From reading some of the clueless comments in this thread, I really gotta wonder what obscenely high % of people on the sdmb are autistic.
Ultimately, this issue isn’t even about material things/presents. Its about putting effort in a relationship. I am aware that different people value different things; some people are not as ‘gifty’ as others and that’s fine. But what seems to be happening many times is that one person is gifty, but because the other isn’t, they feel…guilty? asking their partner to do something that isn’t inherent to their nature. And so the other partner thinks they have this ‘agreement’ going on among each other when really its the gifty person trying to let it go but still feeling a little sad and resentful.
When people get in relationships, they really need to discuss their fundamental values early on. This isn’t just stuff about religion and kids, its also ways they need to feel appreciated by their partner. If your partner made it clear they really appreciate gifts and you snub them later on, of course they are going to get upset. People are writing off women claiming they don’t want gifts but really do as some sort of nefarious female mind game bullshit. What I think is really happening here is the woman has likely made it clear in the past she would appreciate something nice/effort/an experience from her partner, and her partner didn’t pick up on it. Because he didn’t remember or take it seriously, he himself doesn’t think its a ‘big deal’ to her, then gets surprised and frustrated when she gets unhappy he didn’t get anything.
People aren’t robots. Its important to be clear with what you want, but a good partner is going to be able to read between the lines. Having to spell out every exhaustive detail to your partner to make sure they don’t miss something and use the excuse of “well you never told me!” or “you said X not Y” is exhausting. A caring considerate partner is going to remember your expectations.
I think this whole ‘Moms don’t get presents’ trope is form of Mom-martyrdom (Momyrdom? Mommydom?) where a Mom is unhappy and exhausted from making so many things a priority, that she feels guilty for wanting anything for herself. That, or she is so used to getting passed over by everyone in her family that setting equal expectations for them is just setting herself up for disappointment. Saying Moms dont get presents is a way for them to rationalize how they are getting mistreated in their own family, even if its in subtle ways (lack of appreciation, low priority, passivity of spouse).
Getting gifts for my wife has been a bit of a learning curve, but it has been consistent with the ‘heirarchy of gifts’.
Gifts that are sentimental, hand made, and/or deepy personal tend to be valued higher than other gifts. While this is kind of a generalization, I’ve found when you get to the point money-wise where you could buy some toy/gadget/tool if you really want it, getting something unique becomes a big deal.
Gifts that are something the person was thinking about, but didn’t really consciously think they wanted/planned on getting are great, because its like the gift giver read their mind. Sometimes you want something, then ‘forget’ you wanted it for a while, open up your present, and there was that thing you had always wanted!
Gifts that are a specific object the person asked for at least show the person’s ability to follow directions. Personally I feel like these are less personal/intimate than the above two categories, but for the admitted ‘picky’ people they are functional. These can still be really good gifts if the specific thing is difficult to obtain “I want XYZ model camera but they never seem to have it in stock”.
One prevailing concept I’ve been reading by some wives in this thread is that they
-Appreciate something as a gift over nothing
-Appreciate an attempt to get the item the wife really wanted
-Appreciate the time, effort, and risk required in trying to get something wife will like.
Under these criteria, their husbands are really operating in Easy Mode in my opinion. Your wife likes jewelry? Pick something you think she might like based on what she says! Want to see her in something sexy? Figure out her clothes size and get something. Worried what you get her is in the wrong size/widget/OS/etc? Go with her to exchange it for something she might like better!
The spousal unit and I tend to exchange gifts for the house, I go for decorating items, he picks up kitchen needs. I have fun with it, he seems to need a list…
The one I wanted was simply “The One He Thought I Would Like.” Its the thought. Not the result. You get the points here for effort.
Your wife may not be me - she may be incredibly picky about her bathrobes. If it were me, I’d like any bathrobe my husband bought me that showed he thought about me - is it in my approximate size (getting something three or four sizes off is NOT PAYING ATTENTION), is it in a color I like (I hope one look in my closet would help him pick a color). The other question would be “do I wear bathrobes” (I do, so for me, a bathrobe would be an excellent gift).
He did, in fact, in one of his “on” years that proves he isn’t autistic and is capable of this, buy me a purple bathrobe in my size. Its really a lovely bathrobe.
Bolding mine. If she specifically asked for it, she fucking well wants one. And since she asked for it, requesting some clarification about what she’s looking for in a bathrobe won’t exactly ruin the surprise, ya know?* As for picking out a particular piece of jewelry someone has asked for being sooooo incredibly hard–WTF? How is it possible to live with someone and not know if something looks like something they’d wear? Do you never actually look at the woman and *see *her?
*Pro tip: When you ask for clarification, listen to the whole answer. The second half has information that’s just as important as the first half, and also if you buy something that shows you only listened to half her criteria, it’s going to hurt her feelings that you clearly were only listening to half of what she said.
Incubus, watch the last example - buying her a dress because you want her to look sexy is like buying her a waffle iron because you like to eat waffles. Buying her a waffle iron because she likes to make breakfast (and you like to eat waffles) is good, and buying her something sexy because she likes to dress up (and you like the results) is great.
A clue: For some (not all) women, a man buying lingerie for his wife is him buying a present for himself. And she knows it. Dressing it up in pink Victoria’s Secret giftwrap doesn’t change who the present is really for. And with that mom guilt you talked about before - now not only does she need to help with homework, get the three year old through the tub while he has a tantrum, get the supper dishes washed and clean up dog vomit, when she gets to bed she’s supposed to dress up and enthusiastically put out.
Yeah, honestly. People act as if individual tastes are incredible esoteric and it’s impossible to guess what someone else wants. In reality, the line between “beautiful, elegant, stylish” and “ugly” is pretty damn clear when general principles have been laid down.
You know she likes statement necklaces. Then pick one that has good lines, elegant stones and a pleasing shape. Those things aren’t actually up for debate. “Good shape, elegant lines” is definable by science for crissakes. If you don’t trust your own eye, ask the salesdrone for help, or a random customer, or a friend.
The only thing open for doubt is the color, and if your wife gets pissed because you ask her what colors she likes in jewelry, you have bigger problems to worry about.
And bathrobes? Unless she has fabric allergies, a good bathrobe is a good bathrobe. Pick one that is comfortable, durable, right size, color she likes. The End.
This. This. This. My mother was a champion at doing things to herself to make her life miserable, so other people would feel sorry for her.
She took the “I don’t get presents” thing to the point where not only did my father not get her anything, his mother didn’t either even though she gave presents to us kids. Those presents, BTW, had a slight tendency to disappear themselves around the time we all went back to school after the break. :rolleyes:
Shrug, my father knew my mother liked flowers. So he’d buy her flowers, and she’d think “oh my God these are horrible! Does he think I’m some cheap vaudeville artist?” but smile and bear it. She likes white and yellow; he liked orange, red, blue, purple…
At one point she was telling me about that, and she said “who likes those colors anyway?” “Me” “Uh, I mean which woman” “look at zipper. Check for package. No package” “You like red flowers? And blue ones?” “Yeees? And I’m not the only one, red roses and red carnations aren’t what I’d call obscure! In fact, it was YOU who bought these red carnations you’re arranging!” “:smack:”
Could Dad have noticed she bought mostly white and yellow flowers? Yeah, I guess. But it wasn’t as if she never bought another color, and “smile and bear it” didn’t help. I had the same information he did and I can tell you I saw either “pretty flowers, yay!” or “oh, Mom bought flowers” - I’d never gotten down to analyzing that the bunches I didn’t have any enthusiasm for were the ones in pale colors.
You’re either overthinking it, or the people you buy presents for are incredibly picky. If you’re buying something for a loved one, you probably have some idea of the colors they like, or you can ask them. So you go looking for a purple statement necklace, you put some time & effort into it, and you buy her the best statement necklace in a color she likes in a price range you can afford that you can find. Voila. All done.
If you’re unsure, or if you want some extra reassurance, you send a picture of it to her friend/personal shopper/close relative and say “I’m thinking of buying this for Dangerosa; do you think she’d like it?” And then you keep the receipt if for some reason she wants a different one or it doesn’t fit or if it has a chipped bead or whatever. Perfect.
And really, if someone isn’t happy with that level of gift-giving, then it’s their problem, not yours.
She didn’t specifically ask for it. Which is, amazingly, why I wrote the bolded part. She certainly wouldn’t complain about a gift I got her, but that doesn’t mean I’m OK with getting her a necklace or a bathrobe she doesn’t like. Especially not a necklace.
I mentioned the bathrobe because it’s a safer present than a statement necklace, which seems like it should be a “statement” that she would want to make. And that statement is probably not “my husband has poor taste in jewelry”. Seriously, how someone can say to just Google “statement necklace” like that somehow solves all the problems with buying one is beyond me.
With the bathrobe, well, at least she’s only wearing it at home.
…Yeah. I’d add that I don’t have any problem with spelling out every exhaustive detail to one’s partner once or twice – I think that’s only good communication – but after that, if it’s really important, he ought to figure out that it’s important and that he needs to remember those details.
This reminds me of my having to tell my husband, after about five years of marriage, that when I am in the middle of having one of my periodic (yearly or so) inferiority complex outbursts where I cry and yell about how I’m stupid and terrible at everything, that even though he has told me plenty of times before that I am not actually stupid and terrible, he actually needs to say it again, this time. And that I will totally be better the next day. It’s not rational and it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s what I need to hear. And he did need to have it spelled out very precisely to him that this is what I needed, because it wasn’t rational. But since then he’s been good about it, because he cares about me.
Which, I suspect is nearwildheaven’s problem - not that he (she?) doesn’t try, but no matter what he wants his mom (and I think its his mom, not his wife) isn’t happy.
I had a grandmother like that. You could bend over backwards to try and please the woman, and she was happiest unhappy - and really happiest if she could get you to blame yourself for her unhappiness. Yeah, at that point, its the cheese and sausage assortment from the grocery store and its her problem.
He was sweet and comforting and I think he apologised. He said something vaguely about maybe getting me something for that anniversary another time, which was clearly not true and also clearly not the point. I said I felt stupid and petty complaining about it and apologised for crying over stupid shit. He just didn’t get it though. He didn’t understand in the slightest.
It’s weird actually. He’s quite empathetic, certainly not on the autism spectrum. He’s the one in the office people talk to etc. He just doesn’t understand stuff. Which as I said, is actually something I like about him. He once cycled into a road works hole at night, because he was looking at the stars. He’s a dreamer who doesn’t understand things.
You don’t to me.
My papa got me a very nice dressing gown (bathrobe) for Christmas years ago. He’s very good at presents, and they always come from the one shop he knows so they’re easy to return if he does get the size wrong (which is rare). Also, he always tries really hard but colours do confuse him and he usually ends up going with pink for his daughters. And it just makes it all the more dear to me, because I know how he tries and how he is presented with lots of colours and then he just shouts out: “Pink!” I know the steps and I can imagine him standing in the shop. He has put so much thought into what he’ll get me, he has searched the shop and asked the sales person which brand would be appreciated, it’s for his daughter, you see. But then he is blindsided by having to choose a colour! Oh no! “Pink!”
Just to say that you might get it almost-right with one little thing not-quite, and it might just make it all the more endearing to that person. That’s the whole thing with presents.
For men (or women!) having a hard time deciding what to get their spouse, it really pays to be creative. If you can find a clever way to find out something they’d like, do it. Some of my wife’s favorite gifts from me:
-A personally hand-painted vase from Color Me Mine. I painted a landscape of a romantic beach we had went to earlier that year, which she immediately recognized (even though I paint like a 3-year-old )
-A CD of some Mariachi singer I had previously never heard of, but when she visited my apartment once she introduced me to Pandora, and coincedentally forgot to log off on her account. I looked up the singer she had mentioned liking on her account, and Pandora conveniently lets you buy CDs from artists you are listening to via Amazon.
-Renewed her XM radio subscription by “breaking into” her car (not really, we were married, I just hopped her car early in the morning when she was asleep ), getting the info to get renewed. A few days later while riding with her in her car I just casually tune into an XM channel. It took her a minute to realize I had renewed the subscription for her .
All three of these things were capitalizing on opportunities that had come my way. In hindsight, I have TONS of opportunities to get my wife very thoughtful gifts, I just have to look carefully. Even though it isn’t until next summer, I am already brainstorming what to get her for her next birthday.
Something else I really need to emphasize is to not be afriad to ‘whiff’ on a gift you put a lot of effort toward. Sometimes you can hedge your bets by getting something that manages to be both personal and easily exchanged. I got my wife some cute underwear as one of her gifts. Yes, there’s a risk she might see it as “A gift Incubus got for himself”. Or they might simply not fit (though I’m doubting that, because she has underwear by the same manufacturer which is how I know what size to get her). Or she might want something else from that store more than a set of undies. Fortunately, I ordered online from a place that allows you to exchange them in a brick-and-mortar store. If I was so hung up on “What if she doesn’t like them? What if they don’t fit?” I wouldn’t be willing to even put the effort to try to get her something.
That’s the problem some of these guys seem to have. Because they “dont know what to get their wives” they almost see it as an excuse to not try at all. But like I said earlier, more often than not its about effort.
When my wife eventually becomes a mom, getting her gifts will be even easier in my opinion, because there will be more things I can give- time, labor, sacrifice, et cetera, that are just as significant as some shiny baubles to her. When a man sees it in these terms, getting his wife a present becomes easy!
I should also mention I try to put forth the effort because my wife puts forth the effort for me. On my last birthday, she gave me an INCREDIBLE day; I felt like an absolute king. She put forth the time and effort to make me happy and content, and its entirely reasonable I put for the same effort for her.
If all he has to do is ask your daughter, your friend, your mother or your personal shopper to know what to get you then he doesn’t have to understand anything about your tastes.
Just because your SO throws away your catalogs instead of looking through them for the pages you bent to know what to get you does not = 50% or more of men do this.
My SO doesn’t do catalogs or magazines. So I guess I don’t have to get her anything for christmas. Being a woman she should know to get a lot of cataolgs and bend pages so I know what to get her and since she doesn’t then apparantly she doesn’t want a christmas present and I shall respect her wishes.
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