It was my birthday and my now-husband and I had been dating for about three months. When he got to my house, he wished me a happy birthday, then he apologized, “I’m sorry I didn’t get you a gift.”
At the time, I was 31, had a good job, and could buy whatever I fancied, within reason. I couldn’t come up with any material thing that I even wanted. “Don’t be sorry,” I told him, “It’s a good thing. No obligatory gift giving.” “No obligatory gift giving,” he echoed.
And the precedent was set.
We don’t wait for holidays to do nice things for each other
In the three months we had been dating, leading up to my birthday, my boyfriend had brought me numerous loaves of homemade bread; it was the pandemic after all. He had come to my house with jars of freshly made pesto, and he had made me or bought me dinner more times than I could keep track of.
If my husband has a love language, it’s definitely food. All of those nice things he did weren’t because there was a day marked on the calendar. He just did them because he wanted to.
In the six years that we’ve been together, we’ve only exchanged a handful of material gifts, none of which coincided with a holiday or a birthday. On one occasion, he went to Macy’s to pick up a travel potty for our toddler. When he came back, he surprised me with diamond earrings. His reasoning? He just wanted to.
When my husband’s parental leave ended, I wanted to do something special to commemorate how attentive and involved a father he is. Hallmark doesn’t have a card for “dad going back to the workforce after parental leave.” My husband dresses up for work, including a suit, tie, and cufflinks. I ordered him a custom pair of map cufflinks with his hometown on one cufflink and the city where our son was born on the other, so he would have something to remind him of our son at work. He wears those cufflinks on heavy rotation.
We value experiences over material possessions
Our rationale for resisting material objects is part practical, part philosophical. From a practical standpoint, our family of three lives in a one-bedroom apartment, and space is at a premium. When we first moved in together, we had to consolidate two one-bedroom apartments into one, which required both of us to pare down our belongings. Since then, we’ve adopted a one-in, one-out policy for anything that’s not consumable. Philosophically, we resist the idea of centering our acknowledgment and appreciation of each other around holidays that, in our view, emphasize consumerism rather than relationships.
Instead of giving presents on our birthdays, we’ll usually plan a trip around that time. We share expenses for the trip and plan it together because it’s about making time to spend together, not who is paying for it. One year around my husband’s birthday, we went to Mexico. He loves ancient civilizations, so we took a road trip to explore Mayan ruins. Another year around my birthday, we went to Spain. I love seeing castles and walled cities, so we planned a road trip around Madrid seeking out small towns with those features. My husband even booked a stay in a castle, which was unforgettable.
Courtesy of Renate Flanagan.
We make a point to perform gestures to show we care about each other, but we don’t need a holiday to tell us to do it. As a couple, we’ve committed to having monthly date nights, alternating who plans each one. The person whose turn it is that month to plan date night picks the restaurant and pays for the dinner and the babysitter. Setting the intention to have a monthly date night ensures that we have consistent time as a couple, but doesn’t put the pressure around a specific date, like a holiday does.
I’m glad we came to our non-obligatory gift-giving arrangement early on in our relationship and that it’s something that we’re both happy about. Now, when I look back on the years that we’ve been together, we have lots of memories and pictures instead of haphazardly purchased trinkets.
