Husband Tells Wife That Next Christmas She Should Just 'Take Her Clothes Off' Instead Of Getting Him A Gift
It's not always better to give than to receive.
Olia Danilevich and Rodnae Productions / Pexels. Christmas is a time for giving and receiving, but one woman’s gifts were unappreciated by her husband, who had a rather crude suggestion on how she could remedy her gift-giving for the next holiday season.
The woman wrote about her Christmas debacle on the Reddit thread r/TrueOffMyChest, a forum for people to air out their grievances online.
She posted that always buys her husband "a few gifts" for Christmas, even though he doesn’t love gifts.
Yet when she gave him the Christmas gifts, he told her that she shouldn’t have bought him anything, saying “I would have preferred sex” instead of shoes and cologne.
He continued on, saying 'I can buy myself what I want. Next year just take your clothes off.'
The woman reported feeling self-conscious and nodded in agreement.
“He has the right to tell me how he feels but it was like a dagger in my heart,” she stated. “I don’t know why it hurt but it did.”
Her post received over a thousand comments in response, ranging from dismissive of her feelings to supportive of her situation.
Some users thought her husband was trying to be romantic, yet the meaning got lost in awkward communication.
One person commented that “it sounds like he tried to be sweet and say that he valued [her] more than a material gift, but it definitely comes off like he may not care about the thought or sentiment” that she put into choosing his gifts.
Another user echoed this thought, writing that it “seems like he was saying that having you and being intimate with you is what he wants. Not material things.”
“Perhaps in a rather inept way what your husband was trying to say is he considers the sexual relationship he has with you as the most perfect gift he can receive,” explained someone else.
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Other users took a harsher view of the husband’s comment.
“He’s treating your body like a commodity… that’s why it feels awful,” noted one person.
Another user wrote that “he disregarded your gifts, like the time you spent getting them and thinking of what he would like, and he said that sex with you is preferable to gifts, like that's the only thing you have to offer, the only thing you're good for.”
Yet another commenter thought that his request for Christmas sex was “tacky, rude and thoughtless, like he sees you as a piece of meat or a prostitute and not his wife.”
Various users weighed in on the debate, noting that “sex is not transactional. It is not a gift from one to another but a mutually beneficial act and an expression of emotional love. Both should consent and act, yet one should not feel the act is a gift or restriction.”
“Sex should be a shared experience of intimacy and pleasure. Not a thing you give him, out of duty or a desire to please,” wrote one person.
Many users encouraged her to talk to her husband honestly and tell him how he made her feel.
It’s “worth communicating more about what you want and need from each other and what makes both of you feel good!” said one user.
Even more than gifts and sex, communication is key in a healthy relationship, a truism the majority of Reddit commenters agreed upon.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers celebrity gossip, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.