Question by : Does a man have to accept and use a womans gift?
Amazingly, our relationship can’t seem to get past this trivial sounding issue.
A few years ago I adapted a highend car stereo to function in my kitchen.
Since I couldn’t find a “kitchen car stereo kit”, I built a wood platform to support it to the bottom of my cabinet shelf, found a suitable power supply to power the car stereo, found a car antenna for it (I had to search a lot because I couldn’t just find this stuff at Walmart since very few people convert car stereos for kitchen use), bought some very high quality speakers especially for this, and the result was a great sounding, clever little stereo that was hidden until you opened up the kitchen cabinet door. It had an amazing sound coming from the 2 highend bookshelf speakers, which I could easily transport between the kitchen and the dining room.
My fiance and I enjoyed many romantic dinners in the dining room with beautiful music coming from this clever little expensive sounding car stereo, and whenever I wanted to jam out while doing dishes, I could turn the volume way up and hear nice loud thumping bass since the stereo had a nice 60 watt amplifier. My friends who visited complimented me on how cool it was because it sounded far better than any radio that was made for a kitchen.
There was a problem with it however – it had a cassette deck, which was dying, and I had expressed a desire to replace it with a newer car stereo that had a CD player with an mp3 input. All I’d have to do would be swap out the stereo unit since I’d already had the wiring, shelf, power supply, antenna, and speakers.
Well for my birthday my fiance gets me a cheap $ 40 under-the-cabinet clock radio with a CD player. No “highpower” amp, no external stereo speakers (just a single built-in speaker, no external speaker outputs… just a clock radio.
I open the present and after looking it over carefully, I realize that she expects me to replace my $ 200+ system with this thing. The first most obvious fault (other than the amp having no power) is that it doesn’t enable me to connect my high quality audio speakers to it.
As tactfully as possible, I mention that I wouldn’t be able to connect my external speakers to it and wouldn’t be able to pipe music into the dining room (I don’t mention that the sound would be thin and tinty anyway).
Despite my attempt at tact, she got extremely offended that I wanted to return her gift. She wanted to be able to choose out a present that I NEEDED but didn’t realize it until SHE picks it out for me. A very nice gesture, but if I needed it, I probably would have gotten it by now (unless I was waiting to get it as a present). I’m an audiophile and would only be happy with a decent sounding stereo.
She repeatedly brings up this incidident, how I wouldn’t be happy with anything she gets me, citing this as a prime example, and complaining about how her ex-husband returned every present she ever gave him.
The truth is, many of the smaller things she has gotten me were great ideas that worked, but she doesn’t remember those, instead she keeps dwelling on this clock radio that she wanted to replace my car stereo because she didn’t like the idea of a car stereo mounted in a kitchen cabinet, since she thinks car stereos “are only supposed to be in cars or boats”.
What do you think of women who get overly offended if their clever gift ideas don’t work? I could have kept her gift & said nothing, but no way was I about to replace my car stereo with it, which is what she wanted. Was she being a bit of a control freak? Is it ok for a woman to accept the fact that maybe their gift idea missed the mark, and try another gift idea, or allow the man to return the gift? Is it necessary for men to take every gift from a woman as a mandatory change in their life?
Best answer:
Answer by kimba_lee
Haha. I’ve been in this situation before. I bought my boyfriend a car stereo system, only to hear from him that while it was expensive it wasnt what he was after. I was furious, because I felt hurt and I’d put all this thought into something that he didn’t appreciate.
After I calmed down I realised that he did appreciate the gesture, but it just wasn’t practical for his car. We returned it for something similar that he loves. When it came down to it, I thought I was doing something thoughtful and nice, but the bottom line is that I know nothing about car stereos!
My guesss is thats how your partner feels. A bit hurt, a bit embarrassed. Just explain to her that it was really thoughtful, but you loved the last one and wanted a similar one so you could have more romantic dinners with the music in the background. Remind her that you do like her presents, and be sure to same specific ones. For instance, I love the tie rack you bought me, its so useful and thoughtful. (as an example). Let her know that all her gifts are thoughtful and worthy, she’ll come around soon.
What do you think? Answer below!
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