It feels so ungrateful to hate a present, doesn’t it? I mean, the gifter spent time, effort, and cold hard cash on the surprise you despise so much.
Still, it feels so personal when they get it wrong. I think part of the problem is that we’ve been taught to see gifts as a reflection of us.
If someone gave me a terrible book, I’d think they saw me as a person with awful taste; and when Plastic_Cat9560 saw the present her husband got her for her 50th, she felt like he hadn’t ‘seen’ her at all.
In a post shared to r/AITAH (Am I The Asshole Here), the site user wanted to know if they were wrong for how they reacted to their husband’s “service gift.”
So, we spoke to the founder of Etiquette Expert Jo Hayes about whether their response was appropriate.
The original poster (OP) was gifted a vacuum
On her 50th birthday, the post author said her husband called her to look at her gift.
“I go downstairs and see a vacuum, not even wrapped mind you,” she wrote.
“He said he thought I’d like a new one… I never asked for a new one. It works fine.”
The poster’s husband had previously mentioned doing something romantic, like going on a trip, for the big day, she added.
“I asked about that and he said he figured I’d tell him when and where I wanted to go,” OP (who said she’d taken her partner to Hawaii for his 50th) said.
“AITA for hoping or expecting that maybe he could have planned and surprised me with something? Anything? Something more than an Amazon next-day delivery vacuum?”, the poster ended their entry.
“Service gifts” can feel demeaning, but communication is still key, Jo says
“If there are serious issues in the relationship, already, a ‘service gift’ could, potentially, be the final straw,” Jo said, adding that it can “make you feel like a maid.”
In this case, there are other problems: the husband hinted at a present he didn’t deliver and didn’t seem to put much effort into wrapping the one he got.
But if you’ve been given a “service gift” without any other red flags, and “if the relationship is, in all other ways, healthy and fulfilling, then, no, a ‘service gift’ is,
most likely, a simple miscommunication”, Jo told HuffPost UK
If you hated the present and found it “insulting and demeaning,” let it be known in a “kind, calm and clear” way, the etiquette expert told us.
But while in this specific case, OP’s husband should have made it clear a trip wasn’t actually in the works, in general, “Too many people hope their partner will just ‘know’ the perfect gift to give them, especially for a significant birthday,” Jo continued.
“Darling, no. They need help. They want help. Be clear. Be explicit.”
So, while it seems the poster’s husband has a few red flags, Jo doesn’t think a crap gift warrants a breakup in and of itself. Communicate, set boundaries, and give your partner “the benefit of the doubt,” she writes.
If all else fails, there’s nothing wrong with outright asking for what you want.
#Break #Partner #Bad #Gift
Leave a Reply