Rats, GEL, his not being willing to go to the party with you even for a little while is kind of aggravating...
I wanted to say something about gift-giving as an LL. This is NOT to discount your annoyance with your H seeming to want to "buy you off." I think your instincts are right on there. When gift-giving is a true expression of love, it feels different-- it feels like you are being loved with this gift. What he's doing obviously does not feel that way to you, and rightly so.
For me, as a gift-giver, being able to find some object, song, book, special food, etc., that someone else really likes or wants, and to deliver it to them and watch their face light up... and they look at you with shining eyes and say, "How did you KNOW that this is what I wanted?"-- it's a very sweet experience. For the dyed-in-the-wool GG, you don't just run to the Mall and grab the thing that's on sale. You listen throughout the year to what they seem to long for, especially if it's something they want and won't get for themselves. Then you buy it in secret and wait for the right moment... or you're out together and they see it and you've been planning this and you buy it for them. When my bf spontaneously bought me a beautiful necklace when we were at the Undefended Love workshop was really special and meant a lot. It's a way of saying, "I see into your heart, and I want to bring you your heart's desire."
When I post book idea on this board and people tell me that the book was meaningful to them, I get the GG's buzz from that.
Gift giving can make the giver very vulnerable when they've put a lot of thought into the gift and feel they've found a special doorway into the other person's soul-- and then the other person slams the door shut. Being rejected sexually is certainly a case of an offered gift being turned down.
Although I LOVE presents myself, I personally feel slighted and ungrateful when someone just buys any old thing without giving it some thought. My late husband's cousin used to buy both of us the-- frankly-- STUPIDEST presents! One time she bought us big fuzzy slippers, the kind where the slipper is a bear's head or a dog's head or something. My husband only had ONE LEG! He never took his outdoor shoe off his prosthesis. It was just too much trouble. Who would give a one-legged man a pair of fuzzy, hard-to-walk-in slippers for a present!!
Okay... got that out of my system. Returning this thread to the GEL in progress...
