Short version: my wife is estranged from her father. Yesterday she received in the mail from him some jewelry including a pearl necklace. She has not desire to keep it. Would you send it back (with or without a note), try to sell it and get some cash, donate it, or something else?
Is it family heirloom-type jewelry, or something that he purchased for her? If the former, maybe give it to someone else in the family who would appreciate it?
No, nothing of any sentimental value. I have no idea what - if anything - it is worth. Our kids have no interest in a relationship with or gifts from him.
Short story slightly longer, FIL is a bigamist and a pathological liar. When my wife was 23, she learned that her dad had another wife and 2 teens living a couple of miles from their family home. Her mom since divorced him. Over the past 20+ years we’ve tried various ways of maintaining relationships with him, but it seemed my wife would always feel hurt by something said or done by him (or his 2d wife or their family). We’ve discovered my wife feels the least distress the less she has to do with him and his family.
Maybe 3-4 years ago, she told him how uncomfortable she was socializing with his wife and their kids. It had bothered her that her 1/2 sister had a bunch of photos from my wife’s childhood. In response, he wrote her a letter saying she owed him and his family an apology, and until she provided one, he would have nothing to do with her. My wife figured that was fine, so long as she didn’t apologize, she didn’t need to hear from or deal with him. And our predictions were borne out - the less we had to do with him, the better we preferred it.
Over the past couple of years he has written directly to our kids (16-20). The kids pretty much just toss the letters. On occasion, he sends them checks. We have left it entirely up to them whether they cash them, return them, send thank you notes, whatever.
He has twice invited us to large parties - once when he retired, and then again when he un-retired a year or so later. We had no interest of going. Our feeling is he has no real interest in our family, but desires to “display” us before his friends and associates. After the latest party a couple of months ago, he sent us a DVD of the party, with a pretty nasty letter accusing us of standing in the way of a relationship with him and his new family.
Fast forward a month or so to the jewelry.
I’d either re-gift it or sell it and spend the money on my kids (or groceries, depending on how lean the week is.) Sending it back is only playing into the drama he’s trying to create. Don’t pick up that script - he’s undoubtedly the hero in his own drama.
Just take the stuff, walk around the mall or whatever local shopping place you prefer until you see someone who your heart tells you could use a little extra joy this season and hand them the stuff with a sincere Merry Christmas and be on your way.
Or stick it in the Salvation Army bucket, they don’t seem to mind.
I’d probably sell it and give the money to charity. I also really like Clurican’s idea.
Personally, I’d sock it away in a drawer somewhere and forget about it.
Yeah, I recommended to my wife that she donate it - either just to the salvation army or a women’s shelter or something. For someone without all of the baggage, it would just be a necklace that they could enjoy.
She commented that he never gives her earrings, always necklaces. And they feel like dog collars, reflecting his desire to control people.
And I don’t know how much it is worth. Maybe a hundred or 2, but I highly doubt it is really pricey. And you could only get a fraction of that for resale. So I basically wouldn’t consider it worth the effort involved in trying to convert it to cash.
Oh yeah, my wife has a really nice string of pearls she was given by a guy she doesn’t actively dislike - me! 
I’m with Cluricaun.
If it were me, I’d take it to the mall and hunt around until you see someone who really, really looks like they could use some extra holiday cheer (goodness knows, that won’t take long). Give it to them.
You almost certainly won’t get much selling it - resale on jewelry is terrible.
I would NOT donate it directly to a shelter or someone in a shelter. That’s asking for them to get beat up and mugged.
ETA: Are we far enough into the thread for the “you could send it to me!” suggestion?
I think it depends on how strongly your wife feels about it. If she is not comfortable accepting a gift from him, then ISTM she needs to send it back with a brief note to that effect. That may well create drama you and she don’t need, so the question is: How badly does she want to send it back?
If she is comfortable keeping it, then I think she should do whatever she wants with it, because it’s hers. But I’d feel no obligation to donate it or otherwise not have the benefit of it, since once she accepts it, not keeping it (or its proceeds) won’t change the fact that she has accepted it. So sell it or re-gift it or whatever.
The harder question for me is whether she can keep the gift without acknowledging it. I’m not sure but that she doesn’t owe him at least an acknowledgement IF she keeps it (“Thank you for the gift. Happy holidays.”). Because if she isn’t even comfortable acknowledging receipt of it, then I’m not sure she should keep it. But I’m on thin ice here; not sure about this at all.
I agree with this. It’s kind of like dealing with a stalker, the best response is silence, no acknowledgement at all.
Donate it to a raffle or a charity or something.
ETA: Oh, or donate it to a nursing home. I bet there is a sweet litle old lady somehwere who would just be overjoyed to get somthing fancy and classy.
Nope, I don’t think she owes him an acknowledgement. If it was a normal gift, then sure, sending a thank you note or email is polite and lets the sender know the package wasn’t lost in the mail, if nothing else. But they’ve a history establishing that they’re not in contact (by his choice, if I’m reading it correctly), and not expecting gifts or reciprocation goes hand in hand with that, I think.
Strictly speaking, if one is “owed” a thank you, then the article isn’t a gift - it’s an item of trade. It’s absolutely polite and kind to send a thank you to someone you’re being polite and kind to, but it’s not mandatory that you be polite and kind to everyone.
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Swallowed My Cellphone**, I have the same reservations about a nursing home I do about a homeless shelter - the recipient is a target for theft or even violence. Most nursing homes don’t allow jewelry for that very reason.
If you really don’t want to bother selling it, stick it in a Salvation Army bucket or something. They’ll take care of the appraisal and selling. Normally, I’m not a fan of the Salvation Army, but I can’t think of another easy charity that would get full value out of it - the Gaia Collective simply collects clothes and sells them in huge lots, and a thrift store or Amvets or something will just treat it like costume jewelry.
You are right in that it seems pretty consistent over several years that ANY time she has tried to honestly communicate her feelings with him, he has responded very unpleasantly. She has a number of vitriolic letters from him she keeps in a file called “Crap from Dick” (She keeps them for a couple of reasons: because he changes his story so often, it is sometimes of use to compare what he is saying today with what he said yesterday. Also, in case our kids ever want to know why relations with him are what they are, we can show them these letters instead of relying upon our biased and potentially faulty memories.)
Basically, we would be happiest if he never contacted us again in any manner. We thought we had achieved that when he wrote several years ago that he would have nothing more to do with us until my wife apologized. I guess he lied about that too! 
What kind of nursing homes do you have in yor area? When I was volunteering in my 20s I visited several on a weekly basis. Many of the women had jewellery boxes, make up and all sorts of personal effects like that. It wasn’t like a prison or hospice, and little old ladies didn’t get into brawls in the hallways. I spent a good chunk of one visit helping a woman who had pulled apart her necklace scattering the beads everywhere.
If you contact the United Way, I’m sure they would know of an appropriate facility.
The kind where stuff is stolen with disheartening regularity.
Heck, my grandmother just had her credit card stolen by an agency health aide in her own home. Bitch. Maybe I’m just a little extra sensitive to the danger right now.
We’ve addressed this in the past, and to be honest, I’m not sure exactly how my wife has dealt with it, or if she has dealt with it entirely consistently. I know at least once or twice during this most recent period he sent my wife checks - for her birthday or maybe Christmas. I remember discussing with my wife what she should do. My opinion was if she cashed the check, she should at least send him a note saying “Thank you.” But in the end it is her decision, and I’m not sure whether or not she cashed the checks and/or sent a note. I’m pretty sure she has not sent him an X-mas card the past couple of years.
And he has sent our kids checks on occasion. We are usually insistent that our kids promptly send thank you notes, but in this instance we made it clear that they could make whatever decision they felt most comfortable with. I believe on at least one occasion my eldest wrote a very brief note, and my 2 younger did not.
He has told my kids that if they send him their grades, college acceptance letters, etc., he will give them cash. Probably at least a couple thousand $. Again, we have left that entirely up to them. In our opinion, he mainly wants to know about their schoolwork and such so he can brag about them. AFAIK, none of my kids has been sufficiently mercenary to try to squeeze bucks out of the old bastard.
But to tell the truth, we don’t really spend a lot of time discussing this asshole, because he is nothing but a negative influence on our life. And it is hard to come up with some hard and fast rule for dealing with him, because you never know exactly when or in what form the next communication from him will come. And to tell the truth, you never can predict exactly how you will feel when the next turd shows up in your mailbox.
All my wife really wants is a loving relationship from her father. But seeing as he is unable or unwilling to provide that, the next best thing would be for him to simply leave us alone.
In light of this, I would return the necklace, with no note, and leave it at that. He may create drama, he may feel like a martyr, but at least you won’t owe him anything. Nor will you have to think of him or his gift ever again.
I think the important thing here is consistency. Cashing of checks and acceptance of gifts implies there is a crack in that closed door.
If your wife wants him out of her life, then that means everything…gifts, phone calls, checks, etc. Checks should be shredded. Gifts should be donated. The important thing here is do not acknowledge anything. That opens the door a crack. Let him wonder if you’re even getting the cards and the checks.
I wouldn’t even return the gifts…that acknowledges the relationship and provides him with drama he can talk about at cocktail parties…“Yeah, that ungrateful bitch of a daughter…”
The opposite of love is not hate. It’s apathy. Cashing the checks and keeping the gifts puts her under obligation to him. If she wants to be free of that, then triple lock the door.
As far as having a poor father, I’m sorry about that. But she has a chance to have a wonderful second father in her life…you, to your children.
It sounds like you’re already most of the way there to shutting him out completely. I’m sure he gets some sick pleasure out of sending the gifts, knowing he is continuing to insert himself into your lives. If you do not acknowledge the gifts (even via thank you note) then he doesn’t get the feedback, and may even wonder if the gifts are getting lost in the mail.
Wow. Hope the bitch was arrested!
Here a lot of facilities require workers who are bondable. The health care workers aren’t so much of a problem, and residents aren’t usually. Nurses are pretty good at mediating disagreements (as far as I’ve seen), and the disagreements are usuall over the small stuff (who owns the Scrabble board etc.).
In the more advance palliative care type facilities or in the dimentia wings the residents do tend to have less stuff and the stuff they did have was inventoried. But that’s more because they tend to get confused, go into the wrong room, or appropriate stuff that isn’t theirs without meaning to. Eg/ I used to visit a woman whose roommate was notorious for taking other people’s teeth. If ever anyone’s dentures were missing, they’d check her night stand and she’d usually have a stash of them. No serious cases of thievery.
Again, an agency like United Way would probably know of an assisted living facility where such a gift would be appropriate and acceptable.