A few months ago my husband accidentally broke a piece of camera equipment belonging to me. It was a genuine accident and just one of those things that happens - no hard feelings. It is, however, expensive to replace. We decided we didn’t have the money to do so right away, and so would wait until we could afford it. My husband has been putting aside money now and then to save for a replacement.
It was my birthday last week and as a gift my husband bought me a replacement of the broken equipment. This has led to a minor dispute / discussion over gift etiquette.
My POV is that replacing something you broke isn’t a substitute for a gift. He was obliged to replace the broken item, and doing so for my birthday in place of a gift leaves me in a worse off position overall.
His POV is that the replacement item cost more than we would usually spend on birthday gifts and it was therefore reasonable. I also got the replacement a lot quicker as a result of it being a gift - in effect, my gift is the additional time I have with the replacement which I wouldn’t have got if I’d had a birthday gift and had to wait longer for him to afford the replacement.
This is clearly a low stakes problem! But I’d be interested to know the consensus on which of us is being reasonable.