Her Boyfriend Constantly Buys His Mom And Sister Lavish Gifts, But She’s Upset That He Never Does This For Her

A 30-year-old woman has a boyfriend who is the same age as she is, and they’ve been dating for around 5 years.

They have chatted about what their future together would look like, but they haven’t made any concrete plans around that.

The largest problem in their relationship is that for every single holiday, birthday, and special occasion, she winds up wildly disappointed.

“The conflict comes from my boyfriend loving to give big gifts,” she explained. “Which is really generous, except that the way in which he showers his mom and sister (married) with them makes me feel lesser.”

“Yes, I get nice gifts too and I’m very grateful and accepting.”

“But the discomfort arises when, every time, his mom and sister get equal, if not much greater (eg. diamonds, designer bags), gifts from him than I do.”

“Also, on occasions when they’re given a budget, they consistently exceed the budget by a healthy amount. All fine, he doesn’t care.”

“But he outright refused for me to do the same when I meekly asked once. It didn’t feel great. And vacations are similar – equal or greater spending on vacations with them vs me.”

She does think that she has some self-worth and jealousy problems, which are leading her to feel like she’s less important than her boyfriend’s mom and sister are to him.

Kalim – stock.adobe.com

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She understands her boyfriend can spend his money however he likes and that every family has its own set of dynamics, but telling herself this doesn’t make her feel better about the situation.

She always is left feeling like she’s not special or that her boyfriend doesn’t value her at all. She has brought up these issues to her boyfriend before, but he won’t change his gift-giving.

Her boyfriend has mentioned that he does not want her to feel the way that she does, but how can that change when he won’t?

“He’s taken one small action by trying to get me items in categories that he’s previously gotten them when my occasions come around, but that feels transactional,” she said. “It’s like gifting them gives him joy, but not me.”

“I’ve tried suggesting ideas that wouldn’t involve him “restricting” his spending on them. But “he’s not that type of guy to go out and get his girlfriend x just because he got his sister y.”

She has no idea what to do and how to move forward.

How would you handle this?

You can read the original post on Reddit here.

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