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Our listener doesn’t know what to do. His girlfriend broke up with him after he spent THOUSANDS of dollars on her Christmas gifts. Should he get the gifts back or give her space?
Here’s his email:
Hi Bert Show,
Hope your new year is off to a great start (and better than mine).
I always love your perspective and would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on my recently ended relationship. My girlfriend broke up with me on the 30th…The night before New Year’s Eve and just a few days after Christmas. We started dating last spring after meeting on Instagram through some mutual friends. Things were great when we first met. We seemed to enjoy doing a lot of the same things and eating at a lot of the same restaurants. We also had some mutual friends. It seemed like we had great chemistry and a lot in common. Although, I have to admit…looks wise, she’s definitely in a different league. I joked about it several times and she’d always say that wasn’t true or that nobody ever made her laugh or feel secure like I did. Over the summer I had some schedule flexibility with work and we traveled quite a bit she seemed super happy with the relationship. We went to New York. we went to Vegas. We had several weekend beach trips and went to the Caribbean. She doesn’t make a whole lot of money so I paid for almost all of it and at the time, I didn’t mind.
When the fall rolled around, my work schedule got crazy and the trips and leisure time seemed to come to a complete stop. She seemed irritable more often with me and would complain because she “never saw me” or “we didn’t spend any time together”. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to commit any time to trips or weekend get aways but we did decide to make at least 2 nights a week a date night. One night a week, I planned the date and one night a week she did. Her plans always involved a pricey restaurant or activity and of course, I always paid for it. It was never an issue or something that bothered me because I have the money and can afford it but I also know that she can’t. But in hindsight, I’m starting to wonder…
So, things did seem to get slightly better with the time we spent together thanks to our 2 weekly dates but she still didn’t seem entirely happy. The holiday season gets here and I start doing my Christmas shopping for her. I also started noticing that she seems to be dropping hints about things that would make great gifts. She mentioned a pair of designer shoes she loved. She pointed out her favorite jeans that no longer fit. There was a hand bag she always dreamed of having. She even posted a few “gift guides” from her favorite influencers in her stories for “any of her guy followers that still needed gift ideas for their ladies.”
At first I assumed she was dropping lots of hints to make it easy on me to shop for her. I took the bait and I bought every single thing. I easily spent a few thousand dollars on Christmas for her. She opened her gifts on Christmas and seemed thrilled. She was also very apologetic that she wasn’t able to get me much. Of course, I know her finances so it didn’t bother me. I was just glad she seemed happy.
Then, a few days later, what seemed like out of the blue, she sends me a text saying that she had been thinking a lot about us and she felt that we both needed a clean start for the new year. She said she wanted to focus on her self and figure out what she wants to do with her life. She said she wasn’t sure if it was a permanent break up but that she needed time to think. I felt totally blind sided. I really loved her and wanted nothing more than to make her happy.
However, if she knew this is where her head was at, why drop hints for so many expensive gifts? Was she waiting to break up with me until after she got all these gifts? Do I have the right to ask for them back? Was she only happy when she was getting free trips and expensive gifts? Or am I overthinking it all and should I just give her some space?
