I opened Xmas gifts early and hate them :(

[Dawb]

So DP has taken DD to soft play this morning (rare). I’m using the time to have a clean around and found a box from my favourite website shop and decided to open it. I know very bad. I realised it was my Xmas gifts and still chose to open it while no one was in. The website isn’t designer or major expensive, but not cheap either.

The box contains nothing I like at all. The site sells different brands (think retro) and I’ve never heard of a few of them in the box. A few others completely inappropriate (think allergies to cosmetics).

I feel so so mean literally not liking any of it. He has spent I would say at least £150 on a load of expensive tat. I wouldn’t wear or use any of it.

DP is far from romantic. He does try but I think due to his upbringing he is a bit of a robot. I feel so so mean telling him - ‘thanks for trying but what on earth were you thinking’. I’m also feeling a bit down that he really hasn’t got a clue - and probably never will.

Apart from not being romantic or spontaneous he is a lovely partner. Can’t discuss with my best friend as her DP is being such a CF at the moment and would kill for a DP like mine. What do I do? Please help!

Sorry you sound like an ungrateful nightmare.

Chas and Dave- Ain't no pleasing you is playing in the background.

I think you’re impossible to please

Haha I love this.😂😂😂It's a win win he must have been so confused.

just say thanks and be more organised for next year.....each year i get a huge mountain of unwanted tat and expensive stuff from some wealthy friends....none of it is suitable for me...childrens board games, disney pyjamas....etc etc....i take the whole lot to the local food bank and they give it out to people.....

You sound greedy, ungrateful and entitled and I really hope this is a Love Actually scenario and on Christmas Day you get to open a CD of Take That's greatest hits, while the OW crows with delight over her box of goodies.

Good god! 😮

OP, why can't you just give him a list of 10 things that you might like and ask him to buy 2 or 3? You can't expect him to get your makeup right.

This is a common theme amongst certain women. My ex colleague who was into designer bags etc had to act pleased that she’d got a Mulberry messenger bag (she wanted a proper Bayswater type bag), the next year she was complaining about being bought a diamond tennis bracelet. Trouble was they had a big family (most of her kids were his step kids) and he worked as a London bus driver so earned a fairly decent wage but not megabucks.

I honestly think he’s tried to be generous and think outside the box and you sound like an ungrateful bitch to be honest. But return it if you can.

Lots of people pleasers on here incapable of asserting what they want.

One boyfriend I’d been seeing for ages and we stayed in hotels a lot as he got them at a reduced rate through his work (didn’t stay there all the time but he lived on south coast end me in London suburbs. This was a man who told me he was loved up and he talked about marriage. I got the same as his ex GF and mother of his son for Xmas, a large body shop gift set. My friends and mum were embarrassed for me as they knew what job he had, what he earned. He was just tight.

another ex in my 20s got me a huge Tigger cardboard Christmas card and an oil or lava lamp with the oil!

I think the poster who said damned if he does damned if he doesn't has got it right, really.

You asked him not to get you anything previously so he didn't and you were upset. You've asked him to stick to a £10 limit this time, but he has the previous experience to go on, so he peobably thinks he'd better not stick to the limit.

Instead he's bought you some things from your favourite shop, which you don't like and are angry at him for buying them.

But it looks like he's trying to get it right this time.

I'd leave it, smile as you open them, thank him, then quietly exchange them.

Made me laugh

I’m not sorry I work my arse off all year, work full time, have a side hustle, go without, drive a shit car, don’t have expensive tastes so I can actually afford the things I want. Wish my friends could back me up here. I contacted ALL my excellent condition baby bits to women’s aid after they helped me as I know how it feels to have F all. I bounced back and started from nothing and have worked so hard to be where I am now.

OK. You've got it all, then.
It takes a lot of willpower and control (and a bit of luck) to be in that position, but not everyone has the same approach or mind set, expectation of deserving the best, or success in getting everything right as you do. Even your nearest and dearest.

Enjoy your holiday. Chill out. It might even make up for the disappointment of £150 of Christmas present or put it into the shade entirely.

BTW, I worked in a luxury retailer over Christmas. So many DHs coming in between the 22nd and 24th with high hopes of their DW's size or wanted gifts being left, but that was unfortunately very much too late. The early planning in this case has been quite good to read.

...Furthermore, although this is a website shop, if it was your favourite, there is a chance the selection is because he's asked someone who works there what they would recommend or what their most popular products for gifts are. Saw that quite often with men shopping too.

Is it sort of controlling.

She wants a particular bag but not allowed to spend money to buy it (one assumes). He works so HE decides what she gets and gets it wrong.

Why do we women have to be grateful that family/joint money is being spent /WASTED on gifts we don't want?

Would any man really not say anything if you bought him say a new Xbox game which he already had/poor reviews. Or a new pc graphics card that reviews said wasn't good compared to others to the market. Of course they'd say it's not the one they were after. Or more likely women wouldn't buy such specific gifts without checking it's the one they want.

But if it's jewellery or handbag we should be happy with any version of it.

He can't win can he and judging by your follow up posts will never live up to yourself or your expectations. The fact you opened them knowing what they are speaks volumes about you. If it was £150 worth of stuff you adore would that be an ok waste of money, I suspect the £10 limit wouldn't matter then.

5* holiday at Christmas and you're whining over £150 🙄

i'll give you the allergy stuff thats just thought less the rest i would accept

If you weren't the way you clearly are, I would say have some manners and pretend you're grateful. But if you weren't the way you are, you wouldn't have opened the box.

So given you lack boundaries and clearly have a controlling streak, I would tell him what you've done and tell him what you would prefer (different or smaller gift) as this is clearly the life he is doomed to live for as long as you're together and he may as well glean what happiness he can by pleasing you.

But don't put him through theatrics about not sticking to the limit as you've already given him grief in the other direction which is a level of nuance that even a human would be hard pressed to fathom, let alone your partner who your delightfully describe as a robot.

He sounds like a really nice man who has listened to you when you’ve spoken about the website you like and has done his best to get you gifts he thinks you’d like. Are you really certain that you always buy him stuff he loves? How do you know he isn’t simply pretending so he doesn’t hurt your feelings?

I understand that you’re disappointed with his choices, but I think you need to start acting like a grown up here. He’s not perfect, none of us are. But it sounds like he’s trying his best. So I think you need to confess to having found them and say you’re very grateful, but you have some allergies and size problems, so could he return them and swap them for something on your wish list so you still have a surprise, but that he really doesn’t need to spend so much money.

And then, from next year, write wish lists for each other.

Oh ffs, seems like you’ve had a sense of humour bypass.

Ex DH was delighted with the fact I was happy with the sunglasses. His momentary confusion neither traumatised him or even made him so bothered as to comment.

I’m no longer married to him, so I think you can be assured that this was the very least of our troubles.

Regret sharing my anecdote now. Every time I comment on mumsnet these days I feel like I live to regret it.

Because last time you said to do nothing and he did nothing you cried all day.

Be grateful you actually get something unlike some of us.

So all this fuss over something that wasn't hidden and you don't even know was for you? Ooookay...

Exactly. I can't remember when I last had either a Christmas or a birthday gift, but it's certainly several decades.

‘Be grateful you actually get something unlike some of us’. That sounds like the modern equivalent of the 1950s admonition to children reluctant to finish their food: think of the starving children in Africa. The sanctimony, the piousness lives on.

You sound like a bit of a princess...sorry!