Now, one thing OP should have asked her husband was why he didn’t do the dishes since she cooked. But in this case, maybe it was nice he could spend a little extra time with his mom so I’d cut him some slack.
So, OP, do you really care about the pineapple and the $10? Or are you upset that you feel your husband isn’t considerate of your efforts towards his mother or your views on decisions regarding her? If the latter, are these feelings and experiences part of your relationship away from interactions with your in-laws? If so, address those issues instead of talking about the $10 or the pineapple with your spouse. Get to the meat of what is really eating at you.
Don’t now “demonize” the husband, lol, throw him “in the dungeon.” For all we know, MIL was delighted to have pineapple the next am, not that this wretched man forced it on her. (The odd gets odder, lol.)
What else do you know that I seem to have missed while following along? This is seriously a case of don’t sweat the small stuff. If there’s a communication issue, be mindful of it. Work on it, don’t get distracted by the particulars of one day at MIL’s. Don’t sublimate. Don’t project it out to onerous responsibilities ahead of their arrival.
I can guess what’s going on. OP is tired. Been doing her best. H is tired and emotionally frazzeled–he lost his dad.
MIL is looking at a life alone and hoping to maintain some semblance of normalcy.
It’s 10 bucks and some pineapple. On a good day that’s nothing. It just struck a wrong chord this day.
It is funny, such a long conversation about this. I wonder how it will work out when everything settles down. I heard about a great deal of odd behaviors when my FIL was dying and at his funeral. My in laws getting into ugly fights (about care, not money) and one of them deciding a good time to tell off my dear MIL was the morning of the funeral. Stress can make people act just awful. I am so glad I wasn’t around these arguments when they happened, I might have blasted one of them for being unkind, and never been forgiven. But normally, they are all awesome, kind people.
It’s hard to truly analyze this from one situation, because nothing happens in a vacuum. I try to remember that when I see a parent overreacting in public when a kid does something obnoxious…this could be the hundredth time he did that, not the first. OP’s husband calling her greedy…who knows how many times he’s said or implied something like that, who knows if this is a running argument about him always trying to pay for everyone.
No, you won’t if you think your H doesn’t appreciate your effort and respect what you do. If he just takes money and is happy that he has money not appreciating that his wife is trying to make him feel better, your happiness won’t last.
And all I can say is, okay, keep the pineapple. But if my H is telling me to leave my last sour cream banana chocolate chip muffin at someone else’s house? Them’s fightin’ words!
Where was it said he doesn’t respect what she does for his mother? As far as I can tell, this is about the word greedy, $110 dollars and half a fricking pineapple. Not sure if it is sad or laughable.
I cannot believe we are now reduced to arguing about a half of a pineapple. Really, I am just loving this thread – it somehow manages to bring together the things that simultaneously cause us all the most joy and the most grief in our lives – family, spouses and money.
Other than the name calling, which was hurtful and uncalled for, I would not have had any kind of issue with your H’s approach. Consider the timing - I don’t see any of this as setting any sort of permanent precedent. Occasionally treating MIL to a few groceries or helping a sibling stock the house for herself and the people paying condolence calls is reasonable and should be something your H is able to do at his own discretion and without having to ask for “permission.”
I realize there are other siblings and some concerns that you are going to be doing more than your share. While the bills and the shopping are not exclusively your “responsibility” my philosophy is to do what you feel is right, necessary, or what you want to do without worrying about other people. If they offer to help, fine, it’s a bonus.
It’s obvious that your MIL is not at all trying to take advantage of you financially, has offered to pay for her own groceries and no doubt will continue to offer. My best advice going forward is to pick your spots. If it gives your H some sense of satisfaction to do a few nice or considerate things for his mother right now or in the future, I would encourage it.
When you get into a regular routine in the weeks ahead there will be plenty of time to see what system works best for reimbursements. For now, I’d look at the big picture, which is how to best support H and MIL.
It’s not even about the pineapple of course, or the money. It’s about H stepping on OP’s plans. She planned to take the pineapple home. That wasn’t greedy, nor would have been particularly greedy for MIL to ask for it, or particulary generous for OP and H to offer to leave it. It was just that OP assumed she would take it. And those of us who have taken care of our senior relatives know what happens to leftovers much of the time - next time we see them they are covered in fuzzy green growths and have to be thrown away. (The leftovers, not the seniors.) So it was perfectly fine for OP to plan to take it home. And it wasn’t MIL who asked for it, it was H.
About wine - If I knew any wine left behind would go undrunk, of course I would take it home. Why would I leave a half-full wine bottle behind for MIL to empty and recycle? That’s giving her a chore.
For those of us whose families don’t often talk about money, the thing with the $10 might seem petty. But OPs in-laws talk about money a lot, according to her, and especially try to out-do each other with who is spending the most on others. That’s ok, but it’s a game OP doesn’t play and isn’t comfortable with. Her in-laws learned (see post 26) that if they can’t talk her H into taking money, they can slip some to her, which she will take not because she cares about the money but because the escalating “No WE are paying!” wars make her uncomfortable.
So OP accepts repayment from MIL because she is not comfortable battling to avoid it. Not a problem. If she were comfortable with the battle and could win it now and then, also fine. But it doesn’t look like there is an option of casually waving it off. That doesn’t appear to be the way this family works, which is too bad.
So yes, I still think H was very wrong to call OP greedy, and should apologize. A better reaction would have been for him to smile at how his family keeps fighting the same battles, just like the old days. But of course he is also grieving, and sometimes you have to acknowledge you are hurt but still give the person a pass.
If that’s all you really think this is about, you either aren’t reading the posts or aren’t old like most of us here. When you’ve had very long relationships, you realize it’s never just about one minor thing.
When we’re at my dad’s and buy groceries, my dad tries to give me cash to cover it. I always tell him no, but he usually insists. DH would be aghast at taking money from him because while Dad can afford it, we’re in a stronger financial position. Frankly, we like getting the groceries or share paying for Bowling Night because it’s a low-key way to have a nice time together without everyone having to spend $$ they don’t have. Between us and my youngest sister, we usually take care of that kind of stuff. OTOH, my other sister keeps track of Every.SIngle.Penny. she feels she’s owed. My mother did the same thing. It’s not an attractive look on my sister, and having grown up with very little, I fight the microaccounting urge myself. I’ve worked really hard as an adult to be more generous and to not keep tabs. Still working on it regarding said sister.
These days, if Dad insists on reimbursing me, I donate those funds to the charity quilt project I’m involved with. He likes donating to projects where there are immediate on-the-ground results, so I sometimes bring my quilting down for him to see. He also sews (and taught me how to use Mom’s machine when I was 14), so it’s a win-win.
Okay, this reminds me of a different thread, where we had a rollicking conversation about wine. I think it was Pizzagirl (?) who said that when someone comes over for dinner and brings a bottle of wine, she considers it a hostess gift and puts it in the cupboard (nobody drinks it). And since she and her husband are non-drinkers, she then serves the guests non-alcoholic drinks. To which some of us said, what??? Unless you have something morally against drinking, put the bottle out for the table, especially if you’re never going to drink it! In fact, if someone brings a bottle, they are obviously drinkers, so put out a couple of bottles of wine you have wasting away in your cupboard, and tell them to feel free to take one home with them!
I did not read OP’s post #213 that way at all. As they were putting on their coats to leave MIL asked how much the grocery bill was – all OP did was answer her. It was H who grabbed the lousy $10 and then made a snide comment to OP. Am I misreading her post? From that description it seemed to me H was kind of looking for an argument with his wife.
Why would we not be saying the same thing about the OP who presumably put in a full day at her job as a professor? She did not go home and relax, rather she went to the grocery store and then to MIL’s to cook dinner for MIL and her own H. Her thanks for that effort was her H yelled at her. Absolutely ridiculous.
But in this case, maybe it was nice he could spend a little extra time with his mom so I’d cut him some slack.
Stress can make people act just awful. I am so glad I wasn’t around these arguments when they happened, I might have blasted one of them for being unkind, and never been forgiven. But normally, they are all awesome, kind people.