After Ashley spends a lot of time and effort getting her fiancé’s Christmas present, she is completely devastated at her gift in return. At her wits’ end, Ash leaves for her mother’s house to salvage Christmas, only to come to a realization about her relationship.
Let me be clear: I never wanted our relationship to feel transactional, but sometimes, you have to wonder if things are as balanced as they should be.
My fiancé, Ben, and I?
We were far from equals financially. He was a pediatrician with his own private practice, and I was a hairstylist trying to build my clientele.
Yet, I never let that be an excuse to fall short when it came to gifts.
Especially for Christmas.
Last year, I worked double shifts for months to buy Ben the one thing he’d been talking about for ages: a PS5.
“I just want something that I can do while switching my brain off. Work is tough enough, Ash,” he would say.
Ben loved gaming, but for whatever reason, he hadn’t bought the console for himself.
I figured that this was my chance to surprise him, to let him know that I had been paying attention for the longest time.
But there was a catch. The PS5 was impossible to find at retail price.
I searched online, checked every store in town, and finally found one through a cousin, who kindly added a hefty markup for “his troubles.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Ashley,” my cousin said. “I went through a lot of trouble to get the PS for you. Honestly, I did you a favor by getting it.”
I couldn’t argue and dipped into my savings.
It was Christmas, after all. Didn’t the man who saved children deserve something special?
And it was worth it. I couldn’t wait to see his face when he opened the gift.
I imagined it would be a moment of pure joy. Ben would beam at me, and I would feel like I’d just knocked Christmas out of the park.
But what happened that Christmas morning?
That was a whole different story.
Ben had been busy leading up to Christmas. His practice was booming, especially since one of the medical magazines had recently done an interview with him, making him every parent’s dream doctor.
He was doing so well that he moved into a newer apartment that had three bedrooms and a study.
“It’s perfect for us, Ash,” he said, showing me the photos online.
“And we won’t have to leave for a while. Not until we decide to have kids in the future.”
He even gifted his parents his old apartment as their Christmas present, which came with fancy upgrades that only Ben was used to. And what about his brother, Evan?
Ben had bought him a new customized Mercedes. Mandy, his sister, got a pair of diamond earrings and an exclusive art kit. I’m pretty sure her kids also got a few presents.
Everyone seemed to benefit from Ben’s financial success, and I was genuinely happy for them.
He deserved to celebrate after all the years of hard work.
But it was a bit weird that these gifts were given before Christmas, meaning that there was more to come.
And what about me?
I started to notice something was off when he didn’t even ask me what I wanted for Christmas. A few days before the holidays, I casually brought it up. I mentioned that I could use a few practical things for work.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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