Performative Generosity!

[FogartyBint]

Is this a thing or have I made it up?

Family member considers themselves very generous, but it always with strings attached. For example will loudly insist on paying the bill at pub/restaurant before the meal, but then will police what people have (DD once pointed out on a menu how much a steak cost and was told ‘you’re not having that! I’m paying for this meal you know! - DD is vegetarian), or will tell us they’re more than happy to pay for ‘xyz’ but it will always have to be the cheapest version.

DH and I are not rich but we have money to buy our own things and have said to the family member repeatedly that we will buy things for ourselves, this is often met with comments insinuating we’re stuck up?! We’ve also told them that we don’t need presents at Christmas or birthdays, but they will always come armed with mountains of items from Poundland and the like, which is usually just tat that lies around the house (aka headphones that can’t be connected to anyone’s phones).

I’ve told them this year we are having a year off from buying and spending and they’ve agreed to this (I think?!), I just wondered if this is an uncommon thing!

Forgot to add, family member is extremely well off so there’s no need for any of this really!

My family is full of people like this. It’s exhausting and so desperately emotionally convoluted. Do you have hoarders in your family as well? I often think this is an extension of hoarding / compulsive shopping but with baked in guilt and resentment and passive aggression and need to control and fear of criticism and all sort of other weird stuff.

I just hate it, and it has made me a bit weird about accepting gifts or kind gestures from normal people.

I’m glad it’s not just me!! Not hoarders but to me it’s on a par with people who are incredibly tight. I’ve not got a problem with people being like this until it’s projected on to me! My family member flatly refuses to give money or gift vouchers as presents, which is up to them but then they’ll buy us endless crap which makes it pretty obvious that it’s just a performance and a little self pat on the back, drives me crackers!

Yes, I think it’s a thing. My mum is like this. We are NC for unrelated reasons. With her it isn’t so much demanding everyone choose the cheapest item, but insisting upon paying for everyone or she will do things like insist she pays for a friend’s flight to visit her who she knows is struggling. But then will go behind their backs and complain to everyone else how they had to pay for them. I think it gets attention and praise and sympathy - like always being both the hero and the victim. A hero for paying and a victim for being taken advantage of, either way, it gets attention from others, which I think feels good temporarily.

Like I said, we are NC now, but yes, we used to get the same boxes of Poundland cheap tat too. It’s the high of buying it and the high of getting the thanks, with no thought to whether the person actually enjoyed it (because that doesn’t give the same feeling and adoration that feels good).

It’s the high of buying it and the high of getting the thanks, with no thought to whether the person actually enjoyed it (because that doesn’t give the same feeling and adoration that feels good).

This is exactly it!! Thanks for putting words to my jumbled thoughts! 😀

God yes. The endless trips to the charity shop / dump with all the mountains of crap you’re expected to express endless fawning gratitude for.

That plus having your arm twisted relentlessly to let them ‘treat’ you / take you out to dinner / on some bloody outing you have no interest in, which they then turn into some massive imposition you’ve forced on them because you’re some sort of greedy succubus on the take.

It makes me want to scream.

@mindutopia we must be related. All the women on both sides of my family do this. I am NC with one of them for reasons which aren’t directly related, but part of the same pattern of behaviour where they need to keep you always owing and in the wrong.

This is a phenomenon of emotional guilt trapping. She can’t see that her ways are produced by her ego, but she’s certain that she feels ill inside about the ways she behaves towards you two, and very likely to others as well. Longing to be free of her own guilt and self-inflicted anguish, she instead tries to put the pain on you furthering her guilt. (I channeled this energetically for you because it's what I so. Hope it helps!)

What is she guily about? Maybe its her choices of how she spends her money. Maybe it’s the need to be generous but she’s caught of thinking that she doesn’t have enough money. Lack causes guilt everytime she spends. Guilt spirals to cause shame. The cycle will continue until she can feel her own needs can only be met when she can feel the pain, see it for what it is, and move on.

Until then, if her healing does occur in your lifetime, be kind to her. Understand she does not want to cause you or your husband harm. She doesn’t even know what she’s doing. Until she can see the motivation behing her actions, this is the best she can do. Keep boundaries, prepare ones where there aren’t any, and glide through the circumstances as they come up. If you’re willing to see this through and change your mind and energy around her, it is likely she will see the clarity that you can see and change her ways. Either way, it doesn’t need to matter for you. You have more soverighty in this than you yet realize.