Husband doesn’t appreciate gift

[MrsM101]

I’m pretty upset and feeling unappreciated. I’ve saved for 3 years for my husband’s 50th birthday to make it a special one. I spent months researching and planning and booked Dubai for his birthday, really spent a lot more than I’ve ever done before to show my appreciation and make his birthday special, also purchased a watch he had been after on top of it all which cost a bomb. I just really wanted to celebrate him. Firstly he is annoyed that I didn’t allow him to hand pick the watch himself even though he told me that’s the one he loved, secondly he is annoyed that I planned a holiday and he wasn’t involved in the planning and doesn’t want to go. I have shed so many tears and feel so unappreciated. I didn’t see it going this way. I just don’t understand what I’ve done wrong

Me too, but the OP says it's on his bucket list, so 🤷

You could have saved the money and planned both shop trip and holiday with your DH. I agree he is being a misery, which is a pain and shows a lack of understanding, but really you should have involved him. Part of the fun and excitiment of a trip etc is in the planning.

Absolutely return the watch and cancel the hol. He'll use his "disappointment" as leverage for more entitled behaviour if you go with him. What a baby he is. Thank god I've never had the money for more than a meal out and a book, and have mostly never had to be exposed to people who feel they need more than that. So much expectation around self-gratification sounds exhausting.

If the gift is for me why wouldn’t I want it done my way? If the gift was for my DH I’d want to make sure it was done his way, so if the gift was a trip he’d always dreamed of obviously he’d want to be involved in planning it, the whole point of giving a gift is making the recipient happy.

He wants to spend 3 weeks touring Canada, we’re saving and doing it for his 50th. His birthday present so he’s having a great time planning the route etc. He’s including me in the planning but I’ve basically said it’s your dream you plan it as you want it.

Gifts are not just about getting things. Planning, choosing, shopping are all part of the experience and some people love that. My DH kindly saved for an eternity ring for our 10th anniversary. We had the most special day going to pick it out. I loved looking in the window of jewellery shops knowing that this time we could actually afford to buy something, and had a rare day out together with lunch and a walk. I love the ring for itself, but also because it is associated with all the positive memories of the day we got it.

If you had told your DH that his gift was that you'd spent years saving for his dream holiday and now it could be a reality and you could plan it together, he probably would have been thrilled. It's the fact that you made all the choices that has upset him. If he's been dreaming about a trip to Dubai, the dreaming is part of the experience - holidays are as much about anticipation as the event itself. He would have loved looking at all the hotels and imagining himself staying in them and weighing up design, pools etc, restaurants and deciding which to go for. He may even have had thoughts about this from previous research. You meant well, but in making all the decisions yourself you took all that away from him.

He's allowed to feel that way, but how ungrateful.

I agree that OP should return the watch, get a refund and spend the money on herself. Every time she sees him wearing it she will be reminded of how badly he treated her and how ungrateful he was.

I think Dante expressed that there is a special place in hell for the ungrateful.

Crikey he must be the only man in the universe who wants a "store experience".

my DH would be thanking me forever for not taking him shopping 🤭

He is the one who needs to be ashamed. I was expecting this to be about gifts you had chosen that he didn’t want but instead you chose his bucket list holiday and his dream watch and he is having a toddler tantrum because he didn’t get the cherry of being the one to flash the cash to the simpering shop assistant?

I’m astonished at PPs carping like your DH and even about you “squirrelling” money away which I’m assuming you have saved from your own spending/extra work.

By comparison my DH bought me an eternity ring for our tenth anniversary. It wasn’t something I’d ever thought about tbh and had we chosen it together its probably not the specific model I’d have picked. However things were hard, we had four small children, the mortgage was at the crippling stage and careers were still building. I knew he had saved for over a year out of the small discretionary monthly spend we each allowed ourselves. Its the most precious thing I own and even now I’m widowed I wear it every day.

Send back the watch, take a friend on the holiday and buy him that charity shop mug.

Perfect post

What did you do in the end @MrsM101? I agree with team “take the watch back”.

Also, out of interest, what did he do for your last big birthday?

Shame on the OP for making her generous gift in the 'wrong' way. i hope she is feeling guilty at what she 'took away from him'; she should consider her wrist well and truly slapped.

He got his dream trip and watch and is bitching about missing the cherry on top. Would you have done that if your DH had presented you with a ring rather than taking you for the “shopping experience”?

I can understand DH being disappointed but not in the way he went about it.

Having had some disappointment over birthday and Christmas gifts in the past - both as receiver and giver - my partner and I ask each other about two months ahead what we would like. Usually a few things so there are options. Never any disappointment or upset.

We have no idea if the DH has acted like this before, whether OP has surprised him before, whether he was really not looking forward to being 50, as the OP hasn't come back.

I wouldn't have done watch and holiday. I'd have saved and then six months ago said "Would you like to go somewhere special for your 50th? I'd love to take you away for your birthday, somewhere you'd really like to go. We can plan it together!" Then maybe seen a watch shop there and said "Let's go have a look" and if you really wanted to spend that much, that could have been an added extra.

He's already a grumpy old git. It will get worse they quite often do according to MNers.

I hope he was kind about it. If not, then he is clearly in the wrong.

On the other hand, I'd prefer my DH to talk to me before planning expensive gifts like that, particularly an expensive holiday.

I think this is a fair point from him. It is/should be part of the present.

I think that in your place I'd tell him that I'm surprised, upset, etc. by his response. Personally I think it's rude not to at least thank you for making the effort and immature to complain or sulk rather than talking with you to reset both of your expectations about this type of thing going forward and try to salvage this situation if he really hates what you've done. You've also said he'd be disappointed if he wasn't surprised, so it seems like there might be some contradictions re his expectations that it would be very helpful for him to clarify for you.

I suppose you could take the watch and receipt and go to the watch shop together and he can look at all the watches in person and choose the same one again. And you can check what's flexible or refundable about the trip so that he can be part of the process - I'd guess there's still a lot of leeway for day to day planning even if you've booked flights and lodging. But he's the one who is reacting negatively to something he must know was meant to please him - HE should be telling you what's going on in his head rather than your having to guess or to ask people online.

Yeah, sorry - I agree. I’m a planner and I love experiences so being in the shop and getting that whole moment would be part of it for me. Ditto for the holiday. I can say all that and think he’s still being an arse though

I love planning holidays, that's part of the fun for me.
But if my partner had clearly saved up for a long time and gifted me my dream holiday for my 50th, I would be able to see it for what it is ... a lovely, personal, thoughtful gift and this would over-ride my feelings of disappointment at not being part of the planning.

Funny how the idea of a present has suddenly evolved in to ‘the experience’ of picking and shopping and planning. A present to me is something that someone has planned and gifted. Otherwise I’m essentially just being given money. Which is fine. But it’s not the same as a gift

Well he sounds like a fucking baby!

Tell him he can go to the shop and try on the watch he already owns and chat to the sales person as if he's going to buy it. If that's the part of the experience that's so entertaining and exciting for him.

What an ungrateful sod. Though I'd absolutely hate to go to Dubai.

We teach children to behave better about gifts 🤦‍♀️

He's an ungrateful manchild!

Honestly, I think you could have taken him to the shop to buy his watch and you could have told him you have saved X amount for the holiday of his choice. I’m not saying his reaction isn’t quite ungrateful, especially the watch being the one he wanted and he just didn’t get the experience in the shop that he wanted - it seems a bit fussy, but you could have done it differently.

I have done this before and I don’t think it came across as unplanned or not a surprise. I surprised him with: we’re going to X to buy Y that I thought you would like, I have researched the nearest X and I’ll drive, and I have saved for Y and we can go today/at the weekend etc.

But as an adult man, if he was a little bit disappointed by one aspect of his gift, he should have had the good grace to just say thank you for his watch which was what he wanted. If Dubai is on his bucket list, it seems really tantrumy of him to say he’s not going to go just because he wasn’t involved in the planning.