Bf using my birthday gift with another woman

[Pookie21]

My bf got us tickets to my favourite musical for my birthday in January, unfortunately we broke up shortly after for 6 weeks, but have now been back together a month. The show is next week, I’ve organised my kids but bf told me yesterday as he couldn’t get a refund he asked friends & is now taking a female friend instead (I vaguely know of her). AIBU in thinking that as the tickets were my main birthday gift he should either have given me both to use or cancel taking the woman & take me as they were part of my gift & we are back together?
he says she helped him out by agreeing to come so doesn’t want to change her plans but if I were her I’d be happy to stand down as it was a special gift for us to enjoy together, it feels like he’s putting another woman’s feelings over mine.

Why does he have the tickets if he gave them to you for your birthday? Did he ask for the tickets back after your broke up?

Because he promised me he had changed, he would listen to/hear me, he would be more caring & emphatic to me, would stop emotionally manipulating me, would listen to my boundaries due to SA & would prioritise our relationship. I promised what he asked which was to be more open/vunerable with him (very difficult for me due to previous SA/abusive relationship), work hard to reduce my boundaries in the bedroom I have from the SA & be more available to see him/talk on the phone.

Please, please, please end this relationship.

It's incredibly damaging and unhealthy.

You have children. Don't teach them that this is the sort of relationship dynamic they should expect as an adult.

Because he never physically gave them to me and yes that’s true

I wouldn’t have a problem with it but would expect a belated birthday dinner out.

I’m glad he’s not just dumping his friend because you got back together.

What was said when he told you he was taking his friend instead?

I kinda see where hes coming from but he shouldnt go with her. Id bought 4 tickets to a play...me BF my mum and my son who is 14. Bf and i split up so my mum offered his ticket to her pal. She paid for them so fair enough. Then we got back together. Never thought anything of it till a week or two before he said how much he was looking forward to it. Awkward!! Didnt want to let my mums pal down as wasnt her fault or upset him. Could buy another ticket but then someone sitting alone. I ended up telling a white lie that my mum wanted to treat her pal by inviting her too but explained didnt want anyone alone so i bought 2 new tickets and let son invite his girlfriend. They sat a few rows behind us and had a ball. Tbf both BF and mums friend would have understood the situation but i am too much a people pleaser to hurt anyone if i can avoid it.

Honestly OP this guy does not sound like a keeper. If he's promised to prioritise your relationship and this is already where you are , him prioritising himself and his friend, you are on a hiding to nothing. Also him expecting you to work on broadening your horizons in the bedroom after SA - sorry no, that's not him being a partner either. Lose him and see the loss of the tickets as a valuable wake up call.

So sorry to read that. I have had similar experiences over many years in my past. But to say that you need to work on reducing boundaries in the bedroom due to SA is awful, of course you shouldn’t be. You just be you. You deal with it the best you can.

And he can go be himself elsewhere as completely and utterly disgusting behaviour on his part. As for the tickets they add to it as they are yours and it’s up to you who goes and I’d certainly not want to go with someone like that.

Sometimes we are to quick to get back together after a break up. Sometimes we shouldn't get back together at all.

I don't see it as him prioritising the friend. If he were buying the tickets today he'd obviously take you as his priority. However he made a commitment to his friend that it's unfair not to honour. He had previously made a commitment to you but the break-up cancelled out that commitment unfortunately.

Look, I'd dump him for the tickets alone but based on your update, he will only ever be with a vulnerable woman who will tolerate his bad behaviour.

And by tolerate, I mean he will be a dick and so you'll say your piece, he will sulk and/or you might break up and then he worms his way back in and then you're in a vicious cycle of highs and lows. Its not a winner, is i?

But it's your life, you basically need to stop ruminating on this (time that would be better spent having a nice day with your kids) and make a decision about whether you will accept this or not. Make a decision and move forward. If you were my friend I would hope you know you are worth more. He already has you doing a Pick Me dance and fighting to not look insecure whilst managing your understandable anger about his behaviour without upsetting him. He has chosen a woman to piss you off and use it as a stick to beat you with.

This becoming an unhelpful pattern.

This.

Then the women gets to go and you get your gift. He doesn't need to need to ho with her.

If he says no then dump him. He's not worth it.

@Pookie21 there is a simple solution to this. Just buy a third ticket for the same show and you can all go together. You and him sit together and his friend still gets to see it too and can sit elsewhere.

He was a bit quick off the mark to give the ticket to someone else.

Put a poll up

Ask for the gifts you gave him back so you can give them to another friend... See how he likes that. The tickets aren't his. They were a gift to you that he kept out of spite. Why can't you have his ticket and go with the friend? Does she know you are back together? Does she know they were your birthday gift?

I think you've made a huge mistake getting back together with him and I think you're realising that. The gift issue is highlighting it.

He is in the wrong, a musical you loved, bought for you, as a gift so therefore YOURS and he's taking somebody else?

More worryingly, you say:

I promised what he asked which was to be more open/vunerable with him (very difficult for me due to previous SA/abusive relationship), work hard to reduce my boundaries in the bedroom I have from the SA & be more available to see him/talk on the phone.

Why should you reduce your boundaries in the bedroom, what sort of man is this???

The whole relationship sounds like a time wasting exercise and tiresome to boot.

To be honest the tickets stuff sounds like a red herring to me. It really isn't all that important. The important part is that the OP broke up with this dude because of various drama and him being a jerk, then took him back, and now there is drama again. What's the point of this relationship? It's obviously a toxic drama-generating thing. He should've stayed dumped.

He lied & exaggerated stuff, refused to respect my one bedroom rule (due to a SA which I told him I would work on), gaslit me about events/conversations/his and my feelings, manipulated my emotions so he got to play the victim, cried because my SA upset him, broke arrangements, made me feel guilty for not being very available when he was (when my son was recovering from surgery, unfortunately this wasn’t the 6 weeks I was told so I understand this must have been hard for him but completely out of mine/my sons control), sulked when an activity he arranged for us was too much for me physically & I needed a week to rest/recover from the pain/exhaustion as he’d got a few days off work & I couldn’t see him - even though we had no arrangements. Unfortunately, because things got too much for me but I really didn’t want to break up & wanted to believe him when he said he’d work on things I wasn’t myself the last bit of our relationship and as I’m the one that ended things he can now throw that at me, that he’s so hurt etc. he didn’t hear me, or listen to me.
BUT, he promised me he would really try, he actually authentically apologised (instead of his usual ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’) took responsibility for his actions & finally made me feel like he appreciated me as a person/gf.
I found my friend unconscious with a head injury, bleeding on the floor on Saturday & although he will be find thank god, understandably I’ve not been myself, I’ve kind of shut down emotionally & he has been soooo unsupportive (he was there, but extremely drunk & his reaction is ‘he’s fine’ about our friend, mine is different as I’d only had a couple of drinks & as I found him I had to check his breathing, call people for help, call 999, stay with my friend & his wife) yet tonight because he has a cold he’s telling me how unwell he feels, how hard work has been for him & I just don’t have it in me to comfort him even though I want to, I just can’t right now especially given how unsupportive he’s been.

No need to be confused. None of our opinions really matter in all of this. If you are unhappy about the way this has panned out you need to tell him you are unhappy, why, and then potentially end it all again, depending on his response. If it does end, it should be permanently this time.

There are lots of permutations, but I suspect that if any poster here, including you, had purchased tickets for someone, and then got dumped by that person, they would undoubtedly keep the tickets to do with as they pleased.

Indeed, there are also permutations about what the dumped party should / should not have done, and what he should / should not do on the rekindling of the relationship. I think most of the posters here would have chosen an alternative option (myself included), however he didn't.

Your choices now appear to be to suck it up, or not. I rather think that this indecision is more about whether you actually think you did the right thing getting back together than it is about the tickets. Or at least as much to do with it.

So he regifted your birthday present to another woman.? And plans to go on your birthday outing with her instead. He's taking the mess.

They weren't his tickets to give away, you were still together when he gave them to you for your birthday, therefore they are yours not his. My dd broke up with her boyfriend after giving him 2 tickets for a festival for his birthday. She emailed him the tickets when she received them (even though they weren't together any more) as they were his not hers.

No, I just never got them ‘physically’

What I don't understand is: if he gave the tickets to you as a present, why are they in his possession? Surely, when you broke up, you would have then have been able to arrange to go with someone else.