Our engagement should have been a clue. At my husband's request, I helped pick out the ring because he worried he'd get something I'd hate and either resent it or refuse him. Together we picked out a ring, he paid for it, then it was sized and it was sent to our apartment. So for me the surprise wasn't the proposal, but that he expected me to open the Fed Ex box myself and put the ring on my finger, all while he was at work. That's when I refused. He stepped up and bent down, giving me the traditional bended knee proposal that I wanted.
For Mother's Day this year he gave me a card and said with great excitement that my gift would be a new iPhone when it was released this summer. His face quickly deflated when I weakly responded with "oh...good." I wanted the new iPhone, so it wasn't that, it was more that I doubted there would be any follow through on his part. When he pushed for why I didn't share his enthusiasm, I asked him about my Mother's Day gift from the year before. "What did I get you?" he said. "You promised to paint both the bathrooms," I explained, which needless to say have not been painted. He laughed and said he forgot, but I wanted to know would this gift go the same way?
Two months after Mother's Day, new iPhone time has finally arrived. Oddly enough our home phone line went down the same day and when I called my husband at work for suggestions on how to handle it, he wasn't at his desk. I immediately got excited, thinking that he was out buying me my new phone. In fact, I could not find my cell phone this week and I thought maybe he was hiding it in order to get the SIM card or whatever else is needed when changing phones. Wishful thinking: my phone was in a different purse and my husband was in a meeting. He was surprised when I told him I thought he was out buying my phone. "We hadn't talked about it, so I assumed you'd go get it," he said as I imagined the chaos of taking two small kids into the Apple Store on what has got to be one of the busiest days. "Plus you have to be there; it's your contract."
ARGG! In a sense, he was giving me permission to buy the phone. Not permission to spend money, but permission to spend it on myself guilt free. I really appreciate that, but even more, I'd appreciate holding a new iPhone. He is now calling around to check on inventory before we head out together to (hopefully) buy one.
