Reply to my husband is a terrible gift giver and it bums me out each year

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Reply to "my husband is a terrible gift giver and it bums me out each year"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I know this is an old thread but it's perennially relevant.

Honestly the keys to a happy marriage are to a) accept that your partner is who they are, b) assign positive intent to their actions, c) advocate for what's really important to you, and d) let the rest go.

I was raised in a family with really extravagant Christmases. We made lists and got each other most of what we asked for. It was a real bacchanalia of consumerism, lol. So that was my expectation going into marriage, which confused and stressed out my husband. Some years he refused to look at my list as a matter or principle. Some years he forgot to get me anything and ran out to the museum next door at the last minute, so all of my presents were museum gift shop items. One year he told me that the piece of jewelry I wanted was embarrassing. It was just all sorts of misunderstandings and mismatched expectations.

But now in our 40s we're past all of this because we give each other grace and always assume positive intent. We've moved past internalizing the other person's misunderstandings as rejection; we self-soothe and self-advocate. I've let go of as many expectations as possible, and my husband has started trying to see the present thing through my lens instead of his.

Gift giving can definitely be an indication of things that are not going well in your relationship, but you can work on those things. I stuff my own stocking with essential oils and cooking magazines and licorice because that's more fun for me than getting whatever is available in the checkout line at CVS, lol. My husband isn't going to be a good stocking stuffer unless I micromanage him into oblivion, and nobody wants that. But that's OK, because he has plenty of good qualities.[/quote]
Really great post, PP. It only applies to those of us with mostly great spouses, but there are a lot of people with mostly great spouses who only fall down in this area or one or two others.

The self-soothing part is really on point too. I get myself some small, delightful thing like a massage or a week’s worth of fresh-pressed juices once or twice a month, and a nice piece of jewelry every couple of years.  No need to wait around for someone to do these things for me, especially given that I know he’ll always cover my soccer carpool day if I’m beat. [/quote]

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