This year will mark my 10th wedding anniversary. Ten years of, mostly, wedded bliss. And in all those years, I can’t name one anniversary gift I’ve received from my husband.
He also hasn’t gotten me any birthday presents as long as I can remember and I’m still waiting on the diamond earrings he promised me four Valentine’s Days ago.
He does get me a few Christmas presents every year but that’s mostly out of fear of looking bad in front of the whole family.
But despite his lack of gift-giving skills, I love him anyways. And truthfully, aside from homemade treats or cards and crafts from the kids, I haven’t really given him any presents in years, either.
At some point, it became an unspoken expectation between us. After so many years of “what do you want for your birthday?” answered with “I don’t really want/need anything,” it just became normal to not get each other gifts.
It’s okay, though, because we’re not missing out on anything. We both have a habit of buying what we need when we need it and neither of us are the types to yearn for things that aren’t necessary to our survival and general well-being. It’s not that we don’t have or want nice things, it’s more that the nice things we want and have are things we actually need or that make our lives easier.
It’s okay my husband doesn’t buy me gifts because we’d both rather spend our money on things we really want or need or to do really amazing things as a family. We don’t want to waste the earnings that takes us away from each other on more stuff we don’t need just because gifts are expected. We are careful with every penny we earn because we don’t want to spend the rest of our lives working to survive, we save so we can enjoy our later years, together, without financial strain.
Plus, it’s okay because we’d both rather use our gift shopping energy on our kids who notice when gifts are forgotten. Or on our friends and family’s big life events like weddings and babies because those are the moments that matter and should be celebrated. We’ve had plenty of Valentine’s Days before and plan to have many more together in the future.
And it’s okay because we know that gifts don’t equal love. I don’t get upset when my husband doesn’t buy me gifts, bring me flowers or take me out. We don’t have to constantly prove our love to each other because we both know it exists, even without all the gifts.
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