My partner has always bought be surprise gifts. He is generous financially, and the gifts are often very expensive. However, they are nearly always ‘not me’ and I sometimes wonder who he is buying them for. He will say that he saw this item in the shop and had visions of me wearing it for example, even though I have never worn or bought something like that before. My income does not match his at all. I always ask him would he would like, and we go to the shop and chooses it. I have started to tell him what I need and would like. But still he buys things that he says make him think of me when he sees them. This year, a particular charity has become very important to me. He knows why. Instead of a present, I asked him to make a donation to this charity. His response was that in view of what I said, that he would make a donation to XX Charity, because he had been impressed by the work they have done. Sounds good, except that it wasn’t the charity that I asked the donation to be made to. It is in the same field of work, but it is for a different (and well supported) charity.
I don’t know what to say to him anymore, and am thinking of ending things as we have little in common anyway. We can’t even rub together well on this.