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One of the great joys in my life is giving gifts...

Here we are 6 months from DDay - which was a few days after our anniversary on which I did not get acknowledgement let alone a gift. I had gotten WH a card but could not for the life of me bring myself to get the gift I had planned and could only sign my name to the card versus my normal mushy self. Wow - my subconscious had it right!

Then came mother's day (i am stepmom to his 2 kids) - and WH showered me with stuff but it was right after dday so I couldn't have cared less.

Then the realization came about how much he spent on the A taking her to $500 dinners, shipping champagne and sex toys to her - the man spent a LOT of money in 3 months!

Post DDay I stopped working for 5 months (i am a consultant and can just turn it off when I want to).

WH's car needed to be replaced and we decided on a whim (3 months after DDay) to get HIS dream car because we stumbled upon one used. A HUGE deal for him. Made me feel a little icky - like he was getting a reward in a year when he deserved anything but.

I seriously pampered myself post DDay with his blessing (flying to spas in other cities, etc)

A month after DDay we neglected to make a financial decision that cost us $70K - which we just discovered last month.

4 months post DDay he put extraordinary effort into celebrating the anniversary of our first date.

We had planned to go to Europe for a month next year to celebrate his 50th. We are planning to go for a long week instead, but we are still going to celebrate HIS b-day.

So here is the deal... the holidays are coming and he recently said to me "lets set a budget between the two of us" - what I want to say is: "The thought of buying you a gift this year makes me sick to my stomach and the budget should be $0 towards gifts for you and $5K towards gifts for me"

Thoughts?

I think you should get whatever he spent on his dates and gifts to OW. The money he spent was yours, too. It should go into an account in your name only. It will help you with your resentment and bitterness which he should be willing to do. You had no vote in his spending on her. You should have the same opportunity, IMO.

Oh I already spent about what he spent on her on myself. It is not about that.

It is more about how I LOVE giving gifts to the people I love, but have not yet found a place of JOY in regards to gifting to WH. Should I just fake it? Should I just tell him that I am not "there" yet?

I told my husband I can't bring myself to really shop for a gift for him so we have agreed to get something for the family instead of individual gifts. Knowing him though hes going to end up getting me something, he does that a lot. Im letting the children pick something out for him and they will help me fill his stocking.

We don't do much for Christmas giftwise though. Usually our budget for Christmas total (decorations, tree, pictures, presents etc) is around 1000.

"The thought of buying you a gift this year makes me sick to my stomach and the budget should be $0 towards gifts for you and $5K towards gifts for me"

Yup. Exactly.

For my birthday this year WH sent 2 dozen red roses in a huge vase to the Vegas hotel room where I was staying with my sister and a friend.

For his birthday, I said, "Happy Birthday".

He finds this to be entirely appropriate, as do I (right now).

If you WH knew what was good for him, he would try to wow you this Christmas. It doesn't have to be expensive, it could be sentimental, but it should be a wow. He should see it as a golden opportunity to show you how he feels. And like it or not, gifts are one way. Especially if that is your love language.

It took me over 2 years to give my W a gift - and that was dancing lessons, which was actually a gift for both of us.

Catchy, I think your budgetary thinking is right on.

So - how do I talk to him about it without sounding like a petty bitch. I can't just say: "you should get me gifts but I am going to refrain from buying gifts for you"

I think you could say it without being a bitch. You could just say, listen, it's been a rough year, gift giving is a way that I show my love and I'm feeling uncomfortable putting myself out there in that way this year. You could suggest skipping it this year (even though you know HE will still get you something, if that is important.) Or I like the family/house gift idea instead.

Can you just "tweak" that a little to say, "You know H, I am finding it hard to get something meaningful for you at this time in our lives. Can we just do something together - theatre/outing of some sort -and leave it at that this year."

My H likes all dressed chips (I don't think they make these in the US), I know what his fav candy bar is as well as his fav golf balls. I might get him something like that. It says, "I know you".

His bday is coming up. It's also D-Day. awesome.

Our Anniversary was 12 days after dday. No idea how I handled it but we just went out to dinner (I think). It's all a blur, don't really remember. For Father's Day I got him a card but remember it being very hard on me. I got him something small from DS.

On my birthday I told him I didn't feel like celebrating. For some reason he thought that meant not to get me gift. We ended up buying a Keurig and I guess I said that could be my gift. Again, all a blur.

Now I'm thinking more clearly. His birthday and the holidays are stressing me out. He said he doesn't want anything. Just go out to dinner. I guess I can handle that. Christmas is going to be awful though. I think I'm going to tell him we should just focus on DS. I randomly looked for a card today that was even remotely appropriate. I found one so I bought it but after the fact I saw it was $5.99!!! I'm returning it!

You should tell him exactly how you feel about this.

Edited to take out the last snarky part, I'm just in a bad mood. There are definitely good and bad ways to say things.

[This message edited by AML04 at 5:11 PM, November 13th (Wednesday)]

I talked to him about it last night and he was very sweet and understanding. :) Thanks everyone!

So there is one thing that I will be getting him - shutterfly has custom phone cases on which you can do a collage of 15 tiny photos. I am going to do that. :)