What would you do in this situation?
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You can send it to me and I'll trade you for something you want. 🙂 Seriously though, it's ok to have a conversation about it. You do like it, it's lovely, but there is something else you'll use more, you're conscious of your budget and want to make sure the money that comes into your household gets good mileage. Let him know that in the future you can do a better job of letting him know what gifts you would really appreciate. You could give him a list of a few options, but some men just want amazon links. Make sure when you have the conversation you convey you are conflicted because you like the gift and can tell he put a lot of thought into it (even if that's not exactly true). Otherwise, he'll just write you off as impossible to please.
i would just tell him.. my partner and i are very open and if i didn’t like/want a gift he bought i’d be (nicely) honest about it
Just because he misses the mark once, doesn't mean he wasn't trying. Personally I'd be grateful. Sometimes even when you know someone it's still really hard to pick out gifts.
So I went through something similar last year. My husband gave me a warming blanket and a hairbrush the has coconut oil on it and I had sad feelings but decided to be appreciative. Im constantly complaining about being hot so a warming blanket was ? and I never really used but the hairbrush was actually surprising. A few months later we get back to this subject and he says that he got the hairbrush because he saw that i started using coconut products on my hair and the blanket so we could cuddle outside while doing smores during the winter. Im just telling you this because maybe he did think about something when he picked for you 🥲 definitely communicate though
You should gently let him know you wouldn’t use it. You don’t have to go into full details about feeling like he doesn’t know what to buy you (unless you want to of course) My partner did this to me this year for Christmas and I took it okay. He just simply said he wouldn’t wear the shirts I bought him since he accidentally saw it. If anything it made me realize that I don’t know how to buy him the right clothes, even though I know him and his fashion style very well. I just missed it this year and thats okay!
Can I ask what the gift is? Is there a way you can use it for something else? When I get gifts like that I will keep them for a year or so, then donate them or give them away. I wait a year just so I can say "I haven't used it in a year, it's gathering dust".