Does anyone else have a husband who spends a ridiculous amount of money on gifts you don't particularly want-I feel a right ungrateful cow but...

[NotInTheMood]

Its our 5th wedding anniversary today and I told dh the other day not to buy me anything because he always ends up getting something I do not really need or use. I hinted at a new chain for my necklace or a trip to out local theatre to see Phantom if he were to get me anything. If not just flowers and chocolates. Anyway he was all excited at getting me gift (secretly hoping phantom tickets/jewellery). Any he pulls out a swarovski bag was my first thought. So I open it and their are two wine glasses. I thanked him as they are nice glasses but was secretly disappointed and felt even worse because I knew they are very expensive and I feel sick. I hate wasting money. For one we will rarely use them or id be afraid and two I have no where to store and display them.

I've just looked at the website and they were £240 for 2!!!!!! I was disputing the other day about spending £20 on a set of four glasses which I did really like. I feel very ungrateful but for that price I want to love then not like them!!!! I keep thinking of how many Tiffany bracelets I could buy or how we could of used that money towards a holiday. I feel a bit upset and angry that he's spent a huge amount of out money on something we do not need and something I didn't particularly want. If he had brought flowers and chocolates id be a lot happier. I feel like a spoilt, ungrateful child iykwim. I think I am going to have to tell him... Its like he's being thoughtful but thoughtless iykwim as he doesn't seem to know me by now. He did this a few years ago I ended up getting a refund and getting something else that I loved for £10 instead of the £100 he had spent!!!

A load of inappropriate tat yes years off me begging him not to bother has resulted in nish so be careful what you wish for.

I think the problem is that the gifts are so utterly excessive. I actually cried on our wedding anniversary this year, because while I'd spent the week before trying to decide whether I could spend money on a haircut for one of the children, my husband spent £300 on a gift that would totally out me if I told you what it was.

It is in the spare room now, will never be used and has no resale value. I cried because he wanted to make me happy, but he was hurt becuse I was so dissapointed.

I was sad for him, sad about the ruined day/memory, cross at the waste of money. I feel sick and guilty every time I think about it (which is often, as our spare room is tiny, and not exactly spare ).

Why should he know you - if when he gave you a gift you didn't want, you thanked him and kept your disappointment to yourself? He's not some distant person where the gift should be accepted in good grace regardless, he's your partner, simply tell him the truth. YWBU to not do this before, so you pretty much made the situation.

Talk to him, explain.

next time email him a link and say directly that you would love xxx and please buy it for my birthday

It's easier said than done though. I do it with my DP and buy each other chocs, flowers or something very small, but my DM and my SIL are forever buying beautiful clothes that the DC will never wear and "objects" that have no possible place in my home. It has got better because I do talk to them but the desire to make someone happy is jsut there! ( Different of course when it is shared funds - so do persist in explaining)

Are they the ones with the sparkly stems? If so I LOVE them. I want your husband!

I think I am in shock tbh hence I could not tell him at the time!!! I felt sick, worried I meantwho the feck spends £240 on two wine glasses!! We do not live in mansion and dh doesn't even drink wine. He said they looked nice in the window it all looks nice in the window with the spotlights on them!!! I have tried to stay clam and have told him to actually think about it. We don't have a wine cellar or a display cabinet he barely drinks wine and when I mentioned we don't even drink champaign he said proudly 'that's why I didn't buy champaign glasses'. Yes darling because we cannot afford it!!!!! Got to laugh really

Tell him to please take them back because you are too scared to use them.

squishy.

Wear the necklace!

Talk to him nicely and explain you don't want to be ungrateful but you would really like something else...
My DP bought me a ridiculously expensive handbag for Xmas, I found the receipt by accident - the amount was eye-watering!!! And I'm not into handbags and don't wear fashionable clothes or anything like that! I was cross just like you OP, even started a thread on MN about it :)
We returned it and I got a lovely little pair of earrings for £20!
He was a bit disappointed, bless him, but he'll never make that mistake again.

It is awful when you are given a gift with the giver's best intentions but which you simply don't like or want.

I had an awful Christmas a few years ago when every single gift I got was terrible for me. I cried for about six months whenever I thought of the wasted money. Over the last few years my mum has spent a fortune on clothes, shoes and accessories I will never use and can't exchange (I have tried: she's right, I am wrong for liking what I like, it's easier just to put the stuff in the loft and try to forget).

I have tried every which way to stop people byuing me stuff I don't want/like/need.

DP has finally cottoned on though. Last Christmas he bulk bought me loads of the toiletries I like to use every day, if I can afford it, and he got me a ring I really fell in love with (I work in a jewellery shop, so am very hard to please). Please may his attitude continue!!!

You were thinking 'how many Tiffany bracelets you could buy...'

Bracelets? Tiffany? For £240? Plural? Hmmm. You really must let me know where you do your shopping!

God, wish I had a man to buy me a present....

{would rather have love, tho}

DH and I have agreed to give each other money to spend for christmas in future. Fed up with buying and receiving crap presents neither of us want. YANBU

DH used to get me very strange presents that were just not me (some of them are still in their boxes 20 years down the line!) but he has now mellowed and asks or takes me out shopping rather than guessing. Or if he does guess then it's usually not on something expensive! However I do have a thing about flowers - I'd much rather be given a small plant than a big bunch of flowers that are going to die and make the vase manky at some point in the near future, whereas a plant will go on for a long time (and we have loads of empty space in the garden that would be good for plants) and still on mother's day he turned up with a bunch of roses.

However, it's one thing to spend £10 or £20 (or even £50) on something that is wrong - completely different to spending hundreds on something very fragile and that won't ever get used or even displayed.

mind you, bil bought my sis an antique bracelet for xmas and paid hundreds for it, when they have loads of things they need to buy far more importantly. He was so pleased with himself but when she showed me it looked cheap and more like he'd spent £30-£50 on it. He'd rung my mum to see what she thought when he was at the shop - the one he always goes to and I think they see him coming as there was a choice of a bracelet or necklace. She said she thought sis would like the necklace best - as she wears a necklace every day and she also has quite big wrists so has problems getting bracelets to fit plus she very rarely wears them, so to make sure that if he did go for either of them then she could return it if she didn't like it or it didn't fit.

he ended up getting the bracelet - it doesn't fit - you can just do it up but it is stretched really tightly so cuts in and isn't really wearable. plus as it is antique and has teeny weeny chips of diamond and ruby in it - it is rough and if you wear it with anything fabric it pulls at it and damages the fabric where you touch it. And rather than agreeing that he could swap it for the necklace, they said they had an old ring or something that was the same carat gold as the bracelet, so he could buy some of the gold from the ring as they were going to refashion it and they would make an extra link or two to make the bracelet bigger and fit better - despite the fact that she still wouldn't be able to wear the ruddy thing It's just annoying when you see something like that happen and they have wasted so much money on basically nothing. I think he was probably thinking of his mum who likes wearing lots of jewellery and has lots of 'little but good' bits - he thought this was 'little but good' but couldn't see the bigger picture that it was just going to sit in her jewellery box whereas she would have loved and worn the necklace.

SO OP no, YANBU - this makes me worked up and half the time it's not even my present! Definitely ask him (sooner rather than later so he hasn't lost the receipt!) if you can change it for the necklace you like or some tickets to Phantom and see what he says. Might be you ahve to exchange them for something in the store itself but then at least you will be able to find something that hopefully you like more and will be able to use!

I was going to say YABU but wine glasses for £240, that's pretty useless sorry OP. If I were you i'd drop massive hints although if he is anything like my dh he still won't get them.

We have really good friends who are a couple, I know dh bounces present ideas off them so I just tell them what I want and then they plant the seed, it's a win win situation

Oh god, this drives me to despair!
And you don't even have an outlet to complain to friends because it sounds ungrateful.
I also have a husband who wastes not insignificant amount of money on gifts. And then sulks if I don't like them.
For those who -wisely - suggest communication, it hadn't worked. I have been explicit.
I have thanked him for the thought, and explained gently but clearly that getting expensive things I don't want makes me feel bad.
Tbh, I feel really unhappy now when he does it, because I've been so explicit that I now find it a selfish disregard for my feelings.
My last birthday was awful. My MIL had just got a camcorder and he asked if i wanted that one. I explicitly said not that one - and went to look in a shop with him, pointing out 2 features that were important to me, on other camcorders. And then said I'd think about it.
Well - he went and bought the identical one to his MIL, and his usual trick of an eBay seller (new, but far from bargainous) so it couldn't be returned.
I am at a loss why he would do it. Far from being a generous act, it becomes a selfish one.
Xmas was a bit better - I gave him a list. I know he likes to surprise me. I hate surprises, but recognise his 'right' to enjoy surprising. So from a list there's still an element of surprise! He didn't pick the exact things, but itcwas better.
Most recently, he bought me some boots on eBay, secondhand, no returns- and a totall overpriced BIN. but the worst bit - these unasked for boots were 1.5 sizes too big! He sulked, I wore them for one day (to make a point rather than be kind, tbh - and showed him the resulting bruise.
So, we had quite a disagreement over those. Now we share an eBay account, so he knew I was watching a second pair. He reminded me they were finishing in an hour - I said no worries, I'm only watching.
I wanted to get an idea of what I'd have to pay - actually disliked those ones, wanted to try the brand on in a shop to check size... But would have gone for them on a chance despite disliking if they'd gone for bobbins.
You can guess what's coming... He bought them for me.
Why?
So just like the camcorder I'm stuck with something I explicitly said I didn't want. He sulks because I can't fake enough excitement / gratitude / whatever. And I feel doubly pissed off because I feel I know can't ge the camcorder / boots / whatever that I DO want, because I have something similar.

Sorry for v long post!! As I say, it's not something I get to rant about as I sounds ungrateful.
OP - I feel your pain!!!

No. I tell him what I would like or we agree neither of us will get anything but we'll do something nice together and plan it together.

But I am a control freak and he is a people-pleaser so it could be no other way

I think people who say "don't buy anything" deserve unwanted gifts. You should have clearly said "please don't buy me a surprise present what I'd like is either tickets to Phantom or "this" chain for my necklace (showing him link to chain and putting the link somewhere he can look it up another day).
My mum used to complain at getting stuff she didn't want but she was rubbish at giving us ideas for things she did want.
Some people here complain about adults having gift "lists" like children but I like that approach. The giver knows what to buy, the recipient gets what they want. All happy, as long as the price range is right.
I earn as much as my husband so regard money we spend on gifts as "our" money so if my husband bought something expensive I disliked we would discuss it.
The boots and camcorder thing above would make me angry. There is something controlling about buying things you don't want rather than something you do want and expecting you to be grateful.

OP, you are not being unreasonable. It would drive me crazy too!

We're fairly lucky in that both DH and I have the same attitude to money. I hate buying stuff for the sake of it.

We have our birthdays and anniversary very close to each other, so it seems a bit pointless buying stuff for each other. Normally we just decide to go away for a short break. Therefore we don't have unwanted tat cluttering up the house and we have a lovely time when away. It sounds awful, but we really are still very much in love and the non-presents are not an indication of anything bad.

Could you suggest pooling the money next time to go away or some sort of special daytrip?

Cab - I would regift the camcorder and boots and give them to your dh for his next birthday/Christmas as he clearly wanted them so much and you had explicitly asked him not to buy them for you :o

Then with the money saved you can buy the camcorder/boots you wanted...

My dp does this generally is very good with money but always buys me expensive presents - usually something I love. I finally spoke to him about this that I felt guilty about the money etc. and he explained that he loves me and wants to give me everything I want -he is a guy who shows love better than tells if that makes sense and he does do all the little things as well so after this I thought well if that's what makes him happy- its important to him that he does this. I would say talk to him he is trying hard bless him but maybe as others say very explicitly tell him what to get.

Gift giving is all about the giver, not the reciever. It is really, the psychology of it is fascinating, I won't bore you with it, however, for some reason your DH has a deep seated NEED to buy you what he considers expensive and covetable gifts. They may well be things he associates with richness, satisfaction etc. My DH's boss gave DH a lecture last year as DH bought me an entire set of Sweaty Betty exercise gear for Christmas (something I can't bring myself to buy as a day to day item for myself, it is so expensive in there!). It was exactly waht I wanted, I was thrilled...but DH's boss thinks women should only be given flowers, chocolates, perfume or handbags.
Interestingly as DH was buying the stuff in the shop there was an aerobics instructor in there and was so impressed DH was buying his wife exercise gear she said "I dream of a man who'd buy me this stuff" so men buying unsuitable gifts seems to be fairly common.

Unless your DH goes into therapy he is unlikely to stop showering you with unwanted gifts which he thinks are great (on his scale of values).

You either need to be incredibly forceful in saying "lets buy something together" or accept the gifts as an extension of his personality and accept them in the spirit they were given. It is not ungrateful to acknowledge that someone is buying you gifts they like, not things you like, it is realism.

I think if you just accept he went out and spent the time to choose something for you, and think about that side of it (i.e. he was thinking about you) rather than it wasn't what you would have liked. DD gives me old leaves she finds in the garden, she thinks she is doing me a favour, and I accept in the spirit they were given.

It is annoying though!

...I may also add my cat brings me dead mice, she is so proud!