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Old Feb 14, 2021, 11:07 AM
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TunedOut TunedOut is offline
Grand Poohbah
 
Member Since: May 2019
Location: USA
Posts: 1,537
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZenZeta View Post
I've had my fair share of relationships (as evidenced by my history here), but I've been in a ... better one for the last 8 months.

This guy is respectful and consistent. We get along. We're...stable. We haven't been able to really date traditionally because of the pandemic, but the time we spend together is cordial. We can be in each other's space for an extended period of time and get along.

Since being together, we've had my birthday, his birthday, Christmas and now Valentine's Day together, and "bless his heart", his gift giving is not the best.

I'm not a materialistic person, so I think sometimes guys mistake that for not needing to even TRY when it comes to getting me gifts. I always say I don't need much (which I don't), and it really is the THOUGHT that counts which is my underlying issue.

For his birthday, I custom made him a gift basket of snacks that he likes complete with his fraternity colors. I made him dinner (his favorite foods), and had a special birthday cake made for him that he raved about for months.

For my birthday, he got me a grocery store fruit basket and a dollar store balloon. For Christmas, he had some wine shipped to my house (that was over a week late). Today, I got two re-gifted Valentine's day cards (seriously, I bought two cards for him a couple weeks ago in anticipation of today and couldn't find them. He gave them to me this morning) and some Reeses peanut butter cups. That is my favorite candy, but... really?

It's not the actual gift that's the issue. It's the fact that everything I receive seems to be a last minute, thrown together something or other., so I'm disappointed. I don't want to be a diva or seem like a spoiled brat, but I'm disappointed.

I get that some men just have NO idea about this kind of stuff, but it would be nice to feel like he took some time to remotely THINK about the gifts.

Am I being petty? I'm afraid to say something because I don't want to seem ungrateful. Am I being ungrateful? I want to think that he's TRYING, but I don't think he is. Maybe I'll just give him an Amazon wish list. I dunno,,,,
Have you ever seen people on YouTube talk about the 5 love languages? Basically, we all have ways we prefer to see love expressed--maybe it comes from the expectations we hold from how we were raised? For instance:

In one of those YouTube talks, I heard someone say that when our partner needs love to be expressed differently than we do--then it can cause issues. They also said that sometimes we can work these issues out by talking about them; however, IMO sometimes money issues are tougher to talk about. Perhaps he is just really broke (don't know what you know about his finances) or does not value gifts the way you do. My personality would be not to talk about it but, if both of you ever plan to get more serious (for instance marry)--talking about these kinds of issues beforehand could save a lot of heartache and misunderstandings later....
Thanks for this!
*Beth*