A woman is second-guessing telling her husband to “cancel” the necklace he ordered for her as a gift because she claims the piece of jewelry looks “absolutely nothing” like what she showed him multiple times to get.
The 29-year-old wife shared a post on Reddit’s “Am I the A——” forum to ask if she made a mistake for rejecting her 28-year-old husband’s gift — something he has promised to eventually buy her for the past two years.
“Our [one-year] anniversary is coming up soon,” the woman wrote. “Ever since we have dated I have expressed how I’d love a dainty initial necklace with the letter d to wear daily. Corny? Sure, but I love it.”
“After a year of not receiving the necklace I started showing him pictures on Etsy of the ones I love (small gold plates with a lowercase d in typewriter font — all of them were this font and style),” she added. “We even walked through Pandora to the custom engraved section and [talked] how he could write it and that would be very precious and meaningful to me.”
“He thought it was neat and this whole time I thought he was absorbing what I was saying,” she continued, before explaining how things didn’t go as she had hoped. “All he absorbed was the word ‘dainty’ apparently.”
She soon discovered he had purchased a necklace while on a work trip.
“This morning he bought a small (in size) but very thick bulky d necklace in some kind of frilly cursive that doesn’t even look like a d,” she revealed.
The woman then messaged her husband, who is working “1,000 miles away,” to verbalize her concerns. “I texted him and expressed that it’s absolutely nothing like I’ve expressed for years,” she recalled. “I’ve waited this long for a necklace — I want to actually like and wear it.”
The husband replied that the necklace is “dainty,” but she disagreed.
“I tried to explain dainty and delicate doesn’t just mean in size, and he googled it to send me the definition of dainty,” she said. “I told him it was absolutely nothing like I’ve shown him for years and to just cancel the order. Naturally this makes me ungrateful in his eyes.”
Pondering her decision to reject the gift, she asked Redditors, “AITA [am I the a——] for not being grateful my husband bought me a necklace?”
A couple arguing (stock image).
Getty
Her Feb. 6 Reddit post has received more than 500 responses within 12 hours, with readers divided on who’s in the wrong in this situation.
As mixed responses poured in, she elaborated on their relationship.
“My husband doesn’t do gifts, his family was never big on gifts, and it shows,” she wrote in an update. “He likes when I just tell him things — clear and direct. If I do not ask for a gift, I’m not receiving anything.”
“He TOLD ME HE WOULD BUY THIS NECKLACE 2 years ago, and I’ve waited this long,” she continued. “So for everyone telling me to just buy it myself, it defeats the purpose of him saying he will buy it and requesting links to what I want. I thought about buying it myself for quite a while, but I have waited patiently for him to put in the effort and keep his word.”
“NTA … he did the bare minimum of ordering a gift, but he didn’t even listen to what you asked for,” one person wrote. “You even did all of the work showing him Etsy listings and the Pandora example. All he had to do was order exactly what you showed him. Most people would be happy with having clear instructions and a foolproof gift idea.”
Another Redditor wrote, “I was raised [with the notion that] it’s the thought that counts.”
Many readers, however, disagreed with that gift-giving sentiment,
“NTA. I’m shocked by anyone saying otherwise. All he had to do was click checkout on one of the links you sent him,” a third Redditor responded. “He knew what you wanted and deliberately chose to get something else.”
“I can’t stand this excuse of ‘men don’t think like that’ — no, they choose not to think like that,” that person added. “And then he doubles down and tries to mansplain what you asked for? His definition of ‘dainty‘ really doesn’t matter when you’ve shown him exactly what you want.”
