I don't wish to de-rail from the original post but I know a number of estranged grandparents. They are a mixed bunch. I can see why some of their adult children are estranged but others just want to keep showing their grandchildren that they care without any expectations.
They would also be open to reflecting on the past and attempting to make amends-but all attempts at this have been rejected.
I find that generalisations aren't helpful.

This doesn't help the OP, I know.

Would someone who cared about someone send them a gift in these circumstances and in this way?

It's the behaviour of someone who wants to impose their feelings on someone they know feels differently.

In the first post the OP said she had told her father she and her husband would not be seeing them until they had an apology.

The brother has been sent with the presents because the father told him they were 'an olive branch'.

The father knows what the problem is and how to fix it but has chosen to invade their home with an action which is not an apology.

If the op had told her friend that she didn't want to see him in the same way and another set of friends had been sent with presents in this way then I think people would see this behaviour more clearly for what it is; boundary breaking...

If you care for someone and they are not speaking to you sending them gifts does not demonstrate care or love, it demonstrates a presumption that your feelings matter more than theirs and the person receiving said 'gifts' is likely to feel threatened not cared for, it's an extremely selfish action whether or not someone expects it to end an estrangement.

No-one is entitled to a relationship with anyone else against the other parties wishes, even young children with estranged adult parents can't force an absent parent to see them.

Likewise showing someone you 'care for them' when they have expressed a wish to become estranged is not a caring action but a deeply selfish and pathological one.

Thanks for all the feedback.
WRT the backstory, it is long and boring, but I'll try to make it as short as possible...
My SM and I have never particularly got on, but only saw each other once or twice a year. 4 years ago, after I split with ExH (for EA and DV reasons), stepmother carried on seeing him a few times. Which is bad enough, but she lives 2.5 hours away from him and had made special trips to have dinner with him. On the last trip, she promised him some valuable items which had been awarded to me in the divorce but were being stored at her and Dad's house. I only found out because ExH phoned me up to brag about being on route to collect them.

At that point, phoned my dad and went apoplectic. He asked me to email him a copy of the court order awarding me the items before he would promise not to hand them over to ExH, which I did
I said I wasn't going to see SM again until she apologised for this. Dad stood by her and said it was her 'human right' to meet up with whoever she wanted to, and she didn't see that she had done anything wrong and therefore had nothing to apologise for. All he would say was that it was 'ill advised, but not malicious' and I was making a big deal out of nothing.
He said she thought she was doing the right thing promising him the items, because he had shown her an email in which I appeared to say he could have them. I have never seen this alleged email.

Fast forward 3 years, and I've avoided seeing her, until a big family party this summer.
My son had been stillborn 8 weeks earlier, and it was obviously hugely still raw. We were seated at opposite ends of a table of 20+ people, but while we were eating, she stood up to make a 'big announcement' that her daughter was expecting a baby, and she was over the moon that this christmas would be extra special because there would be a baby there. She then offered to show people a scan photo. Bear in mind that the only people at this table who have met her daughter are my dad, me and my brother...

At this point, I said something to my dad along the lines of 'Are you seeing what I am seeing? And you aren't doing anything about it?' to which he replied to should stop making a fuss and trying to ruin the occasion. (I think I was beyond restrained...)

After this, I emailed my dad to say DH and I were stunned beyond belief by her behaviour and him standing by doing nothing, and also said I was very disappointed by his behaviour after losing our son, where it took him several days to get in contact, and even then, there was no offer of support.

He replied to my email saying, among other things, that he and my mother had experienced a number of miscarriages but had just got on with it, so him and SM didn't understand why DH and I had to make such a big fuss and organise a cremation (we didn't organise it. The hospital did).

I replied to this saying I was even more disgusted, and until both of them were prepared to apologise to both of us, I wanted nothing more to do with them. If they were prepared to apologise, they could send an email with a time and place. Until the Christmas presents, I hadn't heard anything from him

I know reading this back, I should have cut all contact at the point of the initial fallout, but it was a few months before my wedding to DH, and I wanted some sort of illusion of family there, especially when it would be obvious my mother wasn't there. SM wasn't invited, obviously

Your stepmother sounds very self-absorbed. I doubt she'll change. If you insisted on an apology, they may offer one for the sake of expedience - but then, something else will happen that will leave you poleaxed, and your dad unrepentant, and you're all back at square one. Seems like a stressful merry-go-round to me.

I'm sorry you feel like you have to justify yourself by explaining painful details about your relationship with your father and stepmother

Oops...

And I'm sorry for your loss.

This is the difficulty with many abusive people, they carefully manipulate situations in order to sound to the outside, on the face of it anyway, as them being 'the good guy'.

I think if you have not had any experience of abusive parents/others it can be easy to be drawn into supporting the flawed logic and bad behaviour of an abuser.

I had no idea that nc gift giving meant so much.

My dsil informed me and DH that she wanted no contact with us. We tried to discuss it but ultimately it was her devision. I still send my dnieces gifts on easter, christmas and birthdays.

I don't want them to think that I don't care or have forgotten them.

What a soulless evil bitch I am.

OP those comments from your dm were truly awful

Give the gifts to charity.

I know with my mum when I ask for or impose distance she usually tries things like this in order to avoid having to apologise (and therefore confront her faults). She'll contact me to offer to take me and the kids out somewhere expensive for example.

When I had the same thing with my dad; I said would not allow the children to be around him until he apologises for angrily raging at DS2 (4 at the time) about how awful he is and reducing him to tears for playing with a toy he had asked my mum for permission to play with before he touched it, my mum kept bringing him to my house or inviting the children when he was there but not telling me until I told her that she was making it difficult for her to see the DC and then backed off a bit.

Then my siblings were sent to tell me how 'sad' they were so I stopped having discussions with them about our parents and became more distant to them etc.

All of that to the outside was "Offred is so oversensitive and her children are spoiled, we are really worried about her behaviour and our DGC and so deeply upset that she won't speak to us or let us see our DGC but you know she has always had problems..."

There have been so many things... My mum insisting on driving the kids to Wales when she was medically unfit to drive and had refused to notify DVLA in case they told her she was not to drive (she wanted to use them to prove she was not ill despite having an undiagnosed condition that caused her eyesight to degenerate and her to go unconscious at unpredictable times). I explained to her numerous times I did not want her to do that as I was concerned about it and she kept repeating "It will be fine" and refusing to accept what I said until I banned her from coming near them and got my sister to care for them while we were away instead. She then contacted my sister after we had left saying I just didn't want her to go to Wales but I had said she could take them on a different long drive. Fortunately my sister rang to ask if that was true and I had to tell her not to let my mum anywhere near the DC and she respected that but of course that was "I am trying to be nice, Offred is mean to me for no reason, she has problems, as we know, it makes me sad how she has turned out"

Dontunderstand - do you think sending the children gifts helps the children or is it perhaps more about reassuring yourself that you are not 'the bad guy' and refusing to accept boundaries that you feel are not fair?

They are 12 and 10. They know I always get them gifts. Why should they lose out?

If dsil didn't want me to send anything she could very easily let me know (via dmil).

For what it's worth dsil has physically assulted me in the past along with many many other verbal assaults and emotionally abusive behaviour so yes, I aren't the "bad guy"

Respecting boundaries is not about who is or isn't the bad guy.

Some people impose boundaries which are based on a hugely unfair and warped assessment of the situation.

But they are still boundaries.

If sending presents for the DC is something you always do and have never been told is included in the estrangement then it's not the same issue. Clearly in your situation the estranged people don't want contact with you but don't want to stop you having some kind of contact with their DC. Though you have no definitive reason to think this really.

And may be wrong...

And sometimes it's kinder to just leave well alone.

Even when objectively it is the other person who is being a dick.

I return anything addressed to me because I want to send a clear message that I want no further contact and that gifts are not welcome. Also because I don't want every Christmas and birthday to feature unwanted post from NC family.

My family would say they are open to reflecting and making amends but their behaviour says otherwise and they have had plenty of chances in the past 20 years, all of which they have blown. I don't want to invest my time and energy in the relationship any more, just to get on with my life. The time for making amends has passed.

I have not returned presents fopr my dc. I'd rather they weren't sent but until we move house, I think they will be. I don't acknowledge them and I wouldn't pass on any letters or communication. The dc can't make a decision about a relationship until they are adults and old enough to understand some of the toxic dynamic and when that time comes, I don't want them to have any reason to blame me for witholding presents. They will be able to make their own judgement about what those presents mean by then.

I'm sure you see that sending presents which are a message to the children that you are not the bad guy (implying their parents are) even if that is the truth, is not exactly an expression of love but a passive aggressive one upmanship which involves the DC.

Too much being read into this, sending a present now means you are passive aggressive, perhaps, but perhaps not, it could be a case of doing something nice at Xmas time and yes an olive branch.

What your SM said was entirely unsympathetic and cruel but do you think she set out to upset you, esp if your dad has told you they've had several miscarriages, not excusing it at all but everyone has a different take on things.

If you want to make up with your dad can you not see him without her around, I mean it sounds like your issue is with her and not him and he will perhaps feel a bit in the middle of it.