Gifts. . . . with all the strings attached!

[sunshine12]

All my in-laws love giving gifts; it's one of their love languages. However, I have started to see how my MIL uses gifts (presents, cash, etc) to manipulate her family members. It totally grosses me out. For example, every Christmas we have a white elephant gift exchange. We always agree upon some value maximum ahead of time (like $25 or so). But my MIL and FIL both like to bring items that are worth well over $100. And then they get to sit back and watch everyone fight. My MIL also likes to make a big fuss over people she just met or is trying to impress by giving them inappropriately expense gifts or paying to take them on vacation with her. I remember my first Christmas in the family (when I was still had "special" status) I got WAY more gifts than anyone else. . . including her own children. And she frequently reminds us how expensive the gifts were or if she gives us money in a birthday card keeps on asking what we spent it on. Also, if her children ever do something she doesn't like, even if it is just setting a reasonable boundary , she makes a point to tell them how "ungrateful" they are for all that they receive from her. I could go on, but I think that illustrates the point.

The reason I started to see the hidden motivation behind all the gift giving is that I believe she is using gifts to my children to manipulate my husband and I. There have been several circumstances recently where she has been angry and has said unkind things to both him and I. Yet, almost everytime we see her she has gifts for my kids or straight up gives them cash. It is completely spoiling them, especially since it sets an expectation that their other set of grandparents (my parents) couldn't possible meet. It feels like she is trying to show us "see, I'm still a really nice Grandma and you couldn't possible be mad at me while I'm doing all these nice things." Of course she has never actually apologized for the mean things she said. In fact, my husband told me the other day that he couldn't actually think of any meaningful apology that he has ever received from his mom. At best, it is something like, "I'm sorry that you felt bad, but you deserved to hear what I said."  It's absolutely infuriating, but we both realize that we are unlikely to ever receive apologies, even though she has said some absolutely horrible things to both of us.

My question is how on earth to deal with this behavior? I know that her response if I say something about the excessive gift giving will be that she is just being a nice grandma. I wish I could point out that I think her gifts are a form of manipulation, but I know that would NOT help the situation one bit. She is so firmly entrenched in her beliefs that she is such a great mom/grandma, that any form of critique will likely lead to a huge blow up. The emotional side of me just wants to accept the gift and then turn around and throw them in the garbage (LOL, just a fantasy!) but realistically speaking what should I do? What have other members done in similar situations?

[Call Me Cordelia]

Familiar! Certain of my PDILs are exactly like this. NC now, but before I knew about PDs I forced the issue with DH. It was so bad that Christmas morning too literally hours. Curiously, that was only the case when we were physically with them...  Saying I really needed him to address this with them, because this is not how we want to raise our children, we want them to value people for themselves, all true. We said one gift per person per holiday. Anything more is donated. So they did... but also started with the "family" gifts that were memberships and stuff not easily donated or returned. And the gifts got much more extravagant. But there was technically one with each kids name on it! And my gifts? Changed to absolute junk. The other ILs started giving small gifts for the kids every time they'd visit. Small stuff that would make me look petty for pushing back on. But delivered with the smirk. They would love to "come to the rescue" by helping us financially or to take over a big purchase we were already planning to make on our own, and then whine that I wasn't grateful enough. At the time I said they do all that so they can feel important and buy our affection. Which is true, but it's way deeper than that.

It turned into a fight with me and DH. "They're doing what we said!" "This is NOT respect!!!" Finally we got to no gifts at all. And even then they tried to worm around the boundary.

I would also push back on identifying gift giving as a love language for them. What you describe isn't love, it's seeking supply. PDs might not be able to tell the difference, but I'm sure you can! Calling it a love language increases the guilt factor for you. Denying them their love language sounds plain mean, protecting your FOC from manipulative games is much more accurate.

For the white elephant, maybe give them a warning on the dollar limit, and if they ignore it, say rather than waste all this time fighting, if you want the $100 dollar item put your name in a hat and we'll draw. Everyone else can then do the rest of the white elephant the way you normally do. Not a perfect solution, but would reduce the supply from the drama show their gift got them.