Am I ungrateful because DP didn’t buy the calendar I wanted before it sold out?

[Gillinggold]

I had a shit week last week and DP knew I was browsing beauty calendar’s. He asked which one I liked and I told him the name of the one I was going to buy.

He told me not to buy it and that he’d treat me to it as one of his Christmas presents to me. I was really grateful and said it sells out quick so to be aware of that.

Lo and behold, he’s gone to buy it and it’s sold out and not coming back in stock. I was annoyed, said I really had my eye on it and would have happily brought it myself as originally intended.

He says I’m being ungrateful and that it’s not his fault. Well, I told him he’d need to get a move on at the time and feel really annoyed now….

That’s probably a good thing!!

@alfonzi
It was 20 years ago and he was gone a lot so we missed many gift-giving opportunities.
I recall my mum asking me:
”What were you thinking???”
I guess I wasn’t. I remember I was sick of work and marrying him would afford me lots of travel and living in different places - that appealed to me.
I f**ked up. lol

This thread is wild. An advent calendar isn't going to cure cancer or being peace to Ukraine, but someone wanted to treat herself and that was scuppered, followed by the suggestion she should be grateful it was scuppered.
Obviously worse things happen, everywhere, everyday. For all we know much worse things are happening to the OP and she's held onto this because it's a fairly small action that could have brought a nice dollop of happiness.
It's ok for women to want to treat themselves.

So far we’ve had

• OP being told she should should have got a cat instead
• A man lecturing us on beauty advent calendars
• Gaza
• Autistic children suffering and not asking to be born (mine)
• 736 people telling the OP to grow up
• An OP that gave up days ago and hasn’t been back.

Am I missing anything?

A bit of name calling too….havent we had brat and spoilt princess?

Thats so typical of a lot of men they dont see the need or urgancy, procastinate, miss the boat, yes you have every right to be annoyed.

Come on let's have it right. She told him at the end of September about an advent calendar. It seems he acted pretty quick as she posted with her complaint on 1st October. He had already tried by then.. Thats not so bad to be fair when he's thinking its an advent calendar, even if its been mentioned they do sell out

Even me as a 60 year old female would think I had a bit of time on my side to purchase one, if I wanted to buy into this.

You are being VERY unreasonable. Its the beginning of October, why on earth would you be expecting him to be buying your Christmas presents now? And you only mentioned it to him "last week"?
Beauty calendars are a marketing con. If they sell-out that quickly, then they are deliberately under-supplying the demand to get you to rush to buy.
And anyway, if you've had a "shit week", how is something that you're not going to get until Christmas going to help?
Why not get him to take you out for a slap-up meal NOW?

She didn’t expect him to buy a Christmas present now, he offered to buy her part of her Christmas present now.
it really doesn’t matter if you view the gift as a marketing con, that’s not the point of the thread.
OP was going to treat herself, he stopped her from doing that and said he wanted to treat her instead, she told him they sell fast, he left it too late.
and it isn’t something she wouldn’t get until Christmas. She’d get it December 1st.

Thread TLDR Version.

If someone tries to do something nice for you but messes up - should you have a tantrum at them.

No, the TLDR version is: if someone says they will do something but then they don't and actually make things worse, should you be grateful that the thought about doing it?

All about perspective. My TLDR would be - if something is urgent don’t use a vague word like “quickly” - give a deadline.

(because he actually did act quickly, and he didn’t just think about it, he actually tried to order it).

Lol! It boggles my brain why people actively try to ruin their relationships by interpreting their partner in the most negative manner possible instead of doing the opposite.

Boggles my mind indeed. The partner messed up. Did he apologise, offer to fix it, find alternatives? No, he said it's not his fault and OP should be grateful.

We don't actually know what he did next - again you choose to fill in the blanks with your own negative spin. Thank you for proving my point.

Instead of just saying ‘it sells out quickly’ it would have been better to say ‘it needs to be ordered now’. He had still tried to order that week so it doesn’t sound like he deliberately sabotaged the whole thing which is what some people think.

I also don’t think there is any point debating an angry exchange of words between two people in the heat of the moment, we weren’t there and we don’t know anything about them or their relationship.

Except we do, because OP wrote 'He says I’m being ungrateful and that it’s not his fault.' Pretty sure she would not have started this topic if he had managed to get the calendar from ebay instead.
Mistakes happen but in a healthy relationship it's also normal to then say you're sorry, not to gaslight your partner to think they are at fault for not being grateful.

"Did he apologise, offer to fix it, find alternatives" You don't know if he did.
I expect she raged and had a tantrum at him which made him respond that way. People don't say that unprovoked.Now she wants validation for her tantrum. But even her biased account of what happens shows a lack of maturity in the relationship. Teenagers maybe early 20s people may still be sorting out their ego and working out who they are so I can see this kind of tit for tat blaming. After that - assuming they are married, they become a team and you should always see your partners actions in a positive light instead of trying your best to jump on any accidental faults. It's just toxic and they are actively vandalising their own relationship.

I expect she raged and had a tantrum at him which made him respond that way.

This is way more of an unjustified stretch than anything you think people are inventing.

That’s understandable lol society does sell that lifestyle to women as if that’s the dream and it does work out for some, but others realise it’s not quite what they hoped for and are massively disappointed.

I always think a generous thoughtful man of average income is far better than a rich stingy thoughtless man.

She literally posted on an online forum about a calendar. Yes the height of sophistication and control I'm sure!

@N12n Fine you don’t understand why Op is upset or see the appeal of advent calendars- maybe just move on from the thread. You seem so annoyed.

He wasn’t even THAT rich - he was just richer than I was.
I was pulling in a nice salary as a Senior Senate aide. But I’d had enough.
And he was a pilot - and it was the same old worn out story of “Pilot leaves wife for stewardess.”
Christ what an assh*le.
Thank you for your kind words. ❤️

@N12n

we get it! You consider yourself to be above liking things like beauty calendars. You a superior being, if only more of us could be like you and not concern ourselves with such trivial matters the world would be such a better place. Is that what you wanna hear?

Not at all - I want to see people standing up for their spouses - erring on the side of positive over negative when uncertain, not allocating blame to someone that is their partner over trivial things. If people did this not only would divorces be far rarer but people would be happier.

@N12n

so women should put up and shut up with men being complacent and a bit shit to lower the divorce rate? Yeah, no.