You can't change anyone's behavior except your own. So wishing that the joint gifts would stop or that they will stop chastising you if you don't chip in isn't going to get you anywhere. You can either continue to contribute to group gifts in order to keep the peace and get over your feelings about it, OR you can quit contributing and just deal with (ignore if possible) the scolding from MIL. IDEA: What if you just chip in a nominal amount to their gift $5 or $10, quit giving $60 because you know it won't be matched. Then you can always buy a separate gift for the recipient, spending what you consider to be an appropriate amount. As for the birthday gifts, who ever said that you HAVE to buy someone a gift, and that it has to be something on their $100 list? Buy IF and WHAT you want and leave it at that. You're letting them bully you into buying them expensive gifts. They probably will still bully you but whether you let them is up to you. You're worried about not ruining the relationship and I can really sympathize with that. But what I've learned is that your in-laws are going to behave the way they want to no matter what. In my first marriage, no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, MIL just didn't like me. And believe me, I tried! What a wasted effort. Second marriage, I'm just myself and nothing more, and unfortunaely inlaws & I have had a couple of unavoidable run-ins due to circumstances beyond our control. However, they still love me and treat me with respect (and vice versa). Bottom line, you need to live your own life, do what's best for you (just as they are apparently doing!!) and quit acquiescing to their expectations. It's fine to give in on some things, especially the things that are not important to you, but things that go against your grain like this apparently does, stand your ground and do what works for you.

Reading your story makes me laugh out loud. My husband, bless his heart is not very mechanical. He installed a ceiling fan above our brand new cherry table. Looked great but he didn't attach it to the beam. Needless to say we bought a new table. I do alot of gardening. So I buy mushroom compost by the ton. Hubby set the trailer up for me and said "your all set to go". Went to go pick up the compost (which is about half horse poop), went to leave the parking lot and felt a huge tug on the back of the truck. The trailer was BOUNCING up and down the very busy highway. I thought I blew a tire. NOOOOOOOOOOOO- hubby didn't have a pin for the trailer so he secured it with a STRING. I am not kidding. I ended up spreading 70 feet of horse poop-no wait- stinking horse poop down the one lane of a very busy highway. Cars were sliding in, honking at me, some guy gave me the finger?!?!?! Fines + tickets+new trailer+cost of cleanup = $3500.00 Needless to say I bought a new trailer and it came with a pin on a chain. I laugh now, but I could have killed him. Your father is right. I say if it's not cancer, then it's not worth the worry. Remember, he will rope the moon for you. He could be trying to please someone else instead of you. Don't beat him up over it, he is already doing that to himself. They really do want to be the knight on that white horse. I read "the proper care and feeding of husbands" CHANGED MY LIFE, MY ATTITUDE, MY MARRIAGE. I fully and whole heartly recommend to any married woman who wants to improve their marriage. Get it on cd and listen to it over and over. Be sure to shut off your own internal dialogue, so you can really absorb. I am NO ONE to give advice, but I try to remember this stuff when I want to "verbally smack" him with all of his mistakes. Forgetting to remind him of how absolutly wonderful he is to me. Again, I am no one to give advice. Women think they know everything and WELL WE DO. Men are far less complicated than us. However, they are deeper than we realize. Make him feel like your hero or someone else will. Why risk it?? Your going to spend $$$$ on a kitchen remodel. Spend the $15 on this cd. You will recover 2,000% of your investment on the cd. Maybe 85% on the kitchen. I wish i would have had this book BEFORE i got married. So put on something sexy, make his favorite meal and let him how much he is appreciated.

My husband, 2-year old daughter, and I, were sitting behind this guy at a religious meeting, so after the final prayer, I introduced myself and welcomed him. He was with some friends of ours and it turned out that he had just met them the week before. He had been traveling with his wife and small daughter to move to another state, when a drunk driver hit them head on in the desert fog. His truck was totalled. The baby was in a car seat and was fine. His wife suffered many serious injuries and was taken to our local hospital. That's how he came to meet my friend, who had been called when people of our same religion had requested help at the hospital. Well, anyway....he was thin and stressed and trying to figure out what to do. There was no instant connection--no attraction. I invited him to dinner with us, but he declined. As it worked out eventually, the wife was air-lifted to a hospital in the city where her parents lived, where my (DH) was moving. Because of the wreck, the ensuing lawsuit against the drunken woman who had just chalked up her 4th accident while DUI, and both vehicles totalled, DH lost the job transfer to the new state. A few months later, he was back at my meeting. He had to return to fight the legal battle in person, so got a job in my town. His wife, on finding out that she was getting a nice sum as a settlement for her injuries, decided to stay with her parents, keep their daughter, and divorce him. Within another year or so, I found myself divorced about the same time his divorce was finalizing. I moved into a room for rent as a temporary measure while saving to move to California. He was renting another room in the same house. Somehow...some way.....without ANY prior notice of each other in the preceding 2 years, we became friends. A few months later.....we both moved out of the house...and into our own place as husband and wife! One of the things we both thought was funny as we began dating, was finding out that he thought I was nice to show a concern for him but he never gave me another thought. I felt bad for his situation, but he seemed to have no real personality. Until we started to really talk while living with the family that owned the house, neither had much opinion of the other. Red

jkom, You seem the to be the only one with an understanding of the structural bracing necessary in an earthquake territory. The earthquake issue poses very real and expensive challenges in updating old houses. Do folks in other parts of the country not worry about crumbly concrete? I have only lived in the Pacific NW. It is actually quite common to see old houses lifted up on jacks and have the foundation re-poured and the house set on a new foundation. Our GC told us that it costs 50K-100K to do that. Since that is quite commonly done, my DH's proposal is to rotate the house at the same time if physically possible! In a $1mil house, it is a doable proposition. We live in a remodeled 1950s house right now. We took off all old lap-sheathing under the old siding, placed structural plywood sheathing with bracing everywhere. We had to get engineer's sign off prior to starting the project... We bolted framing to the foundation in the basement before finishing the basement. Our current house has been 'earthquake retrofitted'. It cost A LOT of money without really increasing the value of the house. When you go to sell the house, most people (young buyers or people from elsewhere in the country) don't realize what it takes to do that. We have friends in the SF bay area, CA that bought a house with the idea of total remodel. When they started to rip out things, they discovered that the foundation was damaged beyond repair and the previous owners covered it up to sell it. They actually demolished the house, then rebuilt on the lot. They sued the original owners... Our friends ultimately won the case. I think our friends with really deep pockets may have ended up paying more money in legal fees than what they got out of the settlement because they were MAD about the fraud. These things happen, buying things that are beyond what one had anticipated. I am putting a big padding number to not be surprised, hence my $500K to $750K number to update structurally to not have a total loss.... Anyhow, old houses with structural issues in an earthquake territory is a sad thing. There was an amazing old house on a steep hill in my neighborhood with really a stunning view. WAY WAY better than the one we are considering. The house was used as the Italian Consulate in its heyday. It even had a ballroom. Due to structural issues, the person who bought the house ended up donating the property to the city and the house was demolished, and the lot subsequently became a park. I think the tax break they got from the donation was easier to swallow than what it could have cost to restore. One of the due diligence we need to do is to see if we can get a reasonable earthquake insurance on this property. Many old houses in Seattle cannot get ANY earthquake insurance unless you do the extensive earthquake retrofit. For those folks not familiar with earthquake premiums, you buy separate earthquake policies in addition to the regular home owners insurance. The premium is usually equal to the regular home owners insurance. The deductible is generally 20K or more on an earthquake insurance. We have multiple rentals and we carry earthquake insurance on all of them. It costs several thousand $s every year for that! After what happened in Japan and Katrina, we are unsure if the earthquake insurance will actually be helpful if the city was a TOTAL disaster to the point where bridges fell down, tall buildings tumbled. But alas, we play by the rule and hope that the insurance companies also play by the rule.