Dear Abby: Mother-in-law stole possessions

[cereta]

DEAR ABBY: I recently realized that my mother-in-law stole several of my prized possessions. It seems that my husband's brothers, who helped us move when we lost our home, took the items (obviously at her request and with her approval) instead of placing them in the storage unit as instructed.

I am furious at her and my husband's brothers. How should I deal with this? I want to confront her and let her know that I am aware of her betrayal, but my husband is a great man, and I hate to hurt him in this process.

When I told him I was aware that his mother had stolen from us, he said he would make it up to me and that his mother is old (she's 81) and I should let it go. However, every time I visit her home and see my things it hurts. How should I deal with this? I feel raped. -- FURIOUS IN TENNESSEE

DEAR FURIOUS: If the items are replaceable, let your husband do as he promised. If they are heirlooms, you will either have to wait until she dies to reclaim them or go over there and demand that she give them back.

Comments

[cimorene]

Wow, okay. First of all, she should take them back, but second of all, she has a huge husband problem.

[mathemagicalschema]

Yeeeeep. The husband has no right to be so chill about his family stealing his wife's treasures. I wonder whether he was aware of what his brothers were doing in the first place.

Since it's his family, it would be sensible of him to do the asking, too.

[cimorene]

I've often seen the suggestion of saying something like "If you don't handle your family, I'll be forced to handle it, and you won't like how I'll handle it".

[ambyr]

It just feels like there is SO MUCH missing from this story. I struggle to understand why the first time she walked through her mother-in-law's door and saw her things, her reaction wasn't a loud, "Wow, how did this end up here?!" (I guess she's better at controlling herself than I am?) Or why her mother-in-law keeps her stolen things in full view.

I mean, maybe LW is a poker-face champion and MiL and BiLs are gleeful, open thieves (and the husband is bizarrely chill about the whole affair). But I could also construct other narratives, largely because LW gives no indication of what the "prized possessions" were. Are they perhaps family heirlooms from LW's husband's family, which LW thinks of as her prized possessions because they were given to her and her husband, but MiL thinks of as still in some manner hers, at least to the extent that she wants to protect them from possible environmental damage in a storage unit? I'm making things up out of whole cloth, here, but it's about the only way I can make sense of everyone's behavior.

[cereta]

Yes. This is what I was trying to say, only better stated. None of this makes any SENSE.

[ambyr]

I mean, I also boggle at how she didn't notice PRIZED POSSESSIONS walking off during the move, but I guess for all I know she and her husband were both in the hospital and the brothers handled the move completely without them...? Again, making up stories because otherwise none of this MAKES SENSE.

[greenygal]

She says they were given to the brothers-in-law with instructions to put them in a storage unit, so I expect she thought they had, you know, done that until she found out otherwise.

[likeaduck]

Alternate theory, and this feel super weird to be thinking but...: hubby sold the things to his mom behind LW's back (due to financial trouble that caused the loss of the house?), and didn't tell her LW didn't know, so she displays them openly because as far as she knows that's totally fine.

Also making things up, obviously, and normally speculations like this are not necessarily helpful, but I'm also finding everyone's behavior REALLY WEIRD.

[cereta]

Okay, something, something has to have been cut from the letter, because this is not adding up.

Brothers helped couple move when they lost their home. And then...LW saw her possessions in MiL's home? And Abby's advice is either to let this go (ahem: let her husband "make it up to [her]") or wait until the woman dies (and hope the brothers don't filch them)? Oh, or maybe she could go demand them back.

Because somewhere in here, there are are a lot of people acting bizarrely. What is the husband's rationale for why Mom took the possessions? Unless she has problems with dementia (which is neither stated nor even necessarily implied), being 81 isn't a reason to just take something that doesn't belong to you. Is this typical behavior from her?

And what's the brothers' explanation for taking the items? Did either husband or LW ask them, "So, hey, how'd our stuff end up at Mom's?" Is this typical behavior from THEM? If so, waiting for MiL to die (which is kind of creepy) may not solve anything; what's to keep them from just filching the stuff?

Does husband typically let his mother and brothers walk all over him and his wife to the point of just letting them have his and wife's stuff? If so, (a) that's a very big problem, and (b) see above re: waiting for mom to die not exactly solving the problem.

Seriously, this is just...boggling. The letter is boggling, the advice is boggling, the whole thing is just boggling.

[madripoor_rose]

I keep hanging up on how this stuff was precious and yet was supposed to go into storage? There's a lot of backstory missing here, but I can see one easy misunderstanding that these things would be safer in a family member's house instead of a storage unit.

[rymenhild]

I think the missing part of the story is about losing the house. Was it foreclosure? Was there a financial connection between MIL and LW in the process of losing the house? Not that that makes it okay, because it definitely doesn't.

And by the same token, LW is probably disoriented and missing the things that make her household meaningful. So seeing them in her in-laws' house adds insult to injury.