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My question is whether or not my husband and I should accept a gift of $38,000 from our in-laws when there is a major history of dysfunction around money in his family.

What's the gift for? Is it just out of the blue or is it

for something specific? They pretty regularly are trying to give us money and pay for things,

but this gift apparently is for tax purposes. They recently met with their financial planner,

tax accountant who told them that because of their gains that they made this year in the stock market,

that it would be tax advantageous for them to gift each of us $19,000.

The backstory really is that his parents have used money as a tool for control and manipulation in the past, so much so that when we were planning our wedding 17 years ago, we ended up eloping because of their behavior around money.

Wow.

And the money issues as well as other things led to us not having a relationship with them for 10 years.

Is it just your husband or are there other children?

He has a brother.

Things are kind of different with his brother's relationship with his parents.

They just have very different personalities and brother's relationship with his parents.

They just have very different personalities and how they handle things.

So the money's not been a problem for the brother

that you know of, or is it kind of a problem for him to?

Well, they've sort of

used the same tactics with his brother, except that

his brother and his wife gladly

accept money from them anytime it's offered.

Since they've reestablished their relationship, my husband, and his parents six years ago,

...