Marriage and Money: Why Gift Giving Stopped

On this 19th Valentines Day with my wife (including those while we dated), I decided to buy my wife a gift for the first time in almost nine years. (Shhh… don’t tell her as I haven’t given it to her yet.) It wasn’t because I didn’t want to but because we completely stopped giving gifts to each other almost nine years ago. And not just for Valentines Day but for all occasions. Birthdays? Nope. Anniversary? Nope. Chanukah? Nope.

For a few years, we gave excuses to why the gift giving stopped. “I don’t need anything.” “Our kids need gifts more than we do.” “I buy the items that I want when I want them.” “These holidays aren’t for us anymore, they are about our kids, parents, etc.” “Valentines Day isn’t important so why give gifts.”

This doesn’t mean we didn’t do other things for each other. Going out to dinner, cleaning the kitchen, and going on a date night. Gift giving just wasn’t on the table.

The deeper underlying issue for the last six or seven years is that we just didn’t want to spend the money. At first it was because we fought about the amount of money we were spending on each other. There were times that one of us spent “too much” or the other person spent “more” so it wasn’t fair. Then it became, do we spend a little money to give our kids something which meant there wasn’t very much money for us to buy each other gifts. Finally, over the last few years we began cutting back on gifts altogether because we wanted to “live like no one else” and pay off debt.

As this all took place, I think that we began to hold the non-gift giving as a standard that we had to uphold. But was it beginning to take a toll on our relationship? Were we starting to take for granted that we didn’t do something special for each other? How were we showing appreciation for each other either for holidays or just random times?

Looking back at our almost 20 year relationship, I fondly remember the gifts that we gave each other in high school (yes… we started dating in high school) and beyond. From the gifts that we gave when we asked each other to a dance (stuffed animals, pictures, scrapbooks), the first time I bought her roses (her grandfather called me bud after “rosebud”), to the tallis (shawl) that she bought me for our wedding weekend. These were all gifts that held a memory to me. They showed that we loved and valued each other. Looking back at the last nine years, I wonder if we lost memory making by not giving each other gifts.

And then something changed this last December. It was our Birthday week (December 23 and December 27) and Chanukah and for some reason, we both decided that we wanted to exchange gifts for the first time in a long time. We both came up with thoughtful gifts and while the exchange of them was nothing special (the items weren’t exactly wrapped), there was something special about giving gifts to each other again.

I am not sure if it is because we have gained some financial freedom and feel we have money to use for gifts again or if our relationship has just matured enough to realize that we have to continue showing love and support for one another. (Whether through gift giving or not.) I have learned that we cannot take each other for granted and even a small gift can go a long way in a relationship.

While I wouldn’t recommend not giving gifts for a long period of time, you may choose that a few years of sacrifice to have better financial ground may set it up so that you can “give like no one else later.” I know that is what it feels like for us now that we paid off so much debt. Gift giving now will be so much greater because money is no longer a factor in our decisions to show each other our love and appreciation.