...to ask what my wife's thought process is, in this situation?

[WalkingOnTheCracks]

Married twenty years. Pretty early on I mentioned that I don't like v-neck jumpers. I mean, it's not a huge deal. It wasn't mentioned in the wedding speeches. It's not something I felt I had to get straight even before we got serious. It's just one of those things that comes up at some point, and it came up within the first year or so, I guess.

But every couple of years, my wife will buy me a v-neck jumper for Christmas. I open it and I don't need to say anything, because she gets in first.

"I know it's a v-neck, but it's such a lovely blue!"

"I know you don't like v-necks, but it's cashmere!"

"...it's just perfect for your eye colour."

"...I thought you could wear it to Sally and Mike's next week."

"...it's from Harrods!"

They always end up being taken back.

But - leaving aside the question of why I don't like v-necks, which I think I'm allowed - what I'm interested to know is what she's thinking when she buys them. Does she think, "Well, this one's just irresistible. Even WoTC will love this." Or does she just think that my aversion to v-necks is a passing phase? Or not worthy of consideration?

She doesn't like sarongs. If I persisted in the attempt to buy her a sarong every other Christmas, there'd be ructions.

Why does she keep at it?

@IMissVino

You are clearly delightful and your wife is a very lucky woman.

Thank you. If she were lucky enough to have married the sort of bloke who could figure out why Windows thinks the printer’s offline, this sentence would be displayed, framed, in every room in the house.

Buying clothes for Christmas (for adults) is very lazy anyway, regardless of whether you think the person will like them.

Why? I like clothes. I like getting them for Christmas.

@WaddleAway , if you do that's great, but I grew up getting clothes that I didn't want or like for christmas and birthdays.
We had a relative who would give us packs of knickers for christmas, too.

Any point I make about my feelings on the matter are deflected by the demand that I justify them, or by an appeal to popular taste…”…other men wear them! Your brother does!”

That is actually quite controlling and coercive. Presumably, your brother sleeps with his own wife (if he's married) - does that mean that you should as well?!

Does she really just see you as some generic man, who is expected 'to man' the same as all the others, rather than as her own unique DH?

Doesn't make it not lazy. I didn't say noone likes it, I said it's lazy.

Most grown adults can buy their own clothes, so buying them as gifts, especially when you're married, seems really lazy to me. I'd be most miffed if I got a jumper for Christmas from a partner. I suppose unless I had asked for a specific, special (cashmere, probably) one. Which the poster hasn't.

Why don’t you ask her OP?

To be fair, unless you've, say, painted a special watercolour for somebody or built them a bespoke bookcase, adults can buy pretty much anything that people could give them as presents anyway.

it sounds maddening. I would just tell her, again, that you don't want it and she can either give you the receipt so you can change it for something you do want.

OTOH i am super petty. So i would keep buying her something that she hates. Birthdays, anniversary, easter, Christmas - any and every present buying occasion. (but i hate wasting money, so it would be something i could use)

But that holds true for all gifts. Most adults can buy their own anything, not just clothes.

I think clothes as gifts can be lazy or they can show thought, care and effort. Just like any other sort of gift.

What gifts aren’t ‘lazy’? Surely most just involve going to a shop or looking online and picking something? How is it more lazy to buy clothes than it is to buy a piece of jewellery, for example?

I also am super petty, and I'd be torn between getting something that I liked (so at least one of us would get some use out of it), or something so outlandishly terrible that it could only be given to make a point, like a bag of mixed screws or, according to half of MN, a Bayliss & Harding gift set.

But that holds true for all gifts. Most adults can buy their own anything, not just clothes.

I had this conversation IRL with my DH the other day. I was asking about some Christmas ornaments that are usually quite expensive but are greatly reduced. Answer was "you're a grown up who earns their own money, you don't need permission to buy things"

Funnily enough, in the Lego shop yesterday it was "you don't need the giant Millennium Falcon that's a lot of money". One day. One day.

I think of lazy gifts as things like the Lynx or Bayliss & Harding gift sets or a tin of cheap biscuits, where you've gone out and bought a number of 'generic male' genric female' and 'generic family' gifts, or for a partner, the Christmas Eve 5.25 pm in Debenhams gift set.

If they thought of it. Most people do remember to buy clothes.

Jewellery is lot more special, and personal. Jumpers are just jumpers.

There are most definitely ways to buy people things they didn't think of for themselves but are still nice gifts, and not lazy.

But, you know, it's OK to buy lazy presents sometimes, if you feel the need to gift without meaning. I'm getting my mum a salt and pepper grinder that I wanted but when I showed them to her she said she wanted them because they will match the new colour in her kitchen, so I'll get them for her. To be fair, she wouldn't have thought of them, or found them, for herself (and I didn't know she was getting the kitchen painted). Still pretty lazy as she's asked for it.

But buying your husband a jumper? Lazy.

They're just horrible gifts.

My other half loves a checked flannel shirt. I personally feel he looks like a lumberjack and he knows I don't like them. He still wears them and if he asks for them I buy them. I still think they are fucking hideous but he likes them, and if he said he didn't like my clothes I would still wear them. 😈

I think of lazy gifts as things like the Lynx or Bayliss & Harding gift sets or a tin of cheap biscuits, where you've gone out and bought a number of 'generic male' genric female' and 'generic family' gifts, or for a partner, the Christmas Eve 5.25 pm in Debenhams gift set.

Yes, definitely - anything that is designed to be 'a gift' (and probably endlessly re-gifted, never used, used up for the sake of it).

You might happen to spot a beautiful vase in October and think "That would make a great Christmas gift for Jill, as she loves flowers, that shade would go perfectly with her colour scheme and she has several complementary items that she keeps saying how much she loves".

In stark contrast, you might go in to a shop on 23rd December, clueless, but knowing that you have to get something for Great Uncle Jim. You head for the 'gifts' section, pick up a 'set' of something or other - driving 'set', DIY 'set', smellies 'set' that the shop has got in specifically for scenarios like yours - boring everyday items but in a black card box with cellophane on the front - and you think "Meh, that'll do".

I lost my sense of smell a few years ago, my hubby buys me perfume!! Not just one which would probably last me a really long time, as I still wear it! lots of sets of random perfumes/smelly sets, pretty sure I don't smell as I'm really paranoid!! Partners don't listen!! Something that is just reality 🤷😅

I bet a guy in a V neck jumper could fix your printer.

This with bells on!

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll , you get it!
I blame the so called 'gifting guides'. They always seem to suggest the same sort of things - scented candle and bubble bath for mum, hip flask and driving gloves for dad, gardening set for a gardener, cooking set or apron and oven gloves for a cook...

You're so right about the sets.

😂😂😂

@VollywoodHampires he has. Why not read all the OP's posts?