My husband and I are celebrating our 10 year anniversary this week. Neither of us care about receiving gifts and we typically like to celebrate things with a shared trip, nice meal, etc. We’re fortunate enough to buy things we want for ourselves and we aren’t very materialistic.
Sometimes he’ll surprise me with something after we’ve already agreed on no gifts. I find this incredibly frustrating and uneven. If I knew he were getting me something, I’d want to have something for him in return.
We sat down for a serious talk about this big anniversary and I asked him if we were exchanging gifts. He said he wants nothing and I said I also want nothing (as usual). But I made him swear to me that he wouldn’t surprise me with anything. He agreed.
Tonight he was being weird about word choice and I could tell evasive about having something for me. He finally admitted he arranged for flowers to be delivered.
I’m pissed for several reasons. I have nothing for him which now feels wrong. Also for 10 years I’ve been telling him I genuinely don’t like flowers - they feel like a job, something extra to care for, they’re in the way, annoying to clean up. I told him all of this again tonight. He says it’s about the gesture and now he’s hurt that I reacted so negatively about the flowers.
AITA for refusing these flowers and being “ungrateful” when I very explicitly never wanted them in the first place?
EDIT: I should have also specified that when he sends me flowers it’s a $200+ arrangement and not $12 grocery store flowers
EDIT 2: I’m not trying to brag about the cost, that’s actually one of the parts that makes me so upset about the unwanted gift - it’s quite literally throwing away a lot of money