I was being myself when I tried to find a great gift that would mean something to my MEMs mother. I would spend hours upon hours making a gift because I felt that putting in time is part of the gift. Something more meaningful. I spend long hours on an apron that I had the grandchildren decorate with their artwork, I made a very complicated pillow with a scene I thought would be meaningful to her from her life, we decorated towels with our children, etc. Gifts I thought would be meaningful to a loving grandmother. Only I didn't know then that I was completely mistaken about the loving part. This grandmother did not love, she only controlled. I operated from expecting a normal family but found more and more dysfunction as time ticked on.
We would give the gift and never see it again. She'd say thank you, because that is what is expected of her, but was never, not once, excited about a gift. That was the only time I would see the gift at her house. After that it disappeared, never to be seen or heard of again.
After a decade I decided I was wasting my time, my gifts would never matter, never count, never even be acknowledged. I quit giving gifts. My MEM started buying things and she seemed over the moon to get something from him, a gift where I was not involved.
A spouse of a MEM is not allowed to be part of the closed family unit and therefore we are not to be remembered or acknowledged in any way. Gifts disappear and will never be seen again in the MEM mother's house. It is the creepy reality of the disappearing gifts. Getting rid of the gift might be the symbol of what they expect of us sooner or later.