Reply to s/o Gift giving as a form of aggression

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "s/o Gift giving as a form of aggression"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]  Does anyone else have a family this deranged with gifts? We have drifted from them do to far worse issues, but I had forgotten about the gift thing where before we drifted we had to set a no gift boundary. My mother who had a lot of rage used to relish passive aggressive gift giving. She bragged how for frenemies she got loud baby toys as shower gifts so they would suffer. I guess she hated me because she always gave her grandkids the loudest possible gifts and would smirk. The son of one of her "friends" had a cappuccino maker on the wedding registry. She bought a cheap coffee maker on sale to show them not to be so uppity. She used to take advantage of a neighbor's kindness and every time she and dad went on long exotic trips she'd have the neighbor take in the mail, check on the house, water plants, take in her cat, etc. Then she'd always get the same gift for her-a scarf that wasn't her taste. She would ask the neighbor why she never wore it and the neighbor the first decade of this was polite, but eventually admitted it wasn't her taste so she'd donate. So mom to punish her would keep getting her ugly scarves.I suggested a gift card, nope. I did convince her to include a gift receipt and mom would be livid to hear the neighbor returned it. Eventually the neighbor declined to help her at all probably to avoid this strange dance.

The gene got passed onto my sister, but not brother. When I had a baby, my sister, who did not have kids, bought a bunch of used, stained clothes, some with holes at a yard sale and sent them to me. (She was a partner in a law firm at the time and I had already told her we had a church near us that had consignment sales where I got new and almost new baby clothes for a few dollars each). I got a broken vase once that I cut myself on when I opened the box. Another time it was a broken tarnished necklace with fake jewels missing from the pendant. One time she got me a cookbooks with elaborate desserts. I don't bake and I avoid sugar. She wrote a long note about how now I must make a new dessert for her every time she comes to town. I declined. Every time I set a no gift boundary she would fly into dramatics and my mother just supported her. For my brother she once sent a bunch of sharp knives when they lived in a small condo with twin toddlers. When she saw how dirty their car was from toddlers she sent the wife a car vac for her birthday and said "It's clear you needed this."

Does anyone else have family like this?

I love the holidays being about seeing people we truly enjoy and creating happy memories, but gifts make me highly anxious. We get them for the kids and that is it-we have a no gift rule with friends and it works well. I don't want to wonder if someone is trying to send a message and I don't need more stuff to donate.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics