Would you be happy with this? Birthday present

[Tiredandflabby1]

Say your live-in partner plans a surprise for your birthday, which is also your gift.
This turns out to be a meal at a lovely restaurant which you rarely eat at as it's quite expensive.
We enjoy the meal, we only ordered a starter to share, a main each and a diet coke each, no dessert.

When the bill came, he asked me if I could pay £10 towards it as it was a little expensive.
I did, but he was the one who planned it and also said it was my present. Not sure what to think?

The reason I say that is that you basically paid for half of your birthday meal. He only had to pay for himself and half of yours so your present was really only maybe £13.

TheRealSlimShandy - sorry to derail the thread but where in the UK is this Wimpy? I have been trying to locate one for ages,

There’s loads in the South East 😊

Lowestoft has a Wimpy and a Taco Bell, it's the only reason we go and have to 'fight' over which fast food to have.

Going to an expensive restaurant then making an issue out of £10 would ruin the whole treat for me - a truly generous partner would not do this.

£47 is not an 'expensive' restaurant by any stretch!

If he can't afford that he really should have just organised a nice takeaway or whatever he could afford without asking you to contribute to your own birthday meal.

£47? Expensive? For a restaurant meal for two?

I may live down south in a relatively expensive area, but I would love to be able to take a loved one out for a birthday meal and get change out of £100, let alone 50...

I agree, it costs more for me to eat at the local pub.

im not sure the op is coming back, but I suspect there is more to this, that maybe money is very tight,and he didn’t expect the price to be that high, but she’d know this. Sharing a starter, no dessert, soft drink each, says money is tight,

it is for many people, there is no shame in it, but if that’s the case and say he only had 30 or 40 quid to spend I think chipping in is fine.

I honestly thought you were going to say the meal was £260 and he had only brought £250 cash with him. I’d be mortified tbh!

To me it sounds more about control.

It's almost like he wanted to spoil it but in a sneaky kind of way.

Asking for £10 kind of sounds petty - he could've taken you somewhere cheaper and paid for 3 courses BUT he chose NOT to.

Says a lot to me.

Seems weird and unnecessary - especially over a tenner- unless it was a case of “oh do you mind getting the tip” which is a bit different (I’d always off to pay the tip if someone bought me a meal but would still find it a little odd if someone asked me to pay for it). Asking you to contribute £10 to a £47 meal is very tight!

So he only thinks you are worth £13.50 for your birthday. He sounds very mean.

He'd have been better ordering a takeaway for you both and paying for the entire bill.

Yeah I’d have the ick towards him forever now. Sorry OP.

Imagine if you had ordered wine and a dessert!
I'd run.

£47? For the both of you??

My main on its own was £24 in a "nice but not posh" place a couple of weeks ago.

I would not have been very happy with this turn of events if I were the OP.

Yeah agree with everyone else. £47 is not an expensive meal these days by any stretch of the imagination. Can I ask did he make you share a starter? And only order a soft drink? Or was that your choice?

The whole thing just sounds depressing. Don't get me wrong, we've been through times where we're skint and can't afford a nice meal but if that's the case we will just go and buy some nice steaks from the butchers and a bottle of red wine and have a nice evening at home. No point going out for dinner if you're just going to sit and panic over the prices on the menu!

The only time I have ever contributed to a birthday meal is say if DP pays and doesn't have any cash for a tip so I will throw that in but these days - where nobody uses cash - DP just puts the tip on his card too.

So, he's spent the grand sum of £13.50 on you, for your birthday? How old is he, 12?

Gah, I couldn't be with someone this tight or this broke. Urgh.

Jesus. Got a wave of nostalgia for Wimpy and just looked up the menu. It's so bloody expensive! Like four quid for a side portion of chips!? The photos on the website aren't even that appetising. Is it really tasty or something?

OP- Are you ever coming back to explain?

Rather than subsidising him by £10 I’d have offered to pay the tip if I knew he had enough money to cover the bill.

Sorry but this is Gaslighting....Sick.

God Bless you.

I think the "surprise" element of this (non expensive) gift was asking you to contribute a tenner to the cost. I hope this was a misstep on his part and not a symptom of a wider issue.

Awful