Coping with Christmas as a couple can pose its challenges, and it appears one woman’s “cheeky” behaviour might have crossed a line.
For those embarking on new relationships, the annual debate of where to spend Christmas is commonplace – do you stick with your own kin or join forces with your partner’s family? Some couples might opt for dividing the festive day, sharing lunch at one homestead and dinner at another.
Then there’s the dilemma of gift-giving. Purchasing presents for your significant other’s relatives can be daunting, leading many couples to favour joint presents, thereby reducing festive shopping woes for the family newcomer.
One bloke, however, has declared that he’ll give his girlfriend’s joint present plan a miss next year after she went back on her word to share credit for gifts. The man recounted how he presented gifts to his family as joint ones from him and his girlfriend, yet she failed to extend the same courtesy to her family, basking in solo acclaim instead.
Venting on Reddit, he said: “This is how we agreed to handle gifts: I buy gifts for my family and say it’s from both of us, and she buys gifts for her family and says it’s from both of us. I made sure to ask multiple times to confirm that this is how we’re doing it, and she said ‘yeah’ every time.
“We already did gifts with my family and I made sure to mention and highlight that the gifts are from both of us. But then we got to doing gifts with her family today, and she kept saying: ‘This is from me! ‘ or ‘I got you this’, not once saying ‘we’ or ‘us’. I tried to get her attention to hint that the gifts were from us both, but she just ignored it.”
The man described how his girlfriend’s behaviour left him feeling like “a total d**k” because it appeared as if he hadn’t contributed to any presents, even though they had all gifted him something. He shared how the experience was “super uncomfortable and embarrassing,” leaving him unsure of how to move forward.
Online contributors remarked that the girlfriend’s actions were “really odd” and impressed upon the man to discuss the issue with her, stating that an understanding of the hurt her actions caused was essential. One commenter questioned: “Really odd. Have you spoken to her about it since? ,” which prompted another to stress: “Very important that you do. It needs to be sorted out, that’s f***ed up.”
Another respondent advised: “That’s really odd that your girlfriend went out of her way to exclude you. I’d have a conversation first and ask for an apology because she did embarrass you and make you look like a prick. That is a red flag, like everyone else says. She did it either to be selfish and look good for her family or she did it because she’s not comfortable being looked at as a unit with her boyfriend. Either way, that’s got to be addressed.”