Husband has wrapped Christmas presents so badly I’ve had to throw the paper away

[ThatFunRubyHelper]

I have some Christmas presents needing to be wrapped. My DH has not wrapped presents before. I just heard him in the bedroom with the wrapping paper and tape.

Hes wrapped my mums Christmas present so badly I’ve I’ve had to rip the paper off and throw it away. I’m so annoyed as there wasn’t much Christmas wrapping paper left and I was planning on wrapping them neatly.

Just had to have a vent! He’s now annoyed at my becuase I got annoyed at him!

I actually think you've been incredibly controlling. What you mean is that he didn't wrap them to your standard. I'm rubbish at wrapping presents, despite over 50 years of practice. I'm just not dextrous. Unless he left the present visible, does it really matter? Yes, neat wrapping looks lovely but some of us have to lower our bar.

Has OP actually specified how bad she perceives his wrapping to be? Does it look like a toddler wrapped it, or is it maybe just wrapped plain with a sheet of gift wrap and tape, when OP considers 'proper grown-up wrapping' to involve bows, ribbon, glitter or whatever? We haven't been told.

For what it's worth, the vast majority of men don't care about wrapping gifts with anything like as much of a flourish as many women do.

It doesn't mean that their way is 'wrong', or 'weaponised incompetence; it's just different. It's nothing whatsoever like supposedly doing the washing up but leaving bits of food still stuck to plates, or 'forgetting' that you've run out of milk.

Either way, my point still stands: if she has exacting standards as to how presents given by her household must be wrapped, she needs to tell her DH that he is not allowed to do any more wrapping and to leave it all to her - and hope they can both agree on that.

You’d have a heart attack if you saw mine. I hate wrapping stuff so I don’t care if it looks pretty or not. It’s all getting ripped in the end anyway

my presents when I wrap them always look like a bomb squad has got at them. The overuse of tape and weird corners not to mention the creased paper has become a family thing now. I know they look forward to seeing what mess I have done now

The second time posting because I am astonished people are attacking the OP's high standards, whilst ignoring that this man has never wrapped a present in his life - where's the outrage for that?

Literally nobody cares that it's badly wrapped, it's the fact that he has never done it until now, so who wrapped his parents presents before he had girlfriends etc ?

My mums been wrapping some presents, it looks like a one armed blind monkey on crack has wrapped them, but the presents are covered and named, thats all that really matters.

I’m dyspraxic and the shit way I wrap gifts is a standing joke in my family.

I would tell them to fuck off if they genuinely complained about it.

We don’t know your DH. Is he generally shit at DIY, cycling, writing, organising things? Or is he a lazy fucker trying to get out of a job?

@Simonjt you might be my child!!

Why are you treating your husband like a child? He’s a grown man, of course he can wrap a present - I think anyone older than about 6 could?

He’s done it badly so you don’t ask him to do it again.

You should have just left them, there's plenty of stuff to get worked up about and this isn't one of them

Erm OP cares? I would care too and I'm no perfectionist with wrapping but needs to not look shit!

To be fair, I am terrible at wrapping. Even regular square shaped things - I don't know what happens but I struggle to judge the size of paper I'll need, stuff gets stuck together, things fall apart. I am 43 and have never mastered doing it well. I get DH to do most of the wrapping as I fucking hate it. So maybe he is genuinely crap at it. Sadly there is nothing weaponised about my incompetence.

Exactly!

He did though on this occasion take it upon himself to wrap a present and look at the thanks he got.

"AND this Christmas I let Dave wrap the presents. Didn't he do well! He's my special boy..."

Just like Smithy!

I'm shit at wrapping presents cos I don't like doing it and don't really care enough to spend much time doing it.

Whilst I don't think it matters, I do think it's slightly odd that he chose to wrap your gift to your mum! I can understand you wanting your redo it if you're a fancy wrapper (I'm not!)

Does it really matter? Couldn't you just make a joke out of it?
All the paper will be ripped off and in the bin a week from today anyway.

People are so different. You find this sweet and charming. I find it infuriating, pathetic and a turn-off, that he has never done it before.

I wouldn’t have trusted my DH to wrap presents for my Mum. I would have done it myself. But I enjoy wrapping. If he hasn’t done it before, chances are he’ll be shit at it.

So many questions here!

How has he never wrapped one before? In those circumstances, how did he come to decide now was the moment to just go in and wrap some this year?

I wouldn’t want someone who wasn’t good at wrapping to wrap mine to my Mum, as I’ve realised nice wrapping is part of her “love language” - it’s part of how she communicates love to others and feels valued in return. (Worked out because she always wraps very nicely and says complimentary things when she receives well wrapped presents. She did used to do wrapping as part of her job though!) With anyone else I probably wouldn’t care!

Is it ok to be shit at washing up as well