More about my mother

[fbhjr]

I’m still thinking about those 2 $20 check my mother sent us for our 20th wedding anniversary.
It is just so strange to me that it keeps running through my head.

10 years ago she sent us nothing for our anniversary. That year, two months before our anniversary, she sent me this in an email:

“You'll have a busy fall this year. Ten years married and the big 4-0. Imagine you are busy on plans already.
Would like to give you what I gave you for a wedding present but funds are short. Good luck and good time.”

When we got married, she and my father gave us $3000. Which was $3000 more than I ever expected from them. OK, the cynical part of me says “you had just finished paying them $28,000 for college, so they had the cash then.” But, I was still very surprised they parted with any of it for us.
Of course my mother criticized us for spending the money to pay off my wife’s student loans. Apparently she had expected us to use the money as the down payment for a new car. (The car I had at the time was less than a year old, so this confused me.)

This is why I’m confused.
At 10 years we get “I want to give you $3000, but I’m going to give you nothing.”
At 20 years we get 2 $20 checks.

Have we devalued $2960? Or were her funds so low 10 years ago that 2 $10 checks would have put her over the limit. (The rest of that email from 10 years ago talks about her impending vacation with her friend. So, I’m not at all sure $20 was that big a stretch.)

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want her money. I won’t take her bribes. And, whatever excuse she gives for giving money, birthday, anniversary, etc, she thinks of it as a bribe and expects something back.
I’d have torn up 2 $10 checks in 2003 just as I did 2 $20 last night.
I’d have torn up a $3000 one even faster.

I’m just confused by the intent.

I know, I know. As I say to my wife: “You have to stop thinking you’re in a chess game with these people when they are clearly playing whack-a-mole.”
But, it does seem very strange.

Comments

[m-danson.livejournal.com]

Cashing either check will tell her she got to one of you.
Which check is cashed will tell her which one.
Twenty dollars is the lowest denomination that is not pocket change by most gift standards.
They are trying to get you to stick your head up.

Just move on.

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

The whole thing is strange - you could spend all day analyzing her motives - but probably still wouldn't come up with the right answer.

[chris-warrior.livejournal.com]

telling someone what you'd would like to have given them (IMHO) is easier than actually giving something. it's a cop-out. it's saying "I'd love to do X or Y for you" but not actually making any effort. the thought without the gift. it's highly manipulative - mentioning what you'd like to do for someone but not doing anything at all.

so i don't know why she didn't send the two $10 checks back then if she was going to send 2 $20 checks now. i propose the answer lies somewhere in between "highly emotionally manipulative" and "simply insane."

it may be that she thought you and she were at one level of emotional maipulation back then, and a different level now; perhaps she felt she needed to back up her olive-branch-bear-trp with actual funds.

but, honestly, i like the whack-a-mole comparison.

hope tomorrow is awesome!!!

[sorceress.livejournal.com]

Very strange... who knows what her motives are...

[evrgreen.livejournal.com]

It *might* be that this could be her own weird, genuine attempt to reach out to you, but given all the past attempts at trying to lure you onto the carpet in order to then be able to yank it out from beneath you, I more than understand the high degree of skepticism that is applied to the receipt of this card. After all her cruel tricks over the years, it may well be that she doesn't know how to relate in any "normal" way to you or anyone else, for that matter. But even if that were the case, how could any normal person interpret it as more of the same bad behavior from the previous 20+ years? Hmmmm.

Sorry, I guess I am not of any help on this.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

$40 isn't that much. If she thought that would be tempting... Well.

I know it drove my own mother NUTS when she sent a check and we did not cash it. Hopefully, that will be similar with your.