"My wedding present to my wife was a lovely new kitchen"

zagfles

Andypandyboy wrote: »

What does that actually mean though? Are all your accounts joint and able to be accessed by both parties independently? If not, I wouldn't consider that a "technicality":D

Some accounts can't be joint, eg ISAs, pensions, sometimes it's better to have single accounts as you can get two instead of one, eg regular savers. We have a main joint account and several joint credit cards as well. But whatever the technical status of the accounts, we consider all our finances joint.

Frankly I don't understand married couples who do otherwise. If you don't trust your spouse completely and don't want to share everything you have with them why did you marry them?

wishuponastar

It was said in this thread something along the lines of a gift is something that can be taken by the person whom it was intended for, but I would say that gifts can be anything, material or non material which can include time, experiences etc. Gifts in the latter form can be shared by both and actually I personally prefer those types of gifts to the types that may be stereotypically better i.e. expensive or perfumes etc. As I personally feel the gifts such as time and experiences shared etc are more valuable than the gifts that are stereotypically better i.e. perfumes, expensive handbags etc. Someone who thinks or believes that material worth is more valuable would choose not to believe that.

Regarding the kitchen I don't think there is anything wrong with the OP buying his wife that, especially if that was what she wanted. I don't think he needed to buy a wedding present for his wife or vice versa but they obviously decided they wanted to do that, which was their decision.

Jagraf

Oh a new kitchen would be a joy. I don't equate kitchens to women any more than I equate cars to men. Men and women use both. Maybe the word surprise rather than present would stop the embers of inequality from igniting (something I don't feel affects me as s female anyway).

So go hubby ..... Buy me a kitchen, an aga, a new set of bed linen, a washing machine and tumble dryer, a smeg fridge and I promise I will try to hide my feelings of inferiority ��

PS I'm happy to be wined and dined, continue to have the car door opened for me, and for you to go to the bar if we are out.

pollypenny

This reminds me of a time, years ago when we were hard up, but OH still wanted to go on holiday to France, when we could hardly afford the ferry.

A woman, friend of a friend, called me 'ungrateful' for not appreciating my thoughtful husband taking me on holiday!

Getting us into debt more like!

Dill

I'd love a new sewing machine but can imagine some people on here would imagine it to be a very sexist present for a man to give a woman.

Lambyr

I dunno if this is that bad a present cos we don't really know much about the situation.

Some people enjoy cooking, and maybe his wife does? Or maybe she does the cooking cos it's more convenient, or she's just better at it and he's tried to give her the "perfect" kitchen in which to do it? Maybe this new kitchen has extra counter space/better arrangements so she can have a few luxury items like a fancy coffee maker or something like that?

I'd love a fancy coffee maker, and a breadmaker, and a few other things. But we have next to no space for such things available due to the layout. Got bought a toasted sandwich maker a while back and I'd love to use it more but I have to keep packing it away after every use cos otherwise there's no space left for plates and things, so I hardly ever use it really.

It'd be possible, if I could afford it, to get a new kitchen and maximise space usage so I could have a few little luxuries like that so daft as it sounds, I'd actually love a new kitchen as a present if it fixed my quibbles with my current one.

Person_one

Lambyr wrote: »

I dunno if this is that bad a present cos we don't really know much about the situation.

Some people enjoy cooking, and maybe his wife does?

I don't understand at all how it can possibly be viewed as a present. It just does not compute for me that a whole room of a house, that both people live in , that both use, that both benefit from, can possibly be a gift from one to the other.

Even if she does most of the cooking and loves it, even if she cares a great deal about the kitchen design and layout and he doesn't, its still a room in their shared home.

I'm genuinely baffled at the concept.

Lambyr

Well calling it a "kitchen" is just a shorthand way of putting all the contents of that kitchen into one category. He's not gifting her the actual room, but the contents of it.

We don't know what is in there. Maybe the kitchen does contain appliances or things that are purely for her benefit? Maybe she's a huge pizza lover, he's not, but she now has her own built-in stone pizza oven? That is pretty unlikely but you never know!

But it could just as easily be something really simple like decor or whatever. Yeah, okay, he still gets the benefit of the actual kitchen but she could easily be the only one who enjoys whatever aesthetic design the room now has.

If the room *needed* an update because cupboards were unsafe, the cooker was catching fire and the fridge was starting to sound like a shrieking badger then, yeah, it's not really a present.

If it was actually still perfectly usable and functional, but to make his wife happy he had it turned into her vision for a perfect kitchen (and of course assuming he isn't after something in return, like the opportunity to convert the garage into a media room), then that sounds like a present to me. Might not be the most romantic present, but it would be something he did for his wife's benefit above his to make her happier.

Person_one

Honestly, it makes as much sense to me as a husband giving his wife a bottle of milk as a gift, and then both of them having it in their tea.

Letting her pick the decor/fittings if she cared about them is a nice thing to do but it doesn't make it a gift, its still a functional room in their shared house.

Lambyr

Fair enough.

I don't subscribe to the view that a gift cannot be enjoyed by both the recipient and the giver. Some of the best gifts I've received are things I'm able to share with others. My mum gives me the same thing every year for my birthday, and she always get to use it too. Keeps us close.