Gifts that come with strings attached rarely feel like gifts at all.

When her mother-in-law bought her a used car without asking, she didn’t expect it to be used as leverage every time things got tense.

Now she’s left defending herself for taking back what she paid for.

Read on for the full story!

AITA for taking off everything i bought on a car that was bought for me

My mother-in-law bought me a car (that I didn’t ask for and that I didn’t know was being bought for me, by the way). She said she paid $2,500 and that I will pay her monthly for it.

Ok, I guess. Cool.

But that was far from the end of it.

Every time she gets mad at me, she holds the car over my head and threatens to take it.

She took it today, and this car was a lemon.

She had already sunk a boatload of money into repairs.

I’ve gotten fuses for it, a starter, alternator, battery, tires—so when she took it today out of spite, I was literally in the process of getting it fixed.

So why should her awful mother-in-law get to reap these rewards?

I told the mechanic to take everything I bought off of it.

Now I’m the bad guy because she says I owe her a running car 🤷🏽‍♀️.

Her mother-in-law’s logic is confounding.

She won’t offer to give me any of my money back but wants me to leave all the stuff I bought on it.

Insanity.

After months of guilt trips, she was finally taking back control.

What did Reddit have to say?

No matter what she did, this story probably would have still turned out the same way.

This commenter shakes their head at this MIL’s behavior.

She could potentially get the legal system involved here if she wanted to.

This commenter has lots of follow-up questions.

She never asked for the car, but she ended up paying for it in more ways than one.

Letting someone hold her wallet and her patience hostage was never part of the deal.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.