Why does anything need to "give"?
LO wasn't saying "what has to give". Rather, "what gives?" is a phrase that means "what is up with that", or "why are you saying that?"
We are so terribly sad right now for them and I just read this crap about a freaking cheesecake and seriously live is way to short - which is what I meant by perspective. Unless it is something very serious and food is not serious - then make it work - don't threaten to not show up because a cheesecake is on the table
Make the most of every day as you just never know and if that means putting up with a bit of crap to make it easier on your DH then you do it.
That is where you are right now. But people can't live that way long-term. LO has obviously been bending over backwards, and IMO continued to do so by having MIL over to make the cheesecake, for years. This isn't good for HER health. So to save people a little hassle, she could be shortening her own life.
When my mom died and I had to go back to work at
amazon customer service and had to hear people complaining that their mother's day gifts might not make it ontime, you bet I thought some uncharitable things! My last gift to my mom was a CD that she never got to listen to, as she died suddenly shortly after receiving it.
But with time comes the realization that things are important. The gifts people wanted me to check on were important to them. A MIL making a woman crazy with the manipulation is important. These things are important, and we don't have to break ourselves just b/c someone else has had a tragedy happen.
No worries though, I've got ... their son and Grandkids... They won't push too hard
My MIL is in her 70s and she's changing bit by bit. Why? Well, I refused to see her for over a year. Which slowed down the visits of her son and grandson. Made the visits that did happen shorter, too, as the visits were over weekends when I was at home alone. They didn't want to leave me all day, so they'd come home. My MIL had pushed me one last time and I refused to deal with it any longer. I still took care of her from afar, I did business stuff for her (she's Korean and since FIL died her English skills have gotten even worse, so I do some phoning for her), I look things up, etc etc, but I would NOT go see her. That lifted as she seemed to be changing, and now my presence is welcome, welcomed, and she doesn't pull crud on me anymore. And it allowed hubby to make sure she knows that she is not to get on his case about his weight in front of our son; if she does so, she will not see either of them any longer (MIL pretty much caused hubby's weight issues, and can spin him into a binge quicker than anything else, even as he approaches 40; it's dangerous for him when she gets on his case, and she always gets it wrong, seeing weight loss when he's gained and gains when he's lost).
She's changed because she caught a glimpse of what life would be like without the son that is now the "good" son (he even has her POA now, she took it from her eldest son when she realized that we were 100% in the situation with her husband, and the eldest son was helping her make all the worst decisions) and especially without her beloved grandson.
I would never have invited her over for the cheesecake nonsense. You were so worried about her winning...
Sure it would be better if this sort of silliness never happened but it's not all up to me.
now make sure to read this too 
a few years later, my FIL did apologize for the crap they'd done to me. He said that looking back, he can't believe what they did and how they treated me and that I'm actually a good and nice person and maybe it was his wife being determined that no woman was good enough for her son so she was trying to drive me away so she'd have her son all to herself again? Ya think?
