We have been dating for 8-9 months. My partner was leaving for Dubai and before he left, I got him some gifts. Suggested to buy him a soft toy to cuddle with, but he couldn’t take it due to limited space for baggage. Instead got him some other gifts. So when he reached there, he reminded me about the soft toy. I wasn’t comfortable using the app – because it would show a foreign transaction in my bank statement and had never tried it before (flimsy reason I know), so asked him to use it instead – shared the link of which plushy I wanted to get him. He didnt order using the link. After few days, he went to dubai mall and was roaming around some stores, and I asked him to get one soft toy for himself – chose the most huggable one. He got it and I transferred the money by end of month. Later on he is upset I didnt order it online for him.
In his language getting gifts is his love language and he wanted ME to order it. And that me making him buy it himself made him feel less loved. And he is concerned that why dont I want to order from an app when he is in foreign land. He says what if he behaved the same way? I would be perfectly fine with it, and can’t empathize with him at all in this situation.
After the discussion, he has adopted the toy and everyone around him knows I got it for him and he shows it love, but when this topic came back again, he is still upset about it.
I think, I am lacking empathy , because I don’t get why he is so hurt. Additionally, I am feeling annoyed about this as this isnt a big deal for me. How do I improve my way of thinking, or work this out?
TL;DR! Partner is annoyed I didnt use an app to order sthg for him when he wanted it, and I am annoyed about why this is a big deal.
Comments
Why is a grown ass man making such a big deal over a stuffed toy??
You’re not lacking empathy he is lacking maturity. It is one thing if he was with you in person and you told him to go get something and you’d pay him back. That’s not the case here. You obviously put a lot of thought into it and did it the best way you could given the circumstances. Gift giving can be a love language but gift receiving as a love language as in getting it exactly how you want it done is selfish.
Sometimes it’s not a lack of empathy, it’s just that you understand perfectly and the other person is wrong. A stuffed animal shouldn’t be that big a deal. If you want, you can just apologize even if you don’t mean it–certainly if I’m really zooming out and generalizing, just saying what needs to be said and moving forward is something you need to be able to do in a relationship. I personally would be turned off by this entire thing, but YMMV
It honestly sounds like a manipulation tactic. He is nitpicking because you didn’t do it HIS way. If you did this all the time with not doing things and he had to do the work of picking stuff out and buying it, then I would side with him. Because that shit is exhausting! But 9 months is closing in on people showing their true colors!
He really needs to grow up and move on. Also, him being your partner doesn’t mean he has the right to dictate what you actually feel about him (feeling like you love him less by what you did). If you really love him less, you wouldn’t even bother to give him any gifts.
That being said, both of you are annoyed and need to have a mature discussion about this. It’s a process of learning about each other and both needs to understand both personalities and make some improvement/changes.