I’m engaged to be married in a month to my boyfriend. From where I’m from it is customary for the parents of the newlyweds to gift them with a sum of money, on which both set of parents usually agree. My MIL kept telling us that she wants to meet with my parents to speak about the sum. She didn’t call or text, just told us. I spoke to my mother about this and she invited her over to a barbeque to talk and have some fun outdoors. The MIL accepted at first only to cancel forty five minutes prior to the event(no reason was given). My parents prepared everything so we had the barbeque just us and my sister with her husband. At the event they told us that they can afford a sum of 10k for our weeding, the same sum that they gave to my sister one year prior. We were very grateful. After this the MIL kept pestering my BF to tell him the sum(although she could have called my mom or dad and asked, as it wasn’t a secret). He told him and 2 days after she transfers into his account 4 times the sum my parents proposed as a gift for the wedding. My BF doesn’t want to decline but I feel uneasy to accept so much money from her because although I have tried my best I don’t like her and I think that she will somehow try to manipulate us with this or make my parents feel bad. I don’t want my parents to go into debt for my wedding if they match my MILs gift and also it will be extremely unfair to my sister. I have a high paying job, my Bf also and we can pay for the wedding.
My BF told me that if he feels that the money come with strings he will return them to my MIL. The thing is that I feel very dirty accepting money from someone that I don’t like, maybe if the sum was the same as my parents I would have felt that it’s equal…. I don’t know. I also feel that the money might be dirty as she takes care of a rich much older desperate man(boyfriend of hers but she does’t admit, as she talks sh*t about him when he’s not around) and he put all his houses and stuff he had under her name in order for her to take care of him.
I don’t know how to manage this and I don’t want this to get between me and my soon to be husband.