My Husband Doesn’t Buy Me Gifts. Here’s Why I Don’t Mind
We set reasonable expectations around holidays, spending, and the accumulation of stuff
He shoved the gift bag into my hands.
The bag was small and blue, with white handles. A festive cartoon penguin wearing ice skates and a hat smiled back at me from the sides of the bag.
The tag read, “To: You, From: Me” in my boyfriend’s cramped handwriting.
When I pushed aside the tissue paper, I found a thin stack of paper money held together with a paper clip.
I looked up to meet his gaze.
“It’s to pay you back for the plane ticket, babe,” he said with a smile, then pulled me in for a kiss without noticing the tears that welled up in my eyes.
That Christmas so long ago was one of the worst gift exchanges I ever had with a partner.
He agreed to pick me up from the airport so I sent him my flight information. He saw the price on the ticket confirmation, then reimbursed me for the cost of my flight home and called it a present.
It felt, in a way, like being paid for sex.
Change rattling in the bottom of a gift bag is a grating, demeaning sound.
