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Throw away for obvious reasons but I am at a loss for what to do.
Some background: my wife has a turbulent history with her mother and older sister. Until my wife moved out their interactions were boiling down to a ton of emotional abuse, gas lighting, and heavy favoritism for her older sister. In fact, even in interactions with my wife's mother the amount of favoritism disturbed me as a neutral observer. For example, we were going to visit her grandmother and we had brought a bunch of souvenirs (boutique foods) that we knew her grandmother liked. However, covid measures at the time ended up preventing us from bringing any food into their nursing home. Without even giving us the option of bringing it home, her mother immediately re-gifted it to her sister because “she might like it”. The favoritism has been so stark that it's led to an almost ptsd response from my wife whenever something she owns ends up benefitting her sister. Her sister also never hesitates to rub all of the things she's gotten this way in our noses.
My parents both 60ish are visiting this week from abroad, and I warned them well in advance that this is a red line and they must not bring anything for her older sister or her kid because the reaction will be visceral and terrible. Mind you my parents have never met her sister our her kids because she snubbed our wedding. My dad understood and promised me that the several children's books they had prepared would stay at home and they would not bring them. My wife has also been doing her best to take my parents all over the country to show them places they have never been to before.
Lo and behold on the day my wife's parents were scheduled to meet my parents, my mom shows up with the stack of books that she had packed behind my father's back and proceeded to gift them to my wife's parents to give to her sister. My mom insists this is because they're family and she hasn't done anything wrong. Predictably, the reaction has been utter pandemonium and I am left picking up the pieces.
Wife wants no contact with my parents and my mom insists she did nothing wrong and my wife is over reacting over a stack of children's books. I am firmly on my wife's side on this as I had spent almost three weeks walking my parents through each incident to explain how this red line came to be. Dad cannot believe my mom would do such a thing behind his back and already apologized to my wife several times even though he had no part in what happened.
Now the question is where do I go from here? Do I try and make my mother understand? I think the relationship is toast. Or how do I make my wife feel better because she feels so incredibly betrayed by my parents. For now, I think I need to get the books back before they get transferred to her sister…
EDIT: there have been a number of people asking me why my wife's family are still in the picture despite being toxic. The answer is that it's my fault. Her mother will push her way into our business and I have been hesitating to enforce proper boundaries for fear of rocking the boat. I've just learned that this behavior is called boat steadying, and I need to stop doing this. My wife does not keep in touch with her family willingly. She has said more than once that she would be happier if she never saw them again.