My wife puts zero effort into my birthday, Christmas or our anniversary but expects me to go all out for hers.
I’m turning 39 on Sunday. My love language is gift giving and I love giving people I love gifts of all sizes. I truly get joy from doing it.
But the flip side is that I kinda build up my birthday, Christmas and our anniversary in my mind. It’s not just a lust for stuff, as experiences are amazing to me.
It just means a lot when someone puts in even a fraction of the thought but I do when it comes to the gift. But since the beginning of our relationship and the nearly 6 years we’ve been married, my wife is put in next to zero effort when it comes to giving me any kind of gift.
Almost every time I’m told that “it just kind of snuck up on me and I had to find something last minute“. While I can understand that random gift-giving is not her love language, those three dates don’t move. They are the same every year and I don’t understand how they can just “sneak up on you“.
But when it comes to giving her gifts on those days she makes it very clear the expectation is that lots of thought and sometimes money goes into it. And I love giving her gifts. Big, small, expensive or free. When something pops into my mind of something I can get her, it brings me so much joy to get it and see her face.
It just hurts that I feel she doesn’t care how it makes me feel to be an after thought. Because she is not that way with her brothers her parents or her cousins. With them, she goes all out. Plans parties, really maps out and plans extremely thoughtful gifts. It just doesn’t seem that she thinks I warrant the same.
I’m sure people will think that I’m whining or beating greedy. And I can understand how it might look like that. But I don’t care if she got me something from the dollar store or even found on the side of the road.
It’s much more about the fact that little to no thought goes into things and it seems like getting me anything is more of a chore than a joyful experience. And it really, really hurts.