She Accepted Her Future Mother-in-Law’s Dresser as a Gift, But Moving Across the Country Meant Deciding Whether to Keep a Piece of Furniture Loaded With Meaning
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Some gifts can become surprisingly difficult to deal with later.
In this story, a woman accepted a dresser from her mother-in-law after repeatedly trying to decline it.
But after moving across the country, the dresser no longer fit properly and was making their spare bedroom difficult to use.
She wanted to replace it with a smaller one but worried her MIL would be offended and hold it against her.
If you were in her shoes, what would you do? Check out the full details below.
WIBTA if get rid of the dressing table MIL gave us
About a year ago, when my fiancé and I moved in together.
I (29F) was looking to buy a dressing table for our room.
My MIL was present when I told my fiancé about an affordable dresser I saw online.
She then insisted we should take hers, so we didn’t need to spend the money on a new one.
She added that she never liked it and would be happy to be rid of it.
This woman and her fiancé moved across the country for work.
I repeatedly tried declining the offer, but she was very persistent.
I didn’t want to offend her and make future interactions unpleasant. Also, it is a nice dresser.
Shortly after receiving the dresser, my fiancé and I got new jobs and moved across the country.
We were very lucky that the new employer paid to move our furniture.
We would not have been able to afford it ourselves.
They also housed us and kept our furniture in storage for a few months while we were house hunting.
The dresser from her MIL didn’t fit well into their new smaller house.
Now the problem is, where we live now, the housing market looks much different.
We simply cannot afford a house of the same size as where we used to live.
The dresser doesn’t fit into our master bedroom, so we had to put it in the spare bedroom.
But even in there, it just takes up too much space.
It looks very awkward, makes movement in the room difficult, and is very difficult for me to use.
I want to get rid of it and buy a much smaller one that would fit into our bedroom.
Now, she’s afraid her MIL would be upset if she gets rid of the dresser.
However, I don’t know if it’s a jerk thing to do.
We can predict that MIL would be very offended and probably hold it over our heads forever.
She has a history of being angry and offended by much smaller offenses and being generally manipulative.
We can’t afford to just send something of this size all the way across the country back to her.
But I also can’t imagine keeping it indefinitely just to keep the peace.
WIBTA if I get rid of this dresser?
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In my opinion, a gift should not come with a lifetime obligation to keep it, especially when circumstances changed.
Keeping a huge dresser that no longer works for OP’s home just to avoid upsetting her MIL seems really impractical.
If the dresser was genuinely given to them, I think they should be free to decide what happens to it.
Let’s see how others reacted to this story.
This user shares their personal thoughts.
Here’s an honest opinion from this one.
Here’s some good advice.
Get rid of it, says this person.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a friend who is upset they missed out on cheap festival passes due to her pal’s indecision.
Finally, short and simple.
A gift is a gift, not a lifelong storage contract.
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