phoenixgirl
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2003
- Messages
- 3,390
[Disclaimer: I love my husband, but sometimes you just need to vent.]
When we got married, I opted for a simple $95 18k wedding band to compliment my Vatche x prong with my grandmother's 1.15 carat diamond. I wanted to save as much money as possible. At the same time, I got my husband the 6mm platinum band he liked because, hey, he liked it.
Fastforward to our first anniversary, before which I start hinting that I would really like a diamond band (nothing fancy, probably $1k or less). No band appears for our anniversary. After my birthday in April and several more hints, I realize that somebody is not getting the hint and have several involved conversations on the topic, sometimes involving a few too many drinks and crying. One time when I made the mistake of drinking white wine at a hot outdoor concert and was using that to hydrate myself, I remember saying, "This is important to me, so if you don't want to get it for me, then you must not care about me."
His argument is that a diamond band is an anniversary ring and should therefore only be given on an anniversary -- and not just any anniversary, but some numerically significant one, five at the earliest. I got the sense that he would be embarrassed to give me one earlier than that, like people would wonder what it was for. When I said I would like to just buy it for myself now in that case he got very upset. I pointed out that if I had known he was going to allow me to upgrade only on anniversaries divisible by 5, I would have just gotten the band I wanted when we got married, which would have only cost as much as his wedding band did anyway. I was just trying to focus on more important things then and knew that picking a ring out later when things had settled down would be fun. And of course all of this ties into how we approach money as a couple, but that's a whole other thread I suppose.
The thing about my husband is that he likes to feel that he is surprising me, so I try to be as subtle and yet clear as possible. For example, for my birthday I mentioned several times how I had been having these cravings for cookie cake, but no cake appeared on the day. At least last year he made me a cake; this year I got nothing, so then I had to announce that I hoped in the future I would always get a cake, and then he had to run out and get me one three days later and try to surprise me with the cake I had to tell him to get me. Why couldn't he just put the "Hmm, I have this inexplicable craving for cookie cake" statements together with the realization that my birthday was coming up?
So anyway, we just returned from France, our first trip since we got engaged there. I had hoped that he would finally think to get me the band and give it to me there, thus fulfilling his desire to surprise me and to have a special reason for giving me an upgraded wedding band. And I knew that making my clues too obvious would make him feel like it wasn't his idea.
When I realized that no ring was forthcoming, I decided that I would set a date in my mind, after our anniversary in December and Christmas probably, and then just get myself the darn thing if he still hadn't done it. But I was too disappointed to hide it, so I told him what I had been hoping when the last good opportunity to give me the ring I was hoping for passed, and this led to more arguing about the magic annivesary dates (although to his credit at first he was just sympathetic and sorry he hadn't thought of it and said, "Don't worry, I'll get you that ring").
According to the Myers Briggs test, my emotions are hard to read, and my husband confirms this. But in this case I have had conversation after conversation in which I have made loud and clear what I want. I just do not get it. I'm sorry, I really am, but how many times does your generally stoic wife have to cry about something before you want to get it for her? Why doesn't his desire to make me happy trump his desire to follow what he believes to be the rules of etiquette or perhaps his pride? Why does my request make him resistant instead of excited for an opportunity to make me happy?
So finally I think I am going to get it, but I'll believe it when the ring is on my finger. I'll still have to wait for the dufus to get around to it and try his best to surprise me (which is very hard, due to my inability to act surprised when I am not and my tendency to think of all possible scenarios in which the ring might appear), but I think we're going to go look at rings this weekend. Serendipitiously we got bumped from our flight back (well, not that part), and we got 600 Euros credited to our card, so before my husband had convinced the lady to give it to us in cash so he could run around the airport spending euros on crap, I pointed out that a credit would take the edge off of buying me the ring and avoid the fees associated with changing cash.
So we'll see. I'm sorry to call my husband a dufus, but really, he is, isn't he? I mean, he's a smart man (got his Mensa card in his wallet), but I'm beginning to wonder if I'm not really that hard to read at all and maybe he's just as dense as platinum.
I'm trying to be light and funny about this, but I honestly do not understand the conflict. My rule of thumb is that when something is not life and death and one of us has stronger feelings, the stronger feelings win. That's why we live in the city instead of the suburbs -- I kind of liked the suburbs, but he wouldn't be caught dead there. So I just can't figure out why my sobbing and saying, "I really want a new ring, please, I don't understand why you won't get it for me" doesn't get through to him. And then I have to deal with him being upset that he can't feel like he is surprising me.
I honestly think part of it is also how buying the gift makes him feel. He likes to pick things out for me, like the bike I got for Christmas. He wanted to look in a bike shop, so while I had nothing to do but look at bikes I made the offhanded comment that having one might be fun. So for Christmas he ran out and bought me a unisex (read: small man's bike) bike that I can't mount or dismount without a flying leap, and he has been resistant to my wanting to trade it in for one I don't have to jump off of while it's still moving. So either he got some close-out deal that can't be traded in or he has some weird hang-up about how recipients must like his gifts as he chooses them. Another time he bought me a P colored diamond solitaire necklace (he fell for the "light champagne" description) with a big black speck in it and was surprised when when I immediately spotted the inclusion. Unlike the regulars here, I don't work with vendors and pick out ideal cut diamonds because then it wouldn't be DH doing it is own way. Shouldn't it be obvious that someone who has made over 700 posts on a diamond forum likes picking out her own diamonds?
While I'm at it, he is weirdly adamant about things. When we went to France, he wanted to turn the AC off, implying that I was overreacting for wanting to leave it set at 80. So we come home and it is 104 degrees here (no joke). It was so hot the floor hurt my feet to walk on it and the deoderant melted. It's 36 hours later and we're still not as cool as we normally would be (he has admitted that one was a mistake). Then there are the bills. I paid the bills on paper, but he thought that was inferior to paying them online, so now I keep track of all these passwords and processing dates and whether or not it's automatic or will be put on a card or taken out of our account, whereas before all I had to do was sit down twice a month and make a surprisingly satisfying pile of bills to mail. I guess the pattern is that he doesn't insist on his own way but he implies that I am foolish for [fill in the blank], so we choose to do it his way and then are inconvenienced for no reason.
While I was writing this he called and asked me on a "date" to lunch today. I guess part of my problem is that I get my hopes up at every opportunity, so I thought, oooh, a nice restaurant, maybe a trip to the jewelry store or a little black box awaiting me? Then it turns out that he wants to eat at a little hotdog deli because it is right next to where he needs to get his pen refilled and a record store where he can buy some album he wants. He said, "So I thought, how can I make this outing even more useful? How about a date with my wife!" I was like, "Yeah, you probably shouldn't call going out with your wife 'useful.'" Am I foolish to hope we'll stop at the jewelry store nearby too? Probably. But at least that would qualify as "useful" to me.
When we got married, I opted for a simple $95 18k wedding band to compliment my Vatche x prong with my grandmother's 1.15 carat diamond. I wanted to save as much money as possible. At the same time, I got my husband the 6mm platinum band he liked because, hey, he liked it.
Fastforward to our first anniversary, before which I start hinting that I would really like a diamond band (nothing fancy, probably $1k or less). No band appears for our anniversary. After my birthday in April and several more hints, I realize that somebody is not getting the hint and have several involved conversations on the topic, sometimes involving a few too many drinks and crying. One time when I made the mistake of drinking white wine at a hot outdoor concert and was using that to hydrate myself, I remember saying, "This is important to me, so if you don't want to get it for me, then you must not care about me."
His argument is that a diamond band is an anniversary ring and should therefore only be given on an anniversary -- and not just any anniversary, but some numerically significant one, five at the earliest. I got the sense that he would be embarrassed to give me one earlier than that, like people would wonder what it was for. When I said I would like to just buy it for myself now in that case he got very upset. I pointed out that if I had known he was going to allow me to upgrade only on anniversaries divisible by 5, I would have just gotten the band I wanted when we got married, which would have only cost as much as his wedding band did anyway. I was just trying to focus on more important things then and knew that picking a ring out later when things had settled down would be fun. And of course all of this ties into how we approach money as a couple, but that's a whole other thread I suppose.
The thing about my husband is that he likes to feel that he is surprising me, so I try to be as subtle and yet clear as possible. For example, for my birthday I mentioned several times how I had been having these cravings for cookie cake, but no cake appeared on the day. At least last year he made me a cake; this year I got nothing, so then I had to announce that I hoped in the future I would always get a cake, and then he had to run out and get me one three days later and try to surprise me with the cake I had to tell him to get me. Why couldn't he just put the "Hmm, I have this inexplicable craving for cookie cake" statements together with the realization that my birthday was coming up?
So anyway, we just returned from France, our first trip since we got engaged there. I had hoped that he would finally think to get me the band and give it to me there, thus fulfilling his desire to surprise me and to have a special reason for giving me an upgraded wedding band. And I knew that making my clues too obvious would make him feel like it wasn't his idea.
When I realized that no ring was forthcoming, I decided that I would set a date in my mind, after our anniversary in December and Christmas probably, and then just get myself the darn thing if he still hadn't done it. But I was too disappointed to hide it, so I told him what I had been hoping when the last good opportunity to give me the ring I was hoping for passed, and this led to more arguing about the magic annivesary dates (although to his credit at first he was just sympathetic and sorry he hadn't thought of it and said, "Don't worry, I'll get you that ring").
According to the Myers Briggs test, my emotions are hard to read, and my husband confirms this. But in this case I have had conversation after conversation in which I have made loud and clear what I want. I just do not get it. I'm sorry, I really am, but how many times does your generally stoic wife have to cry about something before you want to get it for her? Why doesn't his desire to make me happy trump his desire to follow what he believes to be the rules of etiquette or perhaps his pride? Why does my request make him resistant instead of excited for an opportunity to make me happy?
So finally I think I am going to get it, but I'll believe it when the ring is on my finger. I'll still have to wait for the dufus to get around to it and try his best to surprise me (which is very hard, due to my inability to act surprised when I am not and my tendency to think of all possible scenarios in which the ring might appear), but I think we're going to go look at rings this weekend. Serendipitiously we got bumped from our flight back (well, not that part), and we got 600 Euros credited to our card, so before my husband had convinced the lady to give it to us in cash so he could run around the airport spending euros on crap, I pointed out that a credit would take the edge off of buying me the ring and avoid the fees associated with changing cash.
So we'll see. I'm sorry to call my husband a dufus, but really, he is, isn't he? I mean, he's a smart man (got his Mensa card in his wallet), but I'm beginning to wonder if I'm not really that hard to read at all and maybe he's just as dense as platinum.
I'm trying to be light and funny about this, but I honestly do not understand the conflict. My rule of thumb is that when something is not life and death and one of us has stronger feelings, the stronger feelings win. That's why we live in the city instead of the suburbs -- I kind of liked the suburbs, but he wouldn't be caught dead there. So I just can't figure out why my sobbing and saying, "I really want a new ring, please, I don't understand why you won't get it for me" doesn't get through to him. And then I have to deal with him being upset that he can't feel like he is surprising me.
I honestly think part of it is also how buying the gift makes him feel. He likes to pick things out for me, like the bike I got for Christmas. He wanted to look in a bike shop, so while I had nothing to do but look at bikes I made the offhanded comment that having one might be fun. So for Christmas he ran out and bought me a unisex (read: small man's bike) bike that I can't mount or dismount without a flying leap, and he has been resistant to my wanting to trade it in for one I don't have to jump off of while it's still moving. So either he got some close-out deal that can't be traded in or he has some weird hang-up about how recipients must like his gifts as he chooses them. Another time he bought me a P colored diamond solitaire necklace (he fell for the "light champagne" description) with a big black speck in it and was surprised when when I immediately spotted the inclusion. Unlike the regulars here, I don't work with vendors and pick out ideal cut diamonds because then it wouldn't be DH doing it is own way. Shouldn't it be obvious that someone who has made over 700 posts on a diamond forum likes picking out her own diamonds?
While I'm at it, he is weirdly adamant about things. When we went to France, he wanted to turn the AC off, implying that I was overreacting for wanting to leave it set at 80. So we come home and it is 104 degrees here (no joke). It was so hot the floor hurt my feet to walk on it and the deoderant melted. It's 36 hours later and we're still not as cool as we normally would be (he has admitted that one was a mistake). Then there are the bills. I paid the bills on paper, but he thought that was inferior to paying them online, so now I keep track of all these passwords and processing dates and whether or not it's automatic or will be put on a card or taken out of our account, whereas before all I had to do was sit down twice a month and make a surprisingly satisfying pile of bills to mail. I guess the pattern is that he doesn't insist on his own way but he implies that I am foolish for [fill in the blank], so we choose to do it his way and then are inconvenienced for no reason.
While I was writing this he called and asked me on a "date" to lunch today. I guess part of my problem is that I get my hopes up at every opportunity, so I thought, oooh, a nice restaurant, maybe a trip to the jewelry store or a little black box awaiting me? Then it turns out that he wants to eat at a little hotdog deli because it is right next to where he needs to get his pen refilled and a record store where he can buy some album he wants. He said, "So I thought, how can I make this outing even more useful? How about a date with my wife!" I was like, "Yeah, you probably shouldn't call going out with your wife 'useful.'" Am I foolish to hope we'll stop at the jewelry store nearby too? Probably. But at least that would qualify as "useful" to me.
But I have to say, reading about our types has made a few lightbulbs go off for me.
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