She (25F) is the nicest, most thoughtful, most genuine woman I’ve (29M) ever been with. We’ve been together only 3.5 months, but it feels like we’ve known each other for much longer. I tell her I love her all the time, and she does the same. The “problem” is, she often goes out of her way to buy me gifts and pick-me-ups and will drive to my apartment or workplace, regardless of how inconvenient for her it is, to drop them off. By itself, each occurrence is not a lot. But, she is in-between career moves, she’s juggling several different things right now, and she’s literally living paycheck to paycheck. She doesn’t have the money nor the time, and yet if I am stressed at work, or sick, or feeling down, she will immediately make it her mission to go get me “care package” sort of things and even a card. We live and work at least 20 minutes from each other, too. This has happened probably 8 times in 3 months. The other thing is she suffers from a severe lack of positive self-image and self-confidence. She is insecure mostly due to being raised by an overly critical, mean, unsupportive, absent father. I am afraid that her desire to behave this way is rooted in a fear or a need to “earn” me. I’ve told her I’m not upset, and I’m not, and I love that she is so thoughtful and giving, but I absolutely don’t want to passively “take advantage” of her thoughtfulness. I don’t want her to exert herself unnecessarily while I just benefit from getting free stuff and food. But maybe I’m the problem? Maybe I’m just not used to this kind of treatment? I just don’t know where the line is between letting someone do nice things for you, and taking advantage of someone’s kindness even when they are unaware of it. So I am stuck between trying to get her to lessen the frequency of gift giving, or normalizing this level of treatment for myself.
TLDR; Girlfriend likes to go out of her way to give me gifts, and I feel guilty for exploiting her kindness, but I don’t know if the gift giving is actually the problem or if I just am not used to it.
8 comments
I would be worried about this making you uncomfortable and also making you feel like she can’t be trusted to be someone you talk to about your life, because you talking to her leads to her giving you gifts. I would be inclined to insist she limit her gift giving to a frequency you can be comfortable with.
>She is insecure mostly due to being raised by an overly critical, mean, unsupportive, absent father.
It’s really, really tough to shed a long-term bad experience like that.
Maybe suggest that the gift you most want is that of spending time with her?
I can think of a couple different reasons why she would do this but none of them are good nor healthy. As you said it seems like this is an activity that would burn her out. It also seems like she is trying to use this as a way to buy your love and to justify her worth and the relationship. I wouldn’t be surprised also if she is doing all of this to try to buy love from you *for her* except that this is a tremendous amount of work for her to receive a little bit of love in return.
I would sit her down and talk to her about how you appreciate these things but you are concerned that she is burning herself out. Talk to her about how a relationship is like a bank balance and she is withdrawing a lot of her energy from the bank balance in order to give you a little gift back and it is lowering the bank balance long-term. It is burning herself out. She is setting herself on fire just to keep you warm. Perhaps you can suggest some Alternatives like sending you and Uber Eats with a sandwich or something or sending you $10 through zelle to buy something at the gas station.
Ultimately what she needs is to get herself into some therapy so she can start to work on her self-esteem issues and her self-destructiveness.
This is unhealthy and it’s coming from a place of anxious attachment or past trauma issues she needs to sort out with a therapist.
She needs to not do this while she’s between jobs and use that time and money for herself and making herself healthy. She’s trying to prove she is worthy of love and needs to feel safe and secure but doesn’t know how.
It sounds like her love language is gifts. In other words, her giving you gifts is her way of expressing how much she loves you. You definitely have to acknowledge this if you ever bring it up to her. Telling her not to get you gifts would be like telling her not to say I love you or touch you; We need to be able to also express our love.
If you concern is that the gift giving is negatively impacting her. Try to meet her halfway. Giver her cheap gift ideas (i.e. “oh I love getting coffee some mornings”) or make it more convenient for her to give them to you.
How are you taking advantage.m? You are simply telling her about you and your day, unless you ask her to get you something or go out of your way to tell her you feel bad knowing she’ll buy you something, you’re perfectly fine. She probably likes gifting you.
She really loves you and is expressing it. Try doing the love language test together to get a better understanding 🙂
I’m a lot like your girlfriend is with the gift giving and have a similar background to her.
I can tell you from my experience that going out of my way to help people or giving gifts definitely has to do with my past. Also, that I would do that to “earn” affection from people. Having grown up in a very “transactional” household makes you believe people will only care about you and want to be in your life if they’re receiving something in return.
If you’re uncomfortable, and if you really know her doing this is causing issues for her, you should tell her how you feel. I would say something about how you appreciate everything she does, but she doesn’t need to buy you anything for you to continue to see her.