DP's present buying - A first-world vent.

[EntitledFucker]

I know I sound like an entitled, ungrateful fucker. I'm not. I'm so grateful for the lovely gifts that DP buys me but I need a vent....

Essentially whenever I give DP gift ideas for me, he surpasses himself and buys me the most ridiculous luxury version of the fairly simple things I've asked for. And because the gifts he buys me are so luxurious, I don't use them as freely as intended, I get stressed with the pressure of how bloody lovely they are, and I have to go and buy myself normal versions of the things anyway 😳

As an example:
For my birthday at the weekend, I asked for a few things to ease the pain of a shitty work bollocks residential thing that's coming up this week. I said:
> I've got massive cravings for liquorice so please get some All Sorts for me to munch on in the five hours train journey. He bought me a Lakrids gift box.

> I'd really like a nice bottle of body lotion to slather myself in after a shower before I go to dinner with work bellends. He doesn't use body lotion so I suggested a random bottle from TKMaxx with the biggest reduction from RRP. He got me a bottle of Chanel No5 body oil.

Obviously I'm super pleased to have luxury liquorice and Chanel body oil. Obviously. I'm so grateful. But I'm now in the situation where I've got these ridiculously luxurious things to use up at some point and I'll go and buy myself some cheap liquorice and a mid-range bottle of body lotion anyway 😂

I know this is a massive first world problem. But I need to vent!

If the presents are affordable from your family budget then his picks were spot on. If you want allsorts and bog standard body lotion then surely you'd get them for yourself? Neither are deserving of birthday gift status.

Enjoy your posh liquorice and gorgeous body oil as the treats that they were intended to be!

I get your point completely but around birthdays, we deliberately don't buy ourselves mundane stuff so that we can buy it for each other. We do a treasure hunt with presents so the more presents the better, even if they're packets of polo mints or similar ilk 😂
And I specifically said I wanted just bog standard stuff because it was for a work trip.

I know I sound like such an ungrateful cow. And I will enjoy my lovely luxury stuff but for best, not just fr everyday slobbing around at life huge pressure on picking out 'best' moments to use them

Are you someone who saves things for best? I think that’s the mindset that you need to think about changing; why can’t you eat the nice sweets on a random train ride or use the nice body lotion every day?

Ha, yes, I definitely am.

I say that as someone who saved stuff for best then it’d go bad etc so now I just use it and enjoy it and when it’s gone it’s gone

It's a gift, just use it as you would the simple version - don't save for best, enjoy it - that's the point of a present!

Oh my DH has the exact opposite problem.

Once I asked for a headband to wear with a ponytail instead of a hat. He got the cheapest ones from Amazon - I would at least have looked in somewhere like Fat Face for a present.

I've learned and mostly send him a link now.

Unless you as a family can't afford the Chanel, then I think you should embrace it - a present should be nicer than something you'd buy for yourself.

This is frankly ludicrous behaviour. Just use them.

Just use them, I don’t save anything for best - what’s the point? It’s an arbitrary made up time, ‘best’ could just be today. Eat the nice liquorice and use up the body lotion and enjoy them. When they’ve run out, buy the usual stuff again if you don’t want to splash out. Birthday treats are exactly that, they shouldn’t be so difficult to enjoy.

You just seem massively ungrateful that he likes to treat you.

I've saved perfume and body lotion for best in the past and then chucked it out 3 years later when the smell has faded!

I now try and use things. Same with clothes. Why leave the most expensive things you own in the wardrobe and never wear them? No point.

YABU

Just use them and enjoy them

Use them and enjoy them Op.
You deserve the best!
Your DH thinks you deserve the best.
Just use them as everyday items and take pleasure in it.

I used to be the same. It was how we were brought up, to save nice things for 'best'. But once I found a very expensive candle had virtually lost it's lovely smell and a 'special' bottle of dessert wine had gone well past vintage to nearly undrinkable, I realised how silly it was.

I also let myself buy nice things just for myself now, rather than waiting for others to buy me gifts.

OP, so long as husband isn't regularly squandering the household budget, use the nice stuff now!

Then stop it. Get the pleasure out of them

Op, when you die, do you want your loved ones to find a pile of beautiful gifts you never used because you were always waiting for the right moment?

I'd just be delighted with the Chanel. Keep it for special and just buy the TK max one for the work do. If you really don't think you'll use it just tell him politely that you'd like to return it.
It's way better than someone asking for Chanel and getting radox, lol. Nowt wrong with radox mind I use it all the time.

I've learned to stop saving things for a special occasion as I've realised that Life is a special occasion!

Now I use and enjoy any luxury presents I'm given. 🙂

Just use them 🤷🏻‍♀️. That’s what they’re been bought for, not to be saved for some arbitrarily defined ‘special occasion’.
I didnt even know you could get luxury liquorice! I thought it was all much of a muchness.

Just use the bloody stuff and be grateful.

As an aside, do you usually refer to work associates and colleagues as "bellends"?

Agree with previous people don't save things for best as they just go off. Have one of everything and no more if you can help it and use it until it's gone. I'm trying to do this to get rid of clutter.

This thread hasn't gone how I'd hoped or expected 😂😂😂

But I am starting to see that my 'save for best' approach - definitely a hangover from childhood - is the problem here. I might need some reprogramming.

To be honest, yes, because most of them are absolute bellends.

I completely understand. It's not about the luxurious gifts (that you probably feel are too expensive to use on a daily basis), but that he hasn't actually listened to you.

Is the place to buy Chanel body cream closer for him to get to than TK Maxx? If so, that's just laziness.

I can't put anything on my skin other than about six things, so I'd be miffed too. More miffed about not being listened to than the excess money spent.

If it makes you feel any better, I had a partner buy me a whole bunch of completely random, mostly pointless shit for my 21st birthday. I paid him back for his thoughtfulness by launching one of said gifts straight into a partition wall, into which it pleasingly lodged itself before it was removed. It was an oval shaped bottle of purfume.

Yes, it was petulant, petty, and I was an arsehole. But, oh boy was it satisfying.

(partner now: scatty but very thoughtful. Asked what I want to do for my 50th birthday 2.5 YEARS in advance)

I’d be reviewing whether this birthday approach suits your husband too - rather sounds as if he might prefer fewer things of better quality?