So why did she do it?

[BlueBells]

Re: So why did she do it?

@khattichic

OP, I don’t have an answer for you. Sometimes people just do stuff for the sake doing stuff.

I’ve been in a similar situation before with my MIL. It wasn’t about moving or taking a belonging like what happened with your rings, but in my case, my MIL didn’t give one of my jetanis gifts (clothes and jewelry) that I sent for her.

It happened multiple times. The first was right after my wedding, my Ammi sent a sari and a small chain and locket for my jetani who did not attend our wedding (she gifted the same things to the other jetani and my nand) and my MIL never gave her the gifts once she got back to karachi. I never heard from my SIL or got a thank you and as a newlywed bride I was pretty upset that it wasn’t acknowledged. About 6 months after my marriage, while I talked on the phone to my SIL, I couldn’t resist and point blank asked her if she liked the sari and necklace I sent for her she told me she had no idea what I was talking about. I was stunned.

I gave the phone to my husband and he asked his mom to come on the line and I let him handle it. My mil had kept those things in her own almari and never handed them over. I don’t know why. My MIL and middle jetani don’t get along, but still, it was no reason to keep gifts that were specifically intended for her.

Second time it happened, I sent an evening clutch as a gift for my jetani, this time via my Papa who was moving to Khi. I bought the exact same one for my MIL as well, in a different color. My Papa delivered them to my inlaws, but my jetani was not at home at the time. Shortly after, I ended up going to khi myself to visit my Papa and again, I found out my MIL had kept the clutch intended for my jetani for herself along with her own.

My point is, I’ll never get a straight answer as to why she does that, and I’ve stopped expecting to ever find out. I don’t hold it over her head, bring it up or ask. I’ve just learned to move on, and I no longer send any gifts to anyone in my inlaws unless I or my husband are physically handing them over to the intended recipient.

Continue to treat with her respect as you’ve been doing and keep the relationship as respectful and nice as you can. We can’t control others’ actions, only our own.

Khatti, actually the EXACT same thing happened to me. A lot of wishy washy things happened when I was engaged, she would stop talking to me for no reason and not respond to my texts or calls for weeks. The day of our nikkah (a year before our barat), she called my mom on the way to the masjid and sprung something about the haq mehr that was completely different than what we had decided on before, so we were really stressed when we got there. Luckily, she had changed her mind again and gone back to the original agreement even before we got to discussing it again during nikkah. So it was just very weird.

Since the wedding was in our part of the town, she asked me to help her with her side of the event by suggesting certain vendors but later on, I ended up doing their entire event all on my own because she wouldn’t respond to me for weeks. My poor fiance couldn’t say anything and had to help me in secret because he didn’t want to “rock the boat” before the wedding and go through it as peacefully as possible. Later on when my fiance decided to visit me for my birthday and help finalize some final wedding vendors, she got so upset, she said she wasn’t attending the wedding anymore. This was just a few weeks before the wedding so hubby had to take a trip to convince her to come.

The wedding itself was crazy, they were late for the events and we ended up missing our photoshoot that we had paid for, so we just ended up taking some pictures in our hotel room. They didn’t arrive at the time they told me to arrive at the hotel so we could make an entrance together and I ended up being driven around in the car for an hour until they arrived. The morning after the wedding, hubby got a call at 9:30 am asking for both of us to get food for his entire family and some out of town guests and bring it to the hotel they were staying at. They said since they had woken up late and missed the hotel breakfast, all were hungry and we needed to hurry. Imagine, being a newly married bride, the morning after your wedding and running around at 10 am grabbing food for guests. We were SO upset. They were in a freaking hotel in the middle of the city with at least 5 adult drivers in the group and made us run around town. Also, this wasn’t a case of them expecting food from my family in the morning, since they were invited by my family for a dinner that day.

Never did my husband and I ever say anything to them. We just said it was a bummer we missed the photoshoot because we had paid the photographer and really wanted it bad. I never ever complained to them and decided to just start with a clean slate because they had never directly said anything mean or harsh to me. They just chose to ignore me and not take my calls or messages if they didn’t want to talk to me so the situation never arrived and I never actively took part in creating one, even though all the ingredients were there.

Also, the morning after wedding fiasco was probably when they realized I’ve been pushed far enough because ever since then, every single person in his family has been amazingly nice to me. The same sil who was supposed to be planning their side of the event and stopped taking my calls for no reason now calls me and checks up on me on a daily basis!

Coming to the jethani thing, my mil’s relationship turned really sour with one of her dil and her son. Since they couldn’t attend my wedding out of fear that the mom would go crazy and I wasn’t supposed to know about this whole issue between them, I got her a very nice suit, shirt for the bil and some clothes for their kid. My hubby got a hard drive for his brother because he had asked for it. This stuff was never delivered to them. Of course, since I’m not supposed to know about it, I never brought it up. But it’s really upsetting.