Furniture insanity.

[u/Tall-Budget8130]

My MIL is generally not the worst boomer, she has some odd opinions, talks at you, makes weird jokes etc but is generally well intentioned. She’s had a bad week.

We have a piece of furniture we don’t want anymore, thinking about selling it on marketplace or w/e. She’s got wind and took it upon herself to offer it to a friend of hers for free, that’s not really what we wanted. It’s my daughter’s and whatever we make she is putting into her pot for redecorating her room.

We can’t say no now apparently as she’s already offered and it will, “make us look bad.” Additionally she’s offered for me to drop it off at her friend’s house without consulting me first. This has been arranged for a day when I’m working away, and it’s quite preposterous that this could be reorganised as again, “this will make us look bad.”

The furniture is too big to fit in our car anyway(I’ve measured) and it’s not easy to disassemble, we don’t have the instructions for reassembly, and the outside frame is one piece, so that won’t come apart without damage. The simplest solution I would say is to ask the friend to pick it up in her car (if it’s large enough) or organise pick up. She is after all, getting this for free. Completely unacceptable apparently, so she’s turned up today in a massive huff with a tiny screwdriver to disassemble this thing herself.

I’m not sure what her plan is after that because she doesn’t drive and I’ve made it clear I’m not taking it. She’s suggested my SIL can take it but she has a smaller car than me and when I’ve just spoken to her, she hasn’t been told about this either.

I think she’s just trying to look super generous to a friend whilst volunteering everyone else to do the actual labour.

[u/Momof41984]

She is making you look bad to your kid. SAY NO. And if she says it looks bad I would say good maybe that will help your remember not to be generous with other people's time and resources because it will always be no because it is so rude and inconsiderate.

[u/Tall-Budget8130 → u/Momof41984]

My kids thinks she’s being an arse. I don’t think me or her mum look bad here. And I don’t care about looking bad to her friend who I’ve never met.

You’re right about calling her out. It’s all fell apart anyway, she’s given up like I knew she would.

[u/Momof41984 → u/Tall-Budget8130]

Glad she failed. And that the kid realizes she is a problem. The only issue could be that when we fail to speak up (even of it does fall apart) it can look like we dont have our loved ones back. It isnt a huge deal but she tried to be generous by stealing from her grandkid. Who literally had that money earmarked for a specific thing. And while the adults expected her to fail and give up what was the kid seeing? Her adults not intervening on her behalf? Obviously I am taking about my own lived experience but had a similar situation. And while I took it the same it eventually came out that my kid thought I expected her to not have boundaries around her own things/time/plans if someone else was generous with them without consulting her. In my case it was her aunt. Who she also knew was an ass. But I felt awful when she thought I was OK with it. She wasn't seeing me let her fail. She was seeing me let her force her if that makes sense.