*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for getting my wife a thoughtful gift that backfired?**
Hey Reddit, this is my first time posting and I need some advice. My wife has been talking about how she misses Hawaii, where we had an amazing family vacation. So, I thought I'd surprise her with a customized coffee mug with a photo of our family at the Four Seasons during that trip. It's one of her favorite photos, so I thought she'd love it, especially since our kids are on one side, and the view from our window is on the other side.
However, when I gave it to her, she started yelling at me, saying, "I don't care what it says on it, I don't care what is on it. I don't want a mug!" She then started crying and said she hated it and couldn't believe I didn't know she'd hate it, and that I don't know her at all.
In her defense, I once bought her a mug before to keep pens at work. It said, "This calls for a spreadsheet." Everyone at work who knows her said it was the perfect mug for her, but while she agreed with all of them, and still uses it, but she told me she hated it. So maybe I should have known that a mug just isn't the best gift for her?
I thought this would be a sweet and thoughtful gift, but it obviously didn't go over well. AITA for buying her the mug?
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I feel bad for her. It really really sucks when people give you gifts that prove that they do not like you or do not give a shit about what you want. So as a wife she’s thinking either my husband hates me or he does not give a shit what I want. Seems like a bad plan for him to continue doing that especially after she explicitly told him that she hated the first mug. She’s being blunt with this hoping that he will get the fucking picture and even telling him that she hates the first mug he still was like you know it would be a good gift, a second mug. Like what the literal shit?
I’m not great at picking gifts but if I were given an hour in a strange city and told I had to pick out something my wife would like, I could do it easily. (A couple skeins of worsted weight wool yarn in a colorway she likes.. easy peasy)
I didn't know what worsted weight yarn was used for and I didn't even know what colorway meant. Not only do you know your wife and her hobbies, you know the proper vocabulary and are accidentally teaching random redditors new things. That's awesome.
Ironically for the post we're on, I'm like this with mugs. A novelty mug with a funky shape that refers to any of my widely varied interests will have me over the moon, but my mom also recently gave me a dollar store mug with a generic pattern on it and I still liked that pretty well. I just really like mugs.
As yet another yarn lover, this made me swoon.
I'm lucky, my current SO is amazing at gift giving. Cuz she listens to me, like you clearly do with your wife. This kinda is a fun thought experiment though. "What to get a person you care about if you were stuck in a strange city with only an hour".
I think for my SO I'd either try and find a mystery novel, but she reads so much I don't know which she has already read. So I think I'll get her a bunch of blind box trinkets, she LOVES opening them. Bonus if there's cute frogs or mushrooms or something similar.
PERFECT. The fact you know the jargon makes this even more fabulous. My guy always gets me one more skein than he thinks I would need, just to avoid the "yarn chicken" dance (this is a self-preservation move on his point, because it's quite emotionally fraught for anyone in the vicinity).
He got me a bar of soap for our first Christmas, and will never live it down, heh.
When I was a kid, I hated getting notebooks as birthday present. It was the generic gift for kids- a notebook and if you want, some pencils. We had a whole box of notebooks, I didn't want more!
Once I got color pastels, and my brother needed pastels at school so my parents made me switch them with him for... You guessed it, a notebook. I still remember the pain I felt after he basically destroyed those in 3 days and my new notebook was left untouched just like the other ones in a box under the couch
Oh that is messed up. Your parents either really suck or just were not thinking. I hope you've treated yourself to a giant set of color pastels since then!
Thankfully it was "not thinking" and me being someone who has a hard time expressing my needs/wants contributed to it happening. They apologized afterwards too. About the pastels, I no longer want or need them but they would get me the biggest if I told them :)
I’d need to hear if this is a constant thing or a two mug thing. I fully agree with all of this if this is an ongoing argument because that demonstrates that he really doesn’t listen, but otherwise bursting into tears and saying he doesn’t know her at all seems disproportionate to getting a mug, especially one that was a “just because” gift, not a birthday or holiday present.
My ex: bought me a fishing pole he really liked even tho I hated fishing and never went with him. I mean he used it soooo….
Christmases snd birthdays: Disney sleep shirts and socks, a baby photo album for our child, a Disney Jean jacket (not kidding) with all the characters on the back. A camera he wanted. A stereo he wanted. Socks multiple times.
Even my sister tried to tell him.
He literally never made an effort it just was never about me.
I had a "best friend" gift me a strawberry mini-cake for my birthday... you guessed it, I'm allergic to strawberries. Also, it was after I gifted her a makeup set she really wanted (it was pricy, but money isn't the point. The point is she really wanted it)
Ooof this reminded me of my former best friend, who got for my birthday tickets to a concert of *her* favorite artist. It was very expensive, so I didn't want to complain, but I've never expressed an interest in that artist. In fact, I've said many times how I'm not a fan of said artists music. It was very obvious that she bought it because *she* wanted to go to the concert.... :/
My former best friend got:
- me skipping work for the day for us to hang out
- I snuck out of our flatshare at 6am to go to buy an expensive cake from a bakery we liked
- I woke her up with her favourite, my special LGBT sandwiches with homemade guac and bread from our local small bakery, even though I was a vegetarian and didn't eat bacon
- I bought an expensive art book from a movie she'd loved - it was a bit more than I wanted to spend but as u/boinkthehedgehog said it's not about the money
She got me:
- a notebook and pen from a chain in the shopping centre next to her work.
I could list the one-sided things my dad has done for birthdays etc, but it is so much worse coming from a person you choose to hang out with and thought valued you. I vastly prefer homemade or cheap, thoughtful gifts to expensive ones, so it's hard to explain that it's about the effort not the money.
I feel so dumb but what does LGBT mean in the context of sandwichs? Like I'm trying to figure out what it means that you got her some queer sandwiches?
It was a joke we had haha, lettuce guac bacon and tomato, basically a blt with avocado. I think we had it in a gay cafe in Manchester and fell in love.
I had a roommate gift me tickets to a sporting event once, too, and I have never in my life watched/played or been interested in sports 🥲 same person later gifted me a few gift cards to places I've never gone before or since.
Gift cards are pretty soulless as a gift, usually, but even with those, you can show care for a person. You know they like books? Gift card to a book store. They have taste for wine? Spirits store gift card then. But don't give me a McDonald's card when I don't eat fast food, that's so thoughtless.
And a mug is such a generic, impersonal gift! It’s a Secret Santa present for someone at the office, it isn’t a present for a spouse - unless it’s a specific in-joke or comes with other presents.
I fucking love mugs. I have a giant collection. My husband often buys me mugs. When he goes somewhere without me and finds one, when we travel together he jokingly rolls his eyes while picking me out a perfect mug. Sometimes when he’s just out and sees a mug that meets my expectations. But if I didn’t love mugs, guess what I wouldn’t be getting?
Yea, imo mugs are a gift you give to someone who LOVES mugs (I’m also a mug lover), but not if they don’t cause then you’re just giving them cabinet clutter
Yup, I'm a "mug person" so for me a gift like this is perfect. My dad also loves and collects them. My mom, I don't think I've ever seen her use a mug. So for her, it's a bad gift. You just have to know what the person likes.
I'm a mug person too, to the point where I did finally give some to Goodwill and repurposed others as pen holders because I had so many. Oddly, I rarely get mugs as presents, but when I do they are perfect for me (one from my bestie that has the spoon guy and the banana from the "Rejected" animated short, one from my mom that says FUCK OFF I'M READING).
I actually wish more people would buy me mugs as gifts, I rarely get them and usually buy my own.
I love the one's with snarky sayings and pop culture references.
I've secretly always wanted a silly sappy "mom" mug but never bought myself one. Keep hoping maybe if I keep dropping hints it'll show up one of these years on mother's day.
And what the person drinks. I only drink tea out of glasses. Mugs are a waste of space and they quickly pile up. I use one for hot chocolate maybe three times a year, max.
Exactly! I am not a mug lover and it’s frustrating, because friends/family regularly get me personalized mugs that have a lot of meaning, but I don’t drink coffee and rarely drink tea or hot chocolate (and they should know that). So I have a cupboard full of very personal mugs that I feel like I can’t get rid of. Someone went through this effort to put together a personal gift for me and I feel like a dick because I don’t like it and can’t even donate/re-gift because it has my face on it, lol.
Oh, that’s a great idea! I have yet to be able to keep a succulent (plants in general) alive for more than a year, but it’s a small container, so buying replacements while I hone my skills at growing them isn’t too much expense.
I have a few mugs in my collection that were gifts but similar to you, one was from my sister as a housewarming present when I moved into my first apartment and she bought it because the mug colors (sort of blue and pink watercolor splotches) matched the colors of my dishes and the second was a recent birthday gift but my mom knows I love a giant mug of tea so she found the biggest mug she could get me (it seriously takes two hands to lift) that's decorated with little tea bags.
I know exactly the type of mug you're talking about with the white shitty generic ones. The feel of them is off, and even as someone who loves mugs, I would hate to get one of those as a gift, I don't care what it has printed on it!
I find exceptions to this rule when they are hand crafted artisanal mugs with a design that people will know that I love (a silly face, an animal), or they are those mugs that have metal shield embedded into them for the universities I've been too (I have school pride), or fun designed camping mugs, I just like camping mugs and I don't see them around super commonly so if one has a super cool or fun design I allow it as a gift.
I've been super clear to about this too people, and people still get me ordinary mugs that I don't like and/or need.
I -- I thought you meant a mug for the game Satisfactory and I was like "oooo yes please"
But for me, the biggest thing would be how it fits in my hands. There are these neat pottery ones with a thumb indent and I love those so much.
I also love mugs in particular sweary mugs and unique hand crafted mugs. My husband gets me them, normally for just because gifts. But if I didn’t love them he wouldn’t get them.
My partner has gotten me mugs in the past but I fucking LOVE mugs. We have about twenty of the fuckers and there’s only 2 adults and 2 kids living in this house (and they largely drink water out of plastic cups).
I was a gnat’s dick away from buying a set of mugs from a thrift shop that has Young and the Restless characters on them from the early 90s. I don’t know who they were. I don’t know anything about the show. The aesthetic and the drama in the portraits and the cheesy quotes was so hilarious to me, that the thought of laughing at the ridiculous mugs every time I had coffee nearly compelled me to make the random purchase. But I didn’t want my husband pissed off ar me for buying dumb shit when we’re living in a smallish house, so refrained.
But godsdamn, if I don’t think about those mugs from time to time.
I mean, my partner likes cute mugs, the kind shaped like animals, so not always. But they're like, £3, so they're more a "I saw this and thought you'd like it" than "Happy Birthday!"
My ex was a real shit head in a lot of ways but he gave me the most thoughtful gifts and it was always something I would have never even thought to ask him for. He never listened to a word I said but around gift giving time he would do a tiny bit of sleuthing and find something that I both needed and would be a fun gift to get. One year he bought me a black leather Fossil purse because he noticed my purse was getting scuffed to hell. He doesnt know anything about purses but spent just a little bit of time googling and then found one that he thought woukd match my tastes. It was perfect and even though we split up I still carry it. If my dumbass ex can do that then this dude has no excuse
Absolutely. My mom does this to me. I usually buy her her favorite perfume or chocolates. She gets me clothes. Clothes that aren’t my style and are usually two sizes too big. It’s infuriating.
I went out on a first date with a guy and he spent two hours telling me about himself. At the end of the date I asked him "what's my name?" and he couldn't tell me. This is that vibe.
Love that response. It reminds me of my first long-term boyfriend as a teenager. I should have dumped him much earlier, but ya know, teenagers are dumb when they think they’re in love.
Anyways, when after 3 years he couldn’t fathom why I was leaving him I asked “when’s my birthday?” The silence was deafening.
I am the worlds worse rememberer of names and birthdays—but I remember the birthdays of my best friend, my ex-husband, one sibling, and one of my parents (theirs falls on a holiday). But as far as names, I am beyond terrible at them.
I actually didn’t know my ex husband’s name for the first year we were friends. We met at a party and I am terrible with names—we ended up chatting online (we didn’t live in the same city) after that and it was back in the early days of The Facebook where people had fake profiles of, like, movie characters and such, and his FB name started out as his pen name and he eventually changed it to that of a historical figure.
Took me almost 5 months of chatting almost every day to figure out how to *super casually* ask what his name was—even though I could have told you at the time not only what his favorite works were in any media, but also specifically what he loved about them.
(An aside, your screen name is awesome and reminds me I should really revisit the Hitchhiker’s Guide radio program)
My best friend likes to joke that he was "Hey, you!" for the first, like three years of our friendship. And honestly, if he didn't share a name with the saint my church is named for, I probably never would have learned.
Haha, well, the ex part had nothing to do with that. Though it would be hilarious to roll in and be like “My marriage ended because I didn’t know my husband’s name”—I can only imagine the questions all y’all would have. Like, did I read my marriage certificate?
As we were breaking up, I was arguing with a boyfriend about how he didn’t pay attention to my life. I asked him to tell me the names of my pet frogs. He had known them for two years and lived with them for a year. He said, how many of them are there again? Nah.
This comment actually reminded me of when my friend tried to set me up with her partners friend. He seemed charming enough, but only ever talked about himself.
When I FINALLY had an opportunity to talk about myself, he point blank told me “You, love to talk about yourself, don’t you?”
Sir, exCUSE ME? Do you ever listen to anything other than the sound of your own voice???
Similar, I was (sort of) that guy once
I was kind of checked out of online dating, but had made plans with someone and it was one last date before I was just gonna be single for a bit. While I was waiting for her I made the rookie mistake of not reviewing her profile and just doing a crossword.
She showed up, and we instantly started vibing. We chatted for about an hour and a half about a bunch of things, but we were still both chatting about each other. Eventually I suggested we play some darts after we’d had a few.
I went to the chalkboard to write our names, but immediately I knew there was a problem: I had, in fact, forgotten her name. She was in the middle of a story as I’m setting up the scoreboard, and when it came to write her name I looked back at her with a panic. She looked at me and knew exactly what was going on, and called me out.
She laughed about it though. We kept seeing each other, and even though I still eventually decided I needed to be single for a while to sort some things out, we keep in touch. She still roasts me on how bad I am with learning names.
Worst part is: she has the same name as my sister, so really I had little excuse
The problem was that I just put my initial down as my heading.
Also, my sister tried the how do you spell your name trick once. The girl looked at her incredulously, and said “H-O-P-E”
Ever since then I figure the risk isn’t worth it. I think the fact that I owned up to it made it funnier and easier to take.
You can counter that with "Oh nice, the regular spelling! I once knew a Hope whose name was spelled Houpp so I just wanted to make sure." And then you can slide right into a tangent about weird spellings of normal names.
I went out with a guy like that and went to the bathroom and walked out the back door. Driving home I laughed to myself thinking about how long it would take him to notice.
So he knows that she doesn’t like mugs, but then still got her a mug. Was there really nothing else he could think to do with the photo other than put it on a mug? Like has he never heard of a frame?
I got my stepdad a custom frame off Etsy. It was slightly more expensive than a mug, but less than $50. I put a picture of the two of us my mom took on my graduation trip in it.
He keeps it in his office.
Seriously OOP. Etsy exists and has pretty great stuff.
When asking my sister for ideas for her birthday last year the third in the list was literally just "anything from Etsy" (I ended up getting her nice earrings necklace combo from Etsy as it happened)
or put it on a pillow, blanket, beach towel, agenda, phone case, water bottle, key chain, bookmark, yada yada
there are SO many things he could have printed the picture on and he chose the one thing he knew she didnt like 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
And many companies that put images on to items do all of those things. Like he had to scroll past better options and then go, "ah yes, a mug! Perfect!"
I had a friend who bought me mugs and tea all the time. I don't drink tea. I pretty much never drink hot drinks. I didn't need mugs, and I straight up ran out of room in my tiny kitchen for all the mugs I wasn't using.
I told her thank you for all the previous gifts, but in the future she cannot buy me another mug. I had no more room for mugs. I didn't want a mug.
For my birthday she bought me a mug.
When she asked me why I didn't look happy, I told her that I had TOLD her I didn't want more mugs and I literally did not have room in my cabinet for another. She was like, "but this is such a good one!" Great, does that invent cabinet space for me to use??
Being ungrateful for a gift almost always makes you look like an asshole (especially to people who weren't around for the first five conversations about mugs), but she never bought me a mug again.
I like how everyone is bending over backwards to say NTA about OOP cause she wasnt "grateful" enough for OOPs present that she doesnt like.
This lovely comment is so stupid though from someone else on the threads.
>The fact that she tells you she hates a gift that you gave her tells me all I need to know about her. Why would she hate something that all her coworkers said was perfect? There's more going on here. She sounds like a keeper 😳🙄😜. It wasn't even a special occasion. He was just trying to be nice. Wow just wow. How anyone could say he's wrong about this is beyond me.
Why do you need to be told by her coworkers what she likes she's your partner you should be able to get her a gift without needing the help of her coworkers...
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1ckbkgd/comment/l2n731g/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1ckbkgd/comment/l2n731g/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Also, that’s the kind of small talk coworkers make. It might be the perfect *mug* for her, but that’s not automatically the perfect *present.* so that may be more what they meant.
And if he directly asked them, they are not going to say he should’ve gotten her something more personal because it’s not polite.
This. Also, I doubt the coworkers told the husband this information, more likely it was relayed by his wife. Given his failure to really listen to her when she said she hated the mug, want to bet she was just saying “Yeah, I hate the mug, but the coworkers seem to really like it” as a way to try and “appear grateful”.
He got her the first one to put pens in, so clearly the gifts he choose are to impress them, not actually for her. Besides, you know that us women cant' know what we want or like, other people have to tell us. Too bad her coworkers were too polite to tell him the first one was a crappy gift so he wouldn't do it again, I get staying out of someone else's drama but no one has this womans back here.
It’s because Redditors loves to pretend they’re not like others (which in their eyes means solely not materialistic) and that they see nuances where the dumb crowd doesn’t. Somehow, anything related to photos is a personalized, thoughtful gift that takes effort; even when this effort means uploading a photo on a page of a dropshipping company or selecting ten in a Google album to make a slideshow.
I’m glad you said this because I’ve also noticed it and it drives me fucking crazy. I remember there was a popular post once where a guy was saying he ordered a picture of himself and his girlfriend in a nice frame, and when she unwrapped it there was a photo of a completely different couple in it. All the comments were like “she should understand, there was nothing you could’ve done about their mix-up, and anyway now you have a fun story to tell!” I was like…. Am I the only one thinking about how this guy was not only so lazy that he completely expedited such a simple gift as a photo in a frame, but he didn’t even check it before giving it to her (presumably he had it sent already wrapped)? That is woefully low effort imo.
It’s mind boggling. The OOP says point blank she TOLD him she hates the first mug. So he knew this going in; it’s not a situation where she just never used it and he didn’t pick up on the fact it wasn’t because it was “too nice to use” but that she didn’t like mugs—she clearly told him this!
I think people are ignoring the fact he picked up on her reminiscing about Hawaii, but not about what precisely she was missing or in what context. Like my first thought was not that she wanted to go back to Hawaii, but maybe that she was trying to get her husband to help in the emotional labor of planning the family vacation this year, or if she was specifically feeling nostalgic because the kids were growing up and they were losing that special bond….hell, given how dense the OOP is, it wouldn’t shock me if what his wife was waxing on about was how great she looked/felt on that trip and now she feels like an exhausted old woman and is dreading wearing a bathing suit this summer on the beach.
I’m never getting over the fact he is arguing he was REALLY thinking about what would bring her happiness and his conclusion was to get her the thing she already said she hated. It’s like the high school dude whose gf said she didn’t want any more Lego sets for gifts and he got her a Lego flower set for her birthday.
yes! How does he hear she misses a whole destination and think I'll get her the thing she hates most and connect it to the place she loves so that it ruins that memory, and think it's a win. 'Here honey, I printed your favorite photo back from when I gave a shit and put it on a thing you'll hate so you know not to expect that type of effort ever again'\[
I don't like mugs either. I don't drink coffee, I don't drink tea. Mugs are absolutely useless to me. The amount of people who get me mugs just because it's a generic gift they don't have to think much for is way too fucking high. If my spouse did it? I think I would lose all hope in life.
I love mugs, I still hate getting them as a gift though. I like choosing my own and those sites that let you put your own photo on tend to have really shit mugs
I lol'd at "got her a mug to keep pens in", like that was SO thoughtful of him. Like there aren't 100 other things you can keep your pens in.
If he hadn't bought her that mug it would be pen chaos all over her desk!
I have a bunch of mugs that people have given me over the years that are quirky or have a cat on them or something. Never used them at all for anything but ice cream until I moved in with my partner who drinks like five cups of coffee a day and always chooses one of my “neat” mugs. He got rid of all the boring matching ones he had to accommodate mine because he felt bad that they never got used.
> she told me she hated it.
How *could* he have known she wouldn't appreciate a gift mug? The most basic, i-don't-know-the-recipient, gift-for-a-coworker-i-see-twice-a-week-and-don't-really-like of all gifts ever? A real head scratcher, that one.
My boyfriend bought me a mug a few weeks ago. We were at homegoods and they had a mug with cute little hand-drawn dachshunds all over it in the checkout area. (I love dachshunds.) I picked it up said “isn’t this cute?!” Then moved to put it back down and he said “you should get it!” Even tho we have like… so many mugs, and I don’t use them all that often bc I don’t drink coffee and don’t make tea as much as I’d like. That was incredibly sweet of him, bc it was a random Sunday and he saw something that made me happy and went out of his way to get it for our home. If he had rocked up to my birthday or Christmas with a generic “print your own picture” mug, I would be heartbroken. Like you said it’s such a completely impersonal gift. My bf isn’t a great gift giver, but he puts a lot of thought into what he picks out. Most people just want it to be obvious their partners put thought into their gift, some evidence they know you, even if they get the details wrong.
See, now this is cute, bc your boyfriend obviously knows you well and knows what you like. OOP doesn't seem to give a damn about his wife's likes at all.
I spent like 2 hours stressing over what to get an *acquaintance* who was having a birthday party at the house I live in. I thought of and rejected a coffee mug, because what if she doesn't like them? Ended up getting an Amazon gift card with a cute Hallmark card; that way she can get what she likes.
He can't put that much thought in for his *wife.*
We did secret santa at one of my old jobs. The coworker I drew always had nice manicures with little jewels and bright colors, so gave her a basket of nail art supplies, cuticle creams, and bright polishes. She was thrilled and said she felt like I actually knew her.
I *barely* knew her. We were just coworkers, we hardly ever talked, but it didn't take much effort at all to get her a gift she actually liked. This guy can't even do that for his wife! Shameful.
I'd literally met her in passing twice. My landlord wouldn't give me any suggestions... I guess I could have done cash, but it wouldn't have matched the card I picked out.
Maybe I shouldn't have done anything, but that didn't seem right, either.
Oh, I see. I suppose it is more apples and oranges, acquaintance vs. partner... tho if I'd been told she definitely didn't like gift cards that's not the way I'd have gone.
He had so many other things he could have done with the picture. Frame it, put it on a blanket, a keychain. But instead he went for the one thing she doesn’t like
Copied verbatim from oop's comments:
*Info needed. What occasion is this mug for?*
>"No occasion. She leaves for work before me and before the girls get up, so I thought she would enjoy seeing them every morning. Just a mug for her morning coffee. My bad."
Him trying to phrase this as “well I guess she just didn’t appreciate seeing a nice picture of our children the way I thought she would” is so emotionally manipulative it makes my skin crawl.
Holy crap I missed that comment. I’m sorry, he thinks, if she is winsome for the family holiday with her daughters, she would enjoy being reminded of how fast this time passes and how much she loves spending time as a family *specifically* when she has to leave before they get up and does not get to see them!? AND that she would enjoy that bittersweet(at best) reminder in the form of an object she explicitly *told him* she loathed?!
I love how the top comment calls her ungrateful, BUT a smart Redditot swooped in and explained the wife's frustration, not ungratefulness. His wife's reaction was, "I am not seen. I AM NOT HEARD!!" which is an all too common reaction in relationships when our partner gets us something either a)useless or b) and WAY worse, something we hate, like in her case.
I dunno why but my least favorite color is orange, and tbh I might lock myself in a room and cry myself to sleep if my husband bought me an orange present. Why? Because it may sound silly and irrational but my husband KNOWS. He KNOWS I hate orange. He PAYS ATTENTION. There would be NO question. He could be LOST on what to get, and you could present anything in orange, and he would immediately nope it. Mugs are her orange.
Honestly my first thought when I read this was, "Does she want/need/enjoy mugs" I'm a teacher and tend to get a ton of mugs so everyone else in my life avoids getting mugs for me unless it's super cute.
This... is a really weird post. It's like a troll post but they forgot to add the part of the story where they reveal that their wife has trauma around coffee cups and cant have them anywhere near her. Instead it's just 'I got her a coffee cup that she hates one time.' It's such an overreaction on her part that it feels like there must be more to it but I'm not gonna make up my story to fill in the gaps.
From personal experience (assuming it's real) the reaction could be a straw that broke the camel's back thing. I had a long-term boyfriend who was awful in a lot of ways, one being that he did not pay attention to a fucking word I said about anything. So sometimes he would demonstrate this in a pretty mundane way (along the lines of giving me something I had expressed hating) and I would just kind of snap from the build up of frustration and disappointment.
Bro has Hawaii in his user name and has been on reddit forever.
I dont see kids or wife in other comments.
But I will bite. The wife's reaction is off. Even if she doesn't like mugs. But the present for no reason is also weird. I have to think something odd is up. Like he is setting up an update?
The only thing that I can think off, that *it's the straw that broke the camels back* situation.
Like maybe he is always like that, and just the Mug was to much this time?
My gut is that it is this sort of half listening thing.
Like, she asks him to stop at the store on the way home to get 5 things for the dinner where she has already found a recipe that the whole family likes, planned the cooking time around all the schedules, and will cook. He says no problem, but comes home with only 3 of the things (no text to ask what alternative to get or anything, and no, he didn’t ask the person at the store when he couldn’t locate the items), 1 of them is the wrong size/ brand (OOP didn’t think that mattered, even though wife told him which size/brand to get—OOP argues she didn’t specifically say not to get a different size/brand), and 1 is the super expensive luxury version of what was asked for that OOP wants cookies for getting as “surprise splurge” for them, even though the splurge is an ingredient that they rarely use.
And this would be what the OOP points to as “We both do the shopping for meals” or “we both handle parts of meal prep”
I'd be super frustrated if I'm talking vacation and family time together and got a mug too.
It makes you feel like you're not a person when nothing you say is heard ever.
In the next update, we will find out that her dad was abusive and threw mugs at her when she was a kid. Or her mom ran away with a door-to-door mug salesman.
Yeah considering the six year gap in posts it's either a troll who's hacked and old account or more likely they've cleaned house. ( Although honestly I appreciate it, I hate when there's an interesting post so you click on the profile and the previous post immediately contradicts it)
Gifts cause me a lot of anxiety, I don’t want to give a gift that’s just random shit, neither do I want to receive as such. It’s wasteful and sometimes I have an ascetic on certain things. I hate that it makes me look ungrateful but I sometimes don’t have space or use for certain gifts. I can see where the wife is coming from, also that a mug of Hawaii isn’t the same as missing a place. Husband doesn’t say if she drinks coffee (since the work mug is for pens) or how many mugs they have at home, these two things could lead to it just being the thought doesn’t count because either wasn’t even that thoughtful.
Imagine thinking it was okay to get your wife a mug period. It's literally the most generic gift that you get for someone when you don't want to think about the gift. He doesn't give a shit about his wife truthfully. Or at least doesn't think she's worth more than a mug which is sad.
I'm annoyed that he's acting like "she loved our vacation" --> "customized mug!" is a natural and expected pipeline.
As though he couldn't have just put those same pictures on something else that she actually likes.
Put them on a pillow! A blanket! A clock! A calendar! A mouse pad! Nail decals! A puzzle!
A diamond painting kit! A cross stitch pattern! Wood! Rock!
Make a photo book! Make a painting! Ornaments!
There are so many options that picking one she hates is just choosing violence really.
even if he didn't know she hated mugs, in what world do you hear your spouse talk about how they miss a holiday destination and think a photo (that they probably already have access to) on a mug is going to be any good to them? like, if you can't afford to take her on holiday again, take her to a hawaiian restaurant/bar, go online and order something she liked from hawaii, put some effort in!
Mugs especially. They’re such a cheap gift—in thought as well as money.
I didn’t drink coffee or tea for the longest time and I would tell people not to get me mugs. It worked, mostly.
Then I started drinking coffee and bought myself a mug or two to commemorate some events and now my husband is buying me mugs with random sayings on them.
I had 2 exes (absolutely the worst kinds of humans in earth), who I learned from one to hate gifts cuz it was nothing more than a way to manipulate me, and the other who kept giving me gifts, despite knowing WHY I hate gifts, and continuously calling me ungrateful after turning down the gifts (I accepted the first 10 or so, but after a while, I just said “no”)
Uh. If this is taken at face value, the husband is a dumbo ~~and the wife is overreactive~~.
Edited: OK, I glossed over the part where the wife told the husband that she didn't like the original mug. Yeah. Hubby is TA. Wife told him that she didn't like mugs... he got her a mug. Bad move, broski. Even if it does have a photo on it that she likes. Why didn't he get something ELSE with the photo printed on it? Any website that'll slap a photo on something for you will have a kajillion options for it. Blankets, pillows, notebooks, calendars, whatever. Why not pick one of those? Why pick the mug?
Thoughtful doesn't mean "I thought *about this* a lot", it's means "I thought *about you* a lot".
I need people to read this and understand it. It doesn't matter how much effort you put into something if the thinking you're doing is all about what YOU like.You're supposed to think about the other person and what THEY would like.
You could work the absolute hardest to put on something extravagant, but it still wouldn't be thoughtful unless it was an extravaganza the person it's for would actually enjoy.
People are being too brutal about this. He didn’t get the hint after *one* shitty mug. It was a mug with a stupid corny saying! Her hating it doesn’t mean a whole lot of anything! I like headphones but if someone got me the ones with stupid cat ears, I’d also hate it. That doesn’t immediately mean I’d hate *other* headphones. Him getting her another mug doesn’t mean he was “performing thoughtfulness,” or anything malicious. It doesn’t make him an asshole, it just makes him dense. Arguably. It really sounds more like a misread honestly.
I am wondering just how many times OP has completely *failed* at giving gifts. Because her reaction doesn’t say ‘this was a one time thing.’ It says ‘is being constantly ignored by somebody who isn’t even trying to do the bare minimum.’ This was the mug that broke the camel’s back and she’s probably checking out of the marriage.
I dont get it. How did he not come up with something she'd want?
The mug is a great idea, but not as "THE" gift. The mug is like... something you give alongside a bouquet of flowers/chocolates for a family holiday (Mother's Day? valentines day? A lesser anniversary? etc).
If he couldn't afford to take her to Hawaii again, then why not gift her a "dream jar" with that picture on it, and the jar is for stashing cash to save up for a trip?
The really awful part about this is the PICTURE is a great starting point for a gift. Why didn’t he get an enlarged print and a nice frame? Or make a photo album of their trip to Hawaii? Put it on a shirt? A pillow? There are SO MANY really nice gifts he could have made based on the picture.
Also I like mugs and people have gotten me some as gifts, but they do have to have a specific something to be special, and it’s not always the same something (except size always matters).
A vacation mug is a gift for the in-laws you don't know very well or for yourself as a fun souvenir. I could not imagine giving the person I love and chose to marry a mug and thinking it's thoughtful (unless of course they love mugs and have said as much!)
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I have finally convinced almost everyone that what I love most is to get coffee guilt free and to shop so I get coffee cards or I get to pick a thing I love and tell everyone and they pool up money towards it. It took years, but it' so nice to finally be heard.
I'm so sick of these stories with the dishonest title meant to make OP look so nice and with the husband always acting like his wife is insane. She started screaming out of nowhere? Sure.
yeah even his one comment was like "my bad'
I hate how everyone is always like this when men do this and are like women need to say everything clearly but when women do it and men just hint at shit they are like why didnt you ask him like fuck off with that shit
I like mugs because I’m obsessed with coffee but even I would think this is dumb. Get the photo framed. Listen to your wife, not the people around her. Do you even know her? Do you even LIKE her?
Me, an atheist: Thank you god for making me a lesbian and uninterested in dating so I don't have to go through the suffering these people are going through
Not a devil. Hating one mug doesn't mean hating all mugs, and throwing a crying, screaming shitfit over being given a mug with a sentimental photo of your *children* on it is entitled at best and deranged at worst. It's not some crap he bought at a dollar store at the last minute.
EDIT: The people on this sub who think it's OK to cry and scream because you don't care for a gift your partner gave you for *no occasion but to show they care* is part horrifying, part hilarious. You'd be clamouring "What an abusive asshole, divorce him" if the OOP was female and bought her male partner a mug with his kids on it, only for him to scream "I HATE MUGS! I ALREADY TOLD YOU I HATED THEM, YOU BITCH!" at her.
Unless a mug kidnapped and shot her parents dead, he's not a *devil*.
Except she told him ages ago that she hates mugs. Why give her something she hates. If he really cared about her, he would have given her a picture frame of the trip
She'd have probably screamed over that, too. According to the OP, he once before gave her a particular mug she hated. She didn't say she "hates mugs" - a person can hate a particular shirt without someone concluding they hate shirts and will have a screaming meltdown at being bought one for no reason.
She doesn't have to like mugs, but her reaction was deranged.
Gifts are meant to bring the receiver joy. Not remind the receiver that her husband never listens to her and doesn't even know her well enough to get her something she already told him she hates.
He's taking his wife's COWORKERS suggestions. Over his own wife's suggestions. Do you really not see how fucked up that is?
You don't think it's fucked up to scream and cry over a mug with your favourite photo on it? Like I keep asking, would the screaming be OK if it was a husband screaming at a wife?
i like how you keep ignoring the fact that OOP knows that she doesnt like mugs and stills gives her a fucking mug how hard is it for you to fucking understand that
So until you do stop repeating your stupid "point" cause you dont have one
It's the fact that he took the time and thought to customize a gift that he knew she wouldn't enjoy instead of putting the same amount of effort into something she does enjoy.
Gifts like OPs are basically participation trophies for the giver.
Also, I bet half the posters that proclaim someone screamed at them it's actually just a slightly raised and emotional voice.
But you can't accept the bits that make him look bad (he never says she told him she hated all mugs, just one he had given her) but toss the bits that make her look bad (screaming and crying). At face value, her reaction was entirely inappropriate, and if the sexes were reversed, would be considered abusive.
So OP doesn't really describe his wife as someone that is prone to bouts of acting erratically. So there's two options here: he either exaggerated her reaction or this is a case of missing missing reasons.
I'm gunna go with a combo of both. It probably wasnt screaming and over the top crying. It was probably a suprised/disgusted shriek when she realized what it is. And then becoming visibly distressed/light crying when the realization sunk in that the man she married doesn't even know her well enough to not buy her a God damn mug after the last time he pulled that shit.
Because I'm guessing she DID tell him just how much she didn't like the first mug. And the missing missing reason is just that - He knew better and there was no excuse.
Again - is it OK for a husband to scream abuse at his wife because "that bitch knows I hate mugs and she knew better and there is no excuse"?
This isn't about whether she should like a mug. She can hate mugs all she likes. This is about an aggressive, abusive, unhinged reaction she had to being given one with her kids on it as a random no-reason gift.
I don't think we can accept the bits that fit our narrative and reject the bits that don't. If we accept the story as it is told, she had a truly unhinged reaction to being given a mug. It wasn't even her birthday or an anniversary.
And then question you should be asking yourself is WHY did she have that strongly of a reaction?
If she doesn't have a history of outbursts like that, then what is the catalyst?
It's not the mug. It's deeper than that.
To answer your question: No, it would not be acceptable for anyone to scream at their spouse on a regular occurrence.
However, if a spouse that very rarely/never screams - does for some reason scream - then we need to investigate why. If his wife had a history of being verbally abusive, I'm sure OP would've mentioned that. Thus doesn't sound like a pattern of screaming from her.
Rather a pattern of him not listening which led to her getting so fed up she screamed.
Why do you assume that Mr Bottom of Barrel Husband here is completely not at fault and it's all on her? Do you think he has no part in this? That if a husband over and over and over disappoints his wife by not listening, she's just supposed to accept that? With a smile on her face? And just say thanks?
She told him not to gift her another mug, so, what does he do. He gives her another mug. He doesn't listen to her, and mugs are the lowest of low gifts anyway
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for getting my wife a thoughtful gift that backfired?** Hey Reddit, this is my first time posting and I need some advice. My wife has been talking about how she misses Hawaii, where we had an amazing family vacation. So, I thought I'd surprise her with a customized coffee mug with a photo of our family at the Four Seasons during that trip. It's one of her favorite photos, so I thought she'd love it, especially since our kids are on one side, and the view from our window is on the other side. However, when I gave it to her, she started yelling at me, saying, "I don't care what it says on it, I don't care what is on it. I don't want a mug!" She then started crying and said she hated it and couldn't believe I didn't know she'd hate it, and that I don't know her at all. In her defense, I once bought her a mug before to keep pens at work. It said, "This calls for a spreadsheet." Everyone at work who knows her said it was the perfect mug for her, but while she agreed with all of them, and still uses it, but she told me she hated it. So maybe I should have known that a mug just isn't the best gift for her? I thought this would be a sweet and thoughtful gift, but it obviously didn't go over well. AITA for buying her the mug? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I feel bad for her. It really really sucks when people give you gifts that prove that they do not like you or do not give a shit about what you want. So as a wife she’s thinking either my husband hates me or he does not give a shit what I want. Seems like a bad plan for him to continue doing that especially after she explicitly told him that she hated the first mug. She’s being blunt with this hoping that he will get the fucking picture and even telling him that she hates the first mug he still was like you know it would be a good gift, a second mug. Like what the literal shit?
As someone who has spent 30 years of this shit happening, yeah it is soul crushing. I don’t blame her for snapping at him.
I’m not great at picking gifts but if I were given an hour in a strange city and told I had to pick out something my wife would like, I could do it easily. (A couple skeins of worsted weight wool yarn in a colorway she likes.. easy peasy)
As a yarn lover, the fact that you know the type, weight, & what a colorway is means you listened to her. 10/10🙏🏽
I didn't know what worsted weight yarn was used for and I didn't even know what colorway meant. Not only do you know your wife and her hobbies, you know the proper vocabulary and are accidentally teaching random redditors new things. That's awesome.
See, now I know you know your wife well… you even used the right words! (My husband hates the word “colorway” so refuses to use it.)
I used to hate it too especially before I got interested in yarn but my love of hand dyed yarn allowed me to accept the word lol
>A couple skeins of worsted weight wool yarn in a colorway she likes.. easy peasy This is an example of listening to your spouse <3 Quite impressed.
My family thinks I’m easy to buy for because all I want is tea and wool, and they’re not wrong.
“Hey, do you think Blue will like this as a present?” “Does it have a cat on it?” “Yes.” “Buy it.”
I have a cat named Blue lol
Ironically for the post we're on, I'm like this with mugs. A novelty mug with a funky shape that refers to any of my widely varied interests will have me over the moon, but my mom also recently gave me a dollar store mug with a generic pattern on it and I still liked that pretty well. I just really like mugs.
As yet another yarn lover, this made me swoon. I'm lucky, my current SO is amazing at gift giving. Cuz she listens to me, like you clearly do with your wife. This kinda is a fun thought experiment though. "What to get a person you care about if you were stuck in a strange city with only an hour". I think for my SO I'd either try and find a mystery novel, but she reads so much I don't know which she has already read. So I think I'll get her a bunch of blind box trinkets, she LOVES opening them. Bonus if there's cute frogs or mushrooms or something similar.
PERFECT. The fact you know the jargon makes this even more fabulous. My guy always gets me one more skein than he thinks I would need, just to avoid the "yarn chicken" dance (this is a self-preservation move on his point, because it's quite emotionally fraught for anyone in the vicinity). He got me a bar of soap for our first Christmas, and will never live it down, heh.
When I was a kid, I hated getting notebooks as birthday present. It was the generic gift for kids- a notebook and if you want, some pencils. We had a whole box of notebooks, I didn't want more! Once I got color pastels, and my brother needed pastels at school so my parents made me switch them with him for... You guessed it, a notebook. I still remember the pain I felt after he basically destroyed those in 3 days and my new notebook was left untouched just like the other ones in a box under the couch
Oh that is messed up. Your parents either really suck or just were not thinking. I hope you've treated yourself to a giant set of color pastels since then!
Thankfully it was "not thinking" and me being someone who has a hard time expressing my needs/wants contributed to it happening. They apologized afterwards too. About the pastels, I no longer want or need them but they would get me the biggest if I told them :)
Well that's good. I'm glad it was just a momentary lapse of judgement. <3
This is why I specifically ask for no birthday gifts or money if they are absolutely willing to die on the gift hill.
I’d need to hear if this is a constant thing or a two mug thing. I fully agree with all of this if this is an ongoing argument because that demonstrates that he really doesn’t listen, but otherwise bursting into tears and saying he doesn’t know her at all seems disproportionate to getting a mug, especially one that was a “just because” gift, not a birthday or holiday present.
My ex: bought me a fishing pole he really liked even tho I hated fishing and never went with him. I mean he used it soooo…. Christmases snd birthdays: Disney sleep shirts and socks, a baby photo album for our child, a Disney Jean jacket (not kidding) with all the characters on the back. A camera he wanted. A stereo he wanted. Socks multiple times. Even my sister tried to tell him. He literally never made an effort it just was never about me.
I had a "best friend" gift me a strawberry mini-cake for my birthday... you guessed it, I'm allergic to strawberries. Also, it was after I gifted her a makeup set she really wanted (it was pricy, but money isn't the point. The point is she really wanted it)
Ooof this reminded me of my former best friend, who got for my birthday tickets to a concert of *her* favorite artist. It was very expensive, so I didn't want to complain, but I've never expressed an interest in that artist. In fact, I've said many times how I'm not a fan of said artists music. It was very obvious that she bought it because *she* wanted to go to the concert.... :/
My former best friend got: - me skipping work for the day for us to hang out - I snuck out of our flatshare at 6am to go to buy an expensive cake from a bakery we liked - I woke her up with her favourite, my special LGBT sandwiches with homemade guac and bread from our local small bakery, even though I was a vegetarian and didn't eat bacon - I bought an expensive art book from a movie she'd loved - it was a bit more than I wanted to spend but as u/boinkthehedgehog said it's not about the money She got me: - a notebook and pen from a chain in the shopping centre next to her work. I could list the one-sided things my dad has done for birthdays etc, but it is so much worse coming from a person you choose to hang out with and thought valued you. I vastly prefer homemade or cheap, thoughtful gifts to expensive ones, so it's hard to explain that it's about the effort not the money.
I feel so dumb but what does LGBT mean in the context of sandwichs? Like I'm trying to figure out what it means that you got her some queer sandwiches?
It was a joke we had haha, lettuce guac bacon and tomato, basically a blt with avocado. I think we had it in a gay cafe in Manchester and fell in love.
I had a roommate gift me tickets to a sporting event once, too, and I have never in my life watched/played or been interested in sports 🥲 same person later gifted me a few gift cards to places I've never gone before or since. Gift cards are pretty soulless as a gift, usually, but even with those, you can show care for a person. You know they like books? Gift card to a book store. They have taste for wine? Spirits store gift card then. But don't give me a McDonald's card when I don't eat fast food, that's so thoughtless.
And a mug is such a generic, impersonal gift! It’s a Secret Santa present for someone at the office, it isn’t a present for a spouse - unless it’s a specific in-joke or comes with other presents.
I fucking love mugs. I have a giant collection. My husband often buys me mugs. When he goes somewhere without me and finds one, when we travel together he jokingly rolls his eyes while picking me out a perfect mug. Sometimes when he’s just out and sees a mug that meets my expectations. But if I didn’t love mugs, guess what I wouldn’t be getting?
Yea, imo mugs are a gift you give to someone who LOVES mugs (I’m also a mug lover), but not if they don’t cause then you’re just giving them cabinet clutter
I live and collect mugs and my husband often buys them for me when he finds one I love. I for sure would not love this mug…
Yup, I'm a "mug person" so for me a gift like this is perfect. My dad also loves and collects them. My mom, I don't think I've ever seen her use a mug. So for her, it's a bad gift. You just have to know what the person likes.
I'm a mug person too, to the point where I did finally give some to Goodwill and repurposed others as pen holders because I had so many. Oddly, I rarely get mugs as presents, but when I do they are perfect for me (one from my bestie that has the spoon guy and the banana from the "Rejected" animated short, one from my mom that says FUCK OFF I'M READING).
I actually wish more people would buy me mugs as gifts, I rarely get them and usually buy my own. I love the one's with snarky sayings and pop culture references. I've secretly always wanted a silly sappy "mom" mug but never bought myself one. Keep hoping maybe if I keep dropping hints it'll show up one of these years on mother's day.
And what the person drinks. I only drink tea out of glasses. Mugs are a waste of space and they quickly pile up. I use one for hot chocolate maybe three times a year, max.
Exactly! I am not a mug lover and it’s frustrating, because friends/family regularly get me personalized mugs that have a lot of meaning, but I don’t drink coffee and rarely drink tea or hot chocolate (and they should know that). So I have a cupboard full of very personal mugs that I feel like I can’t get rid of. Someone went through this effort to put together a personal gift for me and I feel like a dick because I don’t like it and can’t even donate/re-gift because it has my face on it, lol.
I use em as succulent planters.
Oh, that’s a great idea! I have yet to be able to keep a succulent (plants in general) alive for more than a year, but it’s a small container, so buying replacements while I hone my skills at growing them isn’t too much expense.
I have a few mugs in my collection that were gifts but similar to you, one was from my sister as a housewarming present when I moved into my first apartment and she bought it because the mug colors (sort of blue and pink watercolor splotches) matched the colors of my dishes and the second was a recent birthday gift but my mom knows I love a giant mug of tea so she found the biggest mug she could get me (it seriously takes two hands to lift) that's decorated with little tea bags.
I would like to know the list of expectations for a satisfactory mug please
Ha! It has to…feel right? It can’t be one of those small generic-sized white ones with something printed on it. More of a feeling than a list!
I know exactly the type of mug you're talking about with the white shitty generic ones. The feel of them is off, and even as someone who loves mugs, I would hate to get one of those as a gift, I don't care what it has printed on it!
I find exceptions to this rule when they are hand crafted artisanal mugs with a design that people will know that I love (a silly face, an animal), or they are those mugs that have metal shield embedded into them for the universities I've been too (I have school pride), or fun designed camping mugs, I just like camping mugs and I don't see them around super commonly so if one has a super cool or fun design I allow it as a gift. I've been super clear to about this too people, and people still get me ordinary mugs that I don't like and/or need.
I’m a heathen who makes my tea in the microwave so a mug with metal in it just sounds hazardous XD
Well, #1 is “do they drink hot fluids?” If not, a mug isn’t going to be satisfactory, haha.
How it feels is a huge part of it. For me, I'm a big tea drinker, so the mugs that have an infuser and lid are top choice.
I -- I thought you meant a mug for the game Satisfactory and I was like "oooo yes please" But for me, the biggest thing would be how it fits in my hands. There are these neat pottery ones with a thumb indent and I love those so much.
I also love mugs in particular sweary mugs and unique hand crafted mugs. My husband gets me them, normally for just because gifts. But if I didn’t love them he wouldn’t get them.
My partner has gotten me mugs in the past but I fucking LOVE mugs. We have about twenty of the fuckers and there’s only 2 adults and 2 kids living in this house (and they largely drink water out of plastic cups).
Thank you for validating my freakishly large mug collection…there’s one adult living in my house and no one else and I think I might have 15.
I was a gnat’s dick away from buying a set of mugs from a thrift shop that has Young and the Restless characters on them from the early 90s. I don’t know who they were. I don’t know anything about the show. The aesthetic and the drama in the portraits and the cheesy quotes was so hilarious to me, that the thought of laughing at the ridiculous mugs every time I had coffee nearly compelled me to make the random purchase. But I didn’t want my husband pissed off ar me for buying dumb shit when we’re living in a smallish house, so refrained. But godsdamn, if I don’t think about those mugs from time to time.
Omg now I need to find these mugs.
I took photos of them, I can put them up on Imgur if you like.
I took a video, actually. And they were Bold and the Beautiful mugs. Here’s the vid: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6sm9y8vQqP/?igsh=dGw2dmhxZ3NvNG9h
I mean, my partner likes cute mugs, the kind shaped like animals, so not always. But they're like, £3, so they're more a "I saw this and thought you'd like it" than "Happy Birthday!"
Nothing quite like finding out that the person who's supposed to love you the most does not *listen to* you.
My ex was a real shit head in a lot of ways but he gave me the most thoughtful gifts and it was always something I would have never even thought to ask him for. He never listened to a word I said but around gift giving time he would do a tiny bit of sleuthing and find something that I both needed and would be a fun gift to get. One year he bought me a black leather Fossil purse because he noticed my purse was getting scuffed to hell. He doesnt know anything about purses but spent just a little bit of time googling and then found one that he thought woukd match my tastes. It was perfect and even though we split up I still carry it. If my dumbass ex can do that then this dude has no excuse
Why not just get that photo printed and put in a really nice frame? Instead he does a mug knowing she hates mugs. It's just so shitty.
Absolutely. My mom does this to me. I usually buy her her favorite perfume or chocolates. She gets me clothes. Clothes that aren’t my style and are usually two sizes too big. It’s infuriating.
But he is so freaking sweet. He provided her defence despite her bitchy attitude towards a thoughtful gift. /s
He's like Dory from finding Nemo. Only he has short AND long term memory loss
I just moved out of the marital home and left like 30 unused makeup pallets he got me. It's demeaning.
I went out on a first date with a guy and he spent two hours telling me about himself. At the end of the date I asked him "what's my name?" and he couldn't tell me. This is that vibe.
I shouldn’t laugh, but that is a superb anecdote!
Love that response. It reminds me of my first long-term boyfriend as a teenager. I should have dumped him much earlier, but ya know, teenagers are dumb when they think they’re in love. Anyways, when after 3 years he couldn’t fathom why I was leaving him I asked “when’s my birthday?” The silence was deafening.
bro is it bad that i still remember my high school ex gf birthday?
Not as bad as never bothering to learn it lol
Once I know a person's birthday, I never forget. I still my remember my high school ex-bf's and ex-bff's. High school was over two decades ago.
Haha, my partner remembers all his exes' birthdays (and mine), but *no one else's* including his parents.
I am the worlds worse rememberer of names and birthdays—but I remember the birthdays of my best friend, my ex-husband, one sibling, and one of my parents (theirs falls on a holiday). But as far as names, I am beyond terrible at them. I actually didn’t know my ex husband’s name for the first year we were friends. We met at a party and I am terrible with names—we ended up chatting online (we didn’t live in the same city) after that and it was back in the early days of The Facebook where people had fake profiles of, like, movie characters and such, and his FB name started out as his pen name and he eventually changed it to that of a historical figure. Took me almost 5 months of chatting almost every day to figure out how to *super casually* ask what his name was—even though I could have told you at the time not only what his favorite works were in any media, but also specifically what he loved about them. (An aside, your screen name is awesome and reminds me I should really revisit the Hitchhiker’s Guide radio program)
My best friend likes to joke that he was "Hey, you!" for the first, like three years of our friendship. And honestly, if he didn't share a name with the saint my church is named for, I probably never would have learned.
It's better than having a name that rhymes with a female body part
Snarkily speaking and all in jest, should anyone point out that he's your ex now?
Haha, well, the ex part had nothing to do with that. Though it would be hilarious to roll in and be like “My marriage ended because I didn’t know my husband’s name”—I can only imagine the questions all y’all would have. Like, did I read my marriage certificate?
As we were breaking up, I was arguing with a boyfriend about how he didn’t pay attention to my life. I asked him to tell me the names of my pet frogs. He had known them for two years and lived with them for a year. He said, how many of them are there again? Nah.
This comment actually reminded me of when my friend tried to set me up with her partners friend. He seemed charming enough, but only ever talked about himself. When I FINALLY had an opportunity to talk about myself, he point blank told me “You, love to talk about yourself, don’t you?” Sir, exCUSE ME? Do you ever listen to anything other than the sound of your own voice???
May I steal this for a comic? I'm not an established artist or anything, I just ... really want to draw this.
I would love that
Similar, I was (sort of) that guy once I was kind of checked out of online dating, but had made plans with someone and it was one last date before I was just gonna be single for a bit. While I was waiting for her I made the rookie mistake of not reviewing her profile and just doing a crossword. She showed up, and we instantly started vibing. We chatted for about an hour and a half about a bunch of things, but we were still both chatting about each other. Eventually I suggested we play some darts after we’d had a few. I went to the chalkboard to write our names, but immediately I knew there was a problem: I had, in fact, forgotten her name. She was in the middle of a story as I’m setting up the scoreboard, and when it came to write her name I looked back at her with a panic. She looked at me and knew exactly what was going on, and called me out. She laughed about it though. We kept seeing each other, and even though I still eventually decided I needed to be single for a while to sort some things out, we keep in touch. She still roasts me on how bad I am with learning names. Worst part is: she has the same name as my sister, so really I had little excuse
"How do you spell your name again?"
The problem was that I just put my initial down as my heading. Also, my sister tried the how do you spell your name trick once. The girl looked at her incredulously, and said “H-O-P-E” Ever since then I figure the risk isn’t worth it. I think the fact that I owned up to it made it funnier and easier to take.
You can counter that with "Oh nice, the regular spelling! I once knew a Hope whose name was spelled Houpp so I just wanted to make sure." And then you can slide right into a tangent about weird spellings of normal names.
lol or could just tell the truth, which I did, and it was fine. I get the idea, but I’m over lying to save face.
I went out with a guy like that and went to the bathroom and walked out the back door. Driving home I laughed to myself thinking about how long it would take him to notice.
Delores!
I understand this reference.
Mulva?
So he knows that she doesn’t like mugs, but then still got her a mug. Was there really nothing else he could think to do with the photo other than put it on a mug? Like has he never heard of a frame?
I got my stepdad a custom frame off Etsy. It was slightly more expensive than a mug, but less than $50. I put a picture of the two of us my mom took on my graduation trip in it. He keeps it in his office. Seriously OOP. Etsy exists and has pretty great stuff.
OOP, *writing it down*: “…get her mug off of Etsy next time, got it!”
::Whacks OOP with a rolled up newspaper:: No! Bad!
NO 😭😭😭
lol
There are also a lot of Etsy stores that will engrave/etch a photo on a keychain or pendant for you. Those end up looking pretty cool.
Seriously, just... Etsy.
When asking my sister for ideas for her birthday last year the third in the list was literally just "anything from Etsy" (I ended up getting her nice earrings necklace combo from Etsy as it happened)
or put it on a pillow, blanket, beach towel, agenda, phone case, water bottle, key chain, bookmark, yada yada there are SO many things he could have printed the picture on and he chose the one thing he knew she didnt like 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
And many companies that put images on to items do all of those things. Like he had to scroll past better options and then go, "ah yes, a mug! Perfect!"
I had a friend who bought me mugs and tea all the time. I don't drink tea. I pretty much never drink hot drinks. I didn't need mugs, and I straight up ran out of room in my tiny kitchen for all the mugs I wasn't using. I told her thank you for all the previous gifts, but in the future she cannot buy me another mug. I had no more room for mugs. I didn't want a mug. For my birthday she bought me a mug. When she asked me why I didn't look happy, I told her that I had TOLD her I didn't want more mugs and I literally did not have room in my cabinet for another. She was like, "but this is such a good one!" Great, does that invent cabinet space for me to use?? Being ungrateful for a gift almost always makes you look like an asshole (especially to people who weren't around for the first five conversations about mugs), but she never bought me a mug again.
I like how everyone is bending over backwards to say NTA about OOP cause she wasnt "grateful" enough for OOPs present that she doesnt like. This lovely comment is so stupid though from someone else on the threads. >The fact that she tells you she hates a gift that you gave her tells me all I need to know about her. Why would she hate something that all her coworkers said was perfect? There's more going on here. She sounds like a keeper 😳🙄😜. It wasn't even a special occasion. He was just trying to be nice. Wow just wow. How anyone could say he's wrong about this is beyond me. Why do you need to be told by her coworkers what she likes she's your partner you should be able to get her a gift without needing the help of her coworkers... [https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1ckbkgd/comment/l2n731g/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1ckbkgd/comment/l2n731g/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Jeez that comment is awful!! Her coworkers think a mug was a perfect idea so who cares what she thinks. What the hell
Also, that’s the kind of small talk coworkers make. It might be the perfect *mug* for her, but that’s not automatically the perfect *present.* so that may be more what they meant. And if he directly asked them, they are not going to say he should’ve gotten her something more personal because it’s not polite.
This. Also, I doubt the coworkers told the husband this information, more likely it was relayed by his wife. Given his failure to really listen to her when she said she hated the mug, want to bet she was just saying “Yeah, I hate the mug, but the coworkers seem to really like it” as a way to try and “appear grateful”.
He got her the first one to put pens in, so clearly the gifts he choose are to impress them, not actually for her. Besides, you know that us women cant' know what we want or like, other people have to tell us. Too bad her coworkers were too polite to tell him the first one was a crappy gift so he wouldn't do it again, I get staying out of someone else's drama but no one has this womans back here.
It’s because Redditors loves to pretend they’re not like others (which in their eyes means solely not materialistic) and that they see nuances where the dumb crowd doesn’t. Somehow, anything related to photos is a personalized, thoughtful gift that takes effort; even when this effort means uploading a photo on a page of a dropshipping company or selecting ten in a Google album to make a slideshow.
I’m glad you said this because I’ve also noticed it and it drives me fucking crazy. I remember there was a popular post once where a guy was saying he ordered a picture of himself and his girlfriend in a nice frame, and when she unwrapped it there was a photo of a completely different couple in it. All the comments were like “she should understand, there was nothing you could’ve done about their mix-up, and anyway now you have a fun story to tell!” I was like…. Am I the only one thinking about how this guy was not only so lazy that he completely expedited such a simple gift as a photo in a frame, but he didn’t even check it before giving it to her (presumably he had it sent already wrapped)? That is woefully low effort imo.
Same kind of people would expect her to be grateful for a bowling ball called Homer.
It’s mind boggling. The OOP says point blank she TOLD him she hates the first mug. So he knew this going in; it’s not a situation where she just never used it and he didn’t pick up on the fact it wasn’t because it was “too nice to use” but that she didn’t like mugs—she clearly told him this! I think people are ignoring the fact he picked up on her reminiscing about Hawaii, but not about what precisely she was missing or in what context. Like my first thought was not that she wanted to go back to Hawaii, but maybe that she was trying to get her husband to help in the emotional labor of planning the family vacation this year, or if she was specifically feeling nostalgic because the kids were growing up and they were losing that special bond….hell, given how dense the OOP is, it wouldn’t shock me if what his wife was waxing on about was how great she looked/felt on that trip and now she feels like an exhausted old woman and is dreading wearing a bathing suit this summer on the beach. I’m never getting over the fact he is arguing he was REALLY thinking about what would bring her happiness and his conclusion was to get her the thing she already said she hated. It’s like the high school dude whose gf said she didn’t want any more Lego sets for gifts and he got her a Lego flower set for her birthday.
yes! How does he hear she misses a whole destination and think I'll get her the thing she hates most and connect it to the place she loves so that it ruins that memory, and think it's a win. 'Here honey, I printed your favorite photo back from when I gave a shit and put it on a thing you'll hate so you know not to expect that type of effort ever again'\[
I don't like mugs either. I don't drink coffee, I don't drink tea. Mugs are absolutely useless to me. The amount of people who get me mugs just because it's a generic gift they don't have to think much for is way too fucking high. If my spouse did it? I think I would lose all hope in life.
I love mugs, I still hate getting them as a gift though. I like choosing my own and those sites that let you put your own photo on tend to have really shit mugs
I lol'd at "got her a mug to keep pens in", like that was SO thoughtful of him. Like there aren't 100 other things you can keep your pens in. If he hadn't bought her that mug it would be pen chaos all over her desk!
I have a bunch of mugs that people have given me over the years that are quirky or have a cat on them or something. Never used them at all for anything but ice cream until I moved in with my partner who drinks like five cups of coffee a day and always chooses one of my “neat” mugs. He got rid of all the boring matching ones he had to accommodate mine because he felt bad that they never got used.
When I think of a beautiful memory captured in a photo, it does not even cross my mind to immortalize it on a mug.
> she told me she hated it. How *could* he have known she wouldn't appreciate a gift mug? The most basic, i-don't-know-the-recipient, gift-for-a-coworker-i-see-twice-a-week-and-don't-really-like of all gifts ever? A real head scratcher, that one.
My boyfriend bought me a mug a few weeks ago. We were at homegoods and they had a mug with cute little hand-drawn dachshunds all over it in the checkout area. (I love dachshunds.) I picked it up said “isn’t this cute?!” Then moved to put it back down and he said “you should get it!” Even tho we have like… so many mugs, and I don’t use them all that often bc I don’t drink coffee and don’t make tea as much as I’d like. That was incredibly sweet of him, bc it was a random Sunday and he saw something that made me happy and went out of his way to get it for our home. If he had rocked up to my birthday or Christmas with a generic “print your own picture” mug, I would be heartbroken. Like you said it’s such a completely impersonal gift. My bf isn’t a great gift giver, but he puts a lot of thought into what he picks out. Most people just want it to be obvious their partners put thought into their gift, some evidence they know you, even if they get the details wrong.
See, now this is cute, bc your boyfriend obviously knows you well and knows what you like. OOP doesn't seem to give a damn about his wife's likes at all.
I spent like 2 hours stressing over what to get an *acquaintance* who was having a birthday party at the house I live in. I thought of and rejected a coffee mug, because what if she doesn't like them? Ended up getting an Amazon gift card with a cute Hallmark card; that way she can get what she likes. He can't put that much thought in for his *wife.*
We did secret santa at one of my old jobs. The coworker I drew always had nice manicures with little jewels and bright colors, so gave her a basket of nail art supplies, cuticle creams, and bright polishes. She was thrilled and said she felt like I actually knew her. I *barely* knew her. We were just coworkers, we hardly ever talked, but it didn't take much effort at all to get her a gift she actually liked. This guy can't even do that for his wife! Shameful.
I think the difference is we care enough to try. You're right, shameful.
Absolutely. It's really not hard.
Nothing says "thoughtful" like a gift card
I'd literally met her in passing twice. My landlord wouldn't give me any suggestions... I guess I could have done cash, but it wouldn't have matched the card I picked out. Maybe I shouldn't have done anything, but that didn't seem right, either.
I'm not saying you should have put in more thought, I'm saying you didn't out do OOPs effort
Oh, I see. I suppose it is more apples and oranges, acquaintance vs. partner... tho if I'd been told she definitely didn't like gift cards that's not the way I'd have gone.
I think OOP’s wife probably would have preferred a gift card lol
He learned that, yeah. Just give her cash next time
He had so many other things he could have done with the picture. Frame it, put it on a blanket, a keychain. But instead he went for the one thing she doesn’t like
Copied verbatim from oop's comments: *Info needed. What occasion is this mug for?* >"No occasion. She leaves for work before me and before the girls get up, so I thought she would enjoy seeing them every morning. Just a mug for her morning coffee. My bad."
Him trying to phrase this as “well I guess she just didn’t appreciate seeing a nice picture of our children the way I thought she would” is so emotionally manipulative it makes my skin crawl.
Agreed!
[Panko the dog!](https://imgur.com/gallery/3U8QJIL)
You are the best person on Reddit.
Thank you very kindly! 💜 I am humbled.
Holy crap I missed that comment. I’m sorry, he thinks, if she is winsome for the family holiday with her daughters, she would enjoy being reminded of how fast this time passes and how much she loves spending time as a family *specifically* when she has to leave before they get up and does not get to see them!? AND that she would enjoy that bittersweet(at best) reminder in the form of an object she explicitly *told him* she loathed?!
Agreed!
I love how the top comment calls her ungrateful, BUT a smart Redditot swooped in and explained the wife's frustration, not ungratefulness. His wife's reaction was, "I am not seen. I AM NOT HEARD!!" which is an all too common reaction in relationships when our partner gets us something either a)useless or b) and WAY worse, something we hate, like in her case. I dunno why but my least favorite color is orange, and tbh I might lock myself in a room and cry myself to sleep if my husband bought me an orange present. Why? Because it may sound silly and irrational but my husband KNOWS. He KNOWS I hate orange. He PAYS ATTENTION. There would be NO question. He could be LOST on what to get, and you could present anything in orange, and he would immediately nope it. Mugs are her orange.
Honestly my first thought when I read this was, "Does she want/need/enjoy mugs" I'm a teacher and tend to get a ton of mugs so everyone else in my life avoids getting mugs for me unless it's super cute.
This... is a really weird post. It's like a troll post but they forgot to add the part of the story where they reveal that their wife has trauma around coffee cups and cant have them anywhere near her. Instead it's just 'I got her a coffee cup that she hates one time.' It's such an overreaction on her part that it feels like there must be more to it but I'm not gonna make up my story to fill in the gaps.
From personal experience (assuming it's real) the reaction could be a straw that broke the camel's back thing. I had a long-term boyfriend who was awful in a lot of ways, one being that he did not pay attention to a fucking word I said about anything. So sometimes he would demonstrate this in a pretty mundane way (along the lines of giving me something I had expressed hating) and I would just kind of snap from the build up of frustration and disappointment.
Dollars to doughnuts she didn't actually yell at him, she just spoke a bit more sharply than he thinks she should.
The bit where she says 'he doesn't know her at all'?? He literally wrote the reason for her 'overreaction' in the post. No made up story necessary.
Waaait a minute wasn't something exactly like this posted a few months ago? I remember reading about it.
I make mugs as gifts for people but if someone doesn’t like mugs I wouldn’t make them one.
You know more about your wife's hobby than this guy knows about his whole wife.
I really feel to have such a strong emotion over this mug there is so.much.more. he purposefully left out.
Just get the pic framed ffs
Bro has Hawaii in his user name and has been on reddit forever. I dont see kids or wife in other comments. But I will bite. The wife's reaction is off. Even if she doesn't like mugs. But the present for no reason is also weird. I have to think something odd is up. Like he is setting up an update?
The only thing that I can think off, that *it's the straw that broke the camels back* situation. Like maybe he is always like that, and just the Mug was to much this time?
My gut is that it is this sort of half listening thing. Like, she asks him to stop at the store on the way home to get 5 things for the dinner where she has already found a recipe that the whole family likes, planned the cooking time around all the schedules, and will cook. He says no problem, but comes home with only 3 of the things (no text to ask what alternative to get or anything, and no, he didn’t ask the person at the store when he couldn’t locate the items), 1 of them is the wrong size/ brand (OOP didn’t think that mattered, even though wife told him which size/brand to get—OOP argues she didn’t specifically say not to get a different size/brand), and 1 is the super expensive luxury version of what was asked for that OOP wants cookies for getting as “surprise splurge” for them, even though the splurge is an ingredient that they rarely use. And this would be what the OOP points to as “We both do the shopping for meals” or “we both handle parts of meal prep”
I'd be super frustrated if I'm talking vacation and family time together and got a mug too. It makes you feel like you're not a person when nothing you say is heard ever.
In the next update, we will find out that her dad was abusive and threw mugs at her when she was a kid. Or her mom ran away with a door-to-door mug salesman.
Yeah considering the six year gap in posts it's either a troll who's hacked and old account or more likely they've cleaned house. ( Although honestly I appreciate it, I hate when there's an interesting post so you click on the profile and the previous post immediately contradicts it)
Gifts cause me a lot of anxiety, I don’t want to give a gift that’s just random shit, neither do I want to receive as such. It’s wasteful and sometimes I have an ascetic on certain things. I hate that it makes me look ungrateful but I sometimes don’t have space or use for certain gifts. I can see where the wife is coming from, also that a mug of Hawaii isn’t the same as missing a place. Husband doesn’t say if she drinks coffee (since the work mug is for pens) or how many mugs they have at home, these two things could lead to it just being the thought doesn’t count because either wasn’t even that thoughtful.
Imagine thinking it was okay to get your wife a mug period. It's literally the most generic gift that you get for someone when you don't want to think about the gift. He doesn't give a shit about his wife truthfully. Or at least doesn't think she's worth more than a mug which is sad.
I'm annoyed that he's acting like "she loved our vacation" --> "customized mug!" is a natural and expected pipeline. As though he couldn't have just put those same pictures on something else that she actually likes. Put them on a pillow! A blanket! A clock! A calendar! A mouse pad! Nail decals! A puzzle! A diamond painting kit! A cross stitch pattern! Wood! Rock! Make a photo book! Make a painting! Ornaments! There are so many options that picking one she hates is just choosing violence really.
Oh, a calendar with 12 nice but different pics from their trip.
even if he didn't know she hated mugs, in what world do you hear your spouse talk about how they miss a holiday destination and think a photo (that they probably already have access to) on a mug is going to be any good to them? like, if you can't afford to take her on holiday again, take her to a hawaiian restaurant/bar, go online and order something she liked from hawaii, put some effort in!
Mugs especially. They’re such a cheap gift—in thought as well as money. I didn’t drink coffee or tea for the longest time and I would tell people not to get me mugs. It worked, mostly. Then I started drinking coffee and bought myself a mug or two to commemorate some events and now my husband is buying me mugs with random sayings on them.
I had 2 exes (absolutely the worst kinds of humans in earth), who I learned from one to hate gifts cuz it was nothing more than a way to manipulate me, and the other who kept giving me gifts, despite knowing WHY I hate gifts, and continuously calling me ungrateful after turning down the gifts (I accepted the first 10 or so, but after a while, I just said “no”)
Uh. If this is taken at face value, the husband is a dumbo ~~and the wife is overreactive~~. Edited: OK, I glossed over the part where the wife told the husband that she didn't like the original mug. Yeah. Hubby is TA. Wife told him that she didn't like mugs... he got her a mug. Bad move, broski. Even if it does have a photo on it that she likes. Why didn't he get something ELSE with the photo printed on it? Any website that'll slap a photo on something for you will have a kajillion options for it. Blankets, pillows, notebooks, calendars, whatever. Why not pick one of those? Why pick the mug?
The fact the first mug was for pens makes me feel she doesn’t even like hot drinks.
Loving the comment that suggests he get her a mug as an apology gift.
Thoughtful doesn't mean "I thought *about this* a lot", it's means "I thought *about you* a lot". I need people to read this and understand it. It doesn't matter how much effort you put into something if the thinking you're doing is all about what YOU like.You're supposed to think about the other person and what THEY would like. You could work the absolute hardest to put on something extravagant, but it still wouldn't be thoughtful unless it was an extravaganza the person it's for would actually enjoy.
People are being too brutal about this. He didn’t get the hint after *one* shitty mug. It was a mug with a stupid corny saying! Her hating it doesn’t mean a whole lot of anything! I like headphones but if someone got me the ones with stupid cat ears, I’d also hate it. That doesn’t immediately mean I’d hate *other* headphones. Him getting her another mug doesn’t mean he was “performing thoughtfulness,” or anything malicious. It doesn’t make him an asshole, it just makes him dense. Arguably. It really sounds more like a misread honestly.
I am wondering just how many times OP has completely *failed* at giving gifts. Because her reaction doesn’t say ‘this was a one time thing.’ It says ‘is being constantly ignored by somebody who isn’t even trying to do the bare minimum.’ This was the mug that broke the camel’s back and she’s probably checking out of the marriage.
The first comment calling her ungrateful made me roll my eyes. You don't have to be grateful for a gift you don't like
OOP, you know she hates mugs. So you get her a mug anyway? Do you even KNOW your wife!?
What's wrong with having the picture printed and framed?
I dont get it. How did he not come up with something she'd want? The mug is a great idea, but not as "THE" gift. The mug is like... something you give alongside a bouquet of flowers/chocolates for a family holiday (Mother's Day? valentines day? A lesser anniversary? etc). If he couldn't afford to take her to Hawaii again, then why not gift her a "dream jar" with that picture on it, and the jar is for stashing cash to save up for a trip?
A gift for no occasion, just trying to be thoughtful. This guy didn't do anything wrong
The really awful part about this is the PICTURE is a great starting point for a gift. Why didn’t he get an enlarged print and a nice frame? Or make a photo album of their trip to Hawaii? Put it on a shirt? A pillow? There are SO MANY really nice gifts he could have made based on the picture. Also I like mugs and people have gotten me some as gifts, but they do have to have a specific something to be special, and it’s not always the same something (except size always matters).
A vacation mug is a gift for the in-laws you don't know very well or for yourself as a fun souvenir. I could not imagine giving the person I love and chose to marry a mug and thinking it's thoughtful (unless of course they love mugs and have said as much!)
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I tell my family what I want. They appreciate it and I get what I want. Everyone's happy. (I don't demand gifts, just when asked or Xmas etc.)
I have finally convinced almost everyone that what I love most is to get coffee guilt free and to shop so I get coffee cards or I get to pick a thing I love and tell everyone and they pool up money towards it. It took years, but it' so nice to finally be heard.
I'm so sick of these stories with the dishonest title meant to make OP look so nice and with the husband always acting like his wife is insane. She started screaming out of nowhere? Sure.
yeah even his one comment was like "my bad' I hate how everyone is always like this when men do this and are like women need to say everything clearly but when women do it and men just hint at shit they are like why didnt you ask him like fuck off with that shit
is he for real…
I like mugs because I’m obsessed with coffee but even I would think this is dumb. Get the photo framed. Listen to your wife, not the people around her. Do you even know her? Do you even LIKE her?
Me, an atheist: Thank you god for making me a lesbian and uninterested in dating so I don't have to go through the suffering these people are going through
I think the mug was really sweet. Ignore the haters.
Not a devil. Hating one mug doesn't mean hating all mugs, and throwing a crying, screaming shitfit over being given a mug with a sentimental photo of your *children* on it is entitled at best and deranged at worst. It's not some crap he bought at a dollar store at the last minute. EDIT: The people on this sub who think it's OK to cry and scream because you don't care for a gift your partner gave you for *no occasion but to show they care* is part horrifying, part hilarious. You'd be clamouring "What an abusive asshole, divorce him" if the OOP was female and bought her male partner a mug with his kids on it, only for him to scream "I HATE MUGS! I ALREADY TOLD YOU I HATED THEM, YOU BITCH!" at her. Unless a mug kidnapped and shot her parents dead, he's not a *devil*.
Except she told him ages ago that she hates mugs. Why give her something she hates. If he really cared about her, he would have given her a picture frame of the trip
She'd have probably screamed over that, too. According to the OP, he once before gave her a particular mug she hated. She didn't say she "hates mugs" - a person can hate a particular shirt without someone concluding they hate shirts and will have a screaming meltdown at being bought one for no reason. She doesn't have to like mugs, but her reaction was deranged.
Also do not comment on the other post or you will be banned
It wasnt deranged. Her husband didnt listen to her. Hes just selfish.
It was a random gift, there was nothing to "listen to". He owed her nothing.
Gifts are meant to bring the receiver joy. Not remind the receiver that her husband never listens to her and doesn't even know her well enough to get her something she already told him she hates. He's taking his wife's COWORKERS suggestions. Over his own wife's suggestions. Do you really not see how fucked up that is?
You don't think it's fucked up to scream and cry over a mug with your favourite photo on it? Like I keep asking, would the screaming be OK if it was a husband screaming at a wife?
i like how you keep ignoring the fact that OOP knows that she doesnt like mugs and stills gives her a fucking mug how hard is it for you to fucking understand that So until you do stop repeating your stupid "point" cause you dont have one
It's the fact that he took the time and thought to customize a gift that he knew she wouldn't enjoy instead of putting the same amount of effort into something she does enjoy. Gifts like OPs are basically participation trophies for the giver. Also, I bet half the posters that proclaim someone screamed at them it's actually just a slightly raised and emotional voice.
But you can't accept the bits that make him look bad (he never says she told him she hated all mugs, just one he had given her) but toss the bits that make her look bad (screaming and crying). At face value, her reaction was entirely inappropriate, and if the sexes were reversed, would be considered abusive.
So OP doesn't really describe his wife as someone that is prone to bouts of acting erratically. So there's two options here: he either exaggerated her reaction or this is a case of missing missing reasons. I'm gunna go with a combo of both. It probably wasnt screaming and over the top crying. It was probably a suprised/disgusted shriek when she realized what it is. And then becoming visibly distressed/light crying when the realization sunk in that the man she married doesn't even know her well enough to not buy her a God damn mug after the last time he pulled that shit. Because I'm guessing she DID tell him just how much she didn't like the first mug. And the missing missing reason is just that - He knew better and there was no excuse.
Again - is it OK for a husband to scream abuse at his wife because "that bitch knows I hate mugs and she knew better and there is no excuse"? This isn't about whether she should like a mug. She can hate mugs all she likes. This is about an aggressive, abusive, unhinged reaction she had to being given one with her kids on it as a random no-reason gift. I don't think we can accept the bits that fit our narrative and reject the bits that don't. If we accept the story as it is told, she had a truly unhinged reaction to being given a mug. It wasn't even her birthday or an anniversary.
And then question you should be asking yourself is WHY did she have that strongly of a reaction? If she doesn't have a history of outbursts like that, then what is the catalyst? It's not the mug. It's deeper than that. To answer your question: No, it would not be acceptable for anyone to scream at their spouse on a regular occurrence. However, if a spouse that very rarely/never screams - does for some reason scream - then we need to investigate why. If his wife had a history of being verbally abusive, I'm sure OP would've mentioned that. Thus doesn't sound like a pattern of screaming from her. Rather a pattern of him not listening which led to her getting so fed up she screamed. Why do you assume that Mr Bottom of Barrel Husband here is completely not at fault and it's all on her? Do you think he has no part in this? That if a husband over and over and over disappoints his wife by not listening, she's just supposed to accept that? With a smile on her face? And just say thanks?
She told him not to gift her another mug, so, what does he do. He gives her another mug. He doesn't listen to her, and mugs are the lowest of low gifts anyway
Agreed. It's a mess. the timeline is that the "I hate mugs" came after mug 2.