Woman's BF uses her birthday to gift her 'dream dress' to his mother. 'I needed to humble you.' AITA? UPDATED
"AITA? My boyfriend gave his mother the dress I wanted for my birthday."
I (23) female have been dating my boyfriend,(26) male for the past 3 years. About 2 months ago while we were out shopping I saw this really gorgeous amazing dress that was just PERFECT for me, and in my favorite color. He looked at the dress and said it was beautiful, but it was rather expensive ($200) so we didn't end up getting it.
For weeks after this I would constantly talk about the dress to him and how I couldn't stop thinking about how beautiful it was and hope one day I could save to buy it since we've been budgeting a bit lately. He would hear about this dress from me all the time and talked about how great he thought it would look on me.
So yesterday was my birthday and we had a little get together with some members of both of our families to celebrate, except when his mother arrived to our house she was wearing the exact dress in the exact color. I was stunned.
I thought that he must have told her about it and she went and got one but it turns out that wasn't the case. In my surprise I said OMG theres no way!! thats the same dress I was looking and and dying for for months and she replied saying "Oh really? Zayne (my boyfriend) gave it to me as a gift last month".
I was shocked, and confused. Even more so when boyfriend gave me the birthday gift he got me, and it was a gift card for Sephora for $50. For the rest of the night, I sat quietly in a corner in silence and confusion.
I felt hurt, and was lost in my head as to what was going on. My boyfriend and everyone was blissfully unaware and happy the entire night and I didn't want to ruin the mood so I started to try to put on a good face, but I can't shake this feeling of being hurt.
A part of me feels like I am overreacting and acting spoiled and entitled.
Am I? I just need to know if I need to calm down and not be upset about this.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Babe - there is no way a 26yr old man is this oblivious. He is treating you like dirt. It’s not about the dollar value of your birthday present, it’s that it was just a gift card with ZERO thought.
Then for him to KNOW how much you’ve been banging on about this dress and to randomly buy it for his MOTHER is beyond strange. You are 23. Just quietly end the relationship. You don’t even need to cite this as the reason (he and his mama will gaslight you anyway!) Just say you don’t feel the same and are ending it. Don’t say more.
ProfessionalEye9680 (OP)
I had the thought of "is this worthy of a breakup" after this, but I always have a habit of doubting my feelings as being valid. I spent most of the night thinking i was being a brat about it, so thank you for the kind words and encouragement!
Its actually so odd that you talked about this dress so much and he went out of his way to buy it for his MOM? I genuinely can't even imagine a good excuse for this lol. I would be so weirded out, also i'd feel like I had been with a sociopath or something because thats an insane lack of empathy or understanding on his part.
ProfessionalEye9680 (OP)
What is even more odd is this, the shopping area we saw the dress at is a good distance from our home and the dress is not his mothers taste at all. So this means sometime after the fact of us being there, he drove all the way back there and for some reason bought the specific dress i wanted and gave it to his mother for no reason as it wasn't her birthday nor any special occasion for her.
According to her he just randomly said i have something for u mom, and he brought the dress over to her house. She didn't know any of the other details about that being a dress i wanted.
Sounds like he did it on purpose. He probably knows you have good taste and used that to get a present for his mom. Was it for anything or just a gift out of nowhere? He had to know you’d see her wearing it! What was he thinking?? Sounds like he wasn’t, to be honest.
Sounds like he’s a mommas boy and didn’t put in any effort for your gift. I’d be LIVID, don’t put up with this BS girl, you deserve better. If you want to talk it out with him, do that and see what he says, but idk it doesn’t seem worth it to me. But if you do, mention how it was obvious that you wanted that dress and how hurtful it was that he gifted it to his mom and not you when he knew you loved that dress.
ProfessionalEye9680 (OP)
A part of me also had this thought, was this intentional and planned? then i thought i was being paranoid and they would never do that, but then thinking more i then thought it had to be done on purpose. my heads in circles trying to piece it together.
I would be upset too. It's ok that he gets his mother a present more expensive than yours but buying the thing you wanted so much for his mom? And letting her wear it at your birthday? That's either stupid or really mean.
The OP then returned with a short update.
I finally got the nerve to straight up ask him about everything and his response was that he thought I had to be humbled a bit because I got way too overly excited about something as trivial as a dress.
He thought it would be fun to see my reaction to it all. His mother had no idea about any of this and just thought her son was giving her a gift. I am so upset and hurt that I just called my mom to come get me and will be staying with her for a few days while I figure out the next steps, but I am not going back to him.