Your Gift for Giving May Give Him Pain
Dear Vicki: My husband and I have been married for 10 years and are the proud parents of three adorable children. I don’t know if it’s because of the millennium or because it’s our decade anniversary, but I really want to give my husband something spectacular for Christmas this year. I’ve dropped a few hints and asked some pointed questions like, “Honey, what would you buy for yourself if you could indulge any of your fantasies?” He either doesn’t get the hint or there is nothing he really wants. Could it be true that he really only wants a subscription to Sports Illustrated?
--FRUSTRATED SANTA
Dear Frustrated: I can’t speak for all couples (though at times I’m tempted), but I can tell you how this particular scenario works in my universe: Husbands are Blair Witch-terrified that we wives are going to march into a mall and shop our brains out with the family credit card. Sure, they have visions of big-screen TVs and home pool tables dancing like sugarplums in their heads, but their testosterone-addled brains will invariably fail to share that information with a spouse (unless, of course, you have a trust fund or a big fat salary you neglected to tell me about!).
Eighteen years of living with my mate has taught me if you ask most men what they’d really like, it’s a zero balance on all credit cards in January. This isn’t to say that they won’t buy themselves some groovy television in time for Super Bowl, but simply that they just can’t turn that serious a purchase over to someone they subliminally believe gets retail drunk the minute she straps the kids into the minivan and heads out for some holiday shopping.
I’ll never get over the time my own darling husband got a particularly nice holiday bonus and I got it in my mind to buy him an old (but in cherry condition) pickup. I passed that truck parked on my carpool route every morning.
Sure, it was more than I’d ever spent on a gift for him, but he deserved it, and I was sick of giving still more hooded sweatshirts and baseball caps from his favorite teams. I dickered with the truck owner--not just once, but for a week. So excited was I that one romantic night, I mentioned that I’d found a particularly wonderful gift for him.
His first comment was something like, “That’s nice, honey, I’m gonna go to sleep now.” I pursued the discussion with hints about how romantic it would be to have a car with a big bench seat like the kind couples used to make out on. Still, subtle signs of snoring. Onward I forged to suggest that maybe the sensible car he drove was aging him. Then he got it.
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He sat up in bed, as awake as if the smoke detectors had gone off, and yelped, “You haven’t bought a new car, have you?!” I peeled him off the ceiling when I explained that no such purchase had been made.
Still, no sleep was to be had until he’d gotten a blood oath from me that I would never use the “thousand” word without his written permission. Would he have loved the truck? Probably. Did he think I was an idiot when it came to spending money? Not usually. In fact, I supervise all bill payments in our family. Did he show his true masculine colors of suspicion of that exalted California concept known as community property? You betcha!
Dual income, single income while mom raises children--it doesn’t seem to matter; many men believe that they earn the money and we spend it, no ifs, ands or buts. Forgive me for being a downer, but I suggest you rethink your holiday purchase. Instead, present your mate with a plan for how you see the two of you working together to make one of his sugarplums come true. That way he won’t be caught in the “no” mode. Remember, the holidays can be stretched throughout the year. A husband who has time to ease into a gift is a very grateful man.
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Vicki Iovine is the author of the “Girlfriends’ Guide,” a columnist for Child magazine and parenting correspondent for NBC’s “Later Today.” Write to her at Girlfriends, Southern California Living, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A., CA 90053; e-mail GrlfrndsVI@aol.com.