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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As the daughter of a woman who could be your MIL:

My mother has gone through this with my brother and SIL (I've posted about it here before).  It's been an ugly, ugly 13 years (my nephew's age, which is when this started) and it blew up this year.  My SIL gave away a dollhouse my mother had painstakingly outfitted for my two nieces and my mother went ballistic and there's irreparable damage. There are two sides to every story, of course, and my SIL insists that the girls just didn't like the dollhouse and that their pregnant teacher would love it for her soon-to-be-baby girl.  Unfortunately, this followed situations such as when my SIL made my brother return all the Christmas gifts my mother had given their three children:  he came over and got the receipts and returned several hours later and gave my mother back the money.  Unlike your MIL, my parents aren't in financial distress but like you, my SIL and brother just couldn't deal with the clutter.  Now (and please don't take offense) my whole family is dealing with a much more serious kind of clutter-- emotional stuff that you can't throw, give, or put away, unfortunately.

I am sure you will get all kinds of feedback on this, and I really don't have the right answer for you, except to ask you if it's really worth alienating your MIL over all this.  Can't you share the food at work or with friends if you really can't use it or if it's just too much junk food?  For the clothes, can you ask her to store them until your next trip since they're bigger than your DC needs?

I know that you're worried about her spending unnecessarily but you're not going to be able to control that (and if she's like my mother, she may be going to thrift shops and Goodwill, etc.).

There is NO good answer here but I would hate to see you in a situation such as my family confronts now where there is so much tension that you can cut knives in the room.  You can't control or change your MIL but you can control your own actions and I honestly think that it'll be less painful for you to swallow really, really hard and accept some of this rather than to confront.

Good luck:  I know it's hard.
[/quote]

Thanks - this is helpful.  My first inclination was to write, oh, I would never think of giving away something like that, but then I thought about it and if she does give DD a bunch of really large toys that we can't fit in our house, I would probably be tempted.  This last trip when she gave us a 3rd round of clothes that won't fit DD for over a year, I said (with DH's approval), oh, this is great - let's keep it here until she grows into it!  She responded, oh, well, I thought you would keep it at home.  And I said, oh, we don't have any room, and DH gets stressed whenever DD has wrong size clothes in her closet (this is true).  So she was like, ok, we can keep it in DH's room's closet.  I am hoping this will give the hint that if she keeps buying clothes that won't fit, they have to live at her place.

We have a little side table/cabinet that she gave us for DD that I think is pretty ugly - you're saying I should just suck it up and keep it right?  :)  [/quote]

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