How to Be a Better Gift-Giver to a Partner

A suspenseful gift-giving moment

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Most of our inner psychological life revolves around ourselves—what's going well for us, what we're worried about, what's on our to-do list. Gift-giving occasions are one of those rare moments in life where our focus shifts to the inner lives of other people.

But this shift is often half-hearted, taking the form of a tourist superficially observing a foreign land rather than a careful archaeological excavation. That's understandable when the stakes are low. I don't need to have a probing conversation with my mailman before deciding what kind of cookies to give him for the holidays. (Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have such a conversation if only to collect gossip about my neighbors. But I don't need to have it.)

If I want to truly delight those closest to me—a romantic partner, for instance—I'm going to need to understand them deeply. That requires curiosity, careful listening, and plenty of time.

You can understand why some gift-givers might be looking for a shortcut. Retailers are only too willing to meet this need by offering products that create an illusion of understanding.

The prototypical example is the Pandora Charm collection. These are small pieces of jewelry meant to reflect a meaningful personal attribute, like the Artist's Palette charm or the Sombrero Hat charm. (If you've never encountered one of these charms in person, you might have at least seen the annual line of women waiting to return them to Pandora on December 26.)

In the hopeful imagination of an otherwise-stumped gift-giver, these charms reveal a loving attention to detail. But in real life, well, I think "Saturday Night Live" captured the profoundly underwhelming message conveyed by these types of gifts in a 2017 spoof:

"At Pandora Charms, we take one little fact about your wife and turn it into jewelry. If it’s a noun, it’s a charm. Pandora Charms say the things you want to tell her the most, like I know what job you have, and that job is nurse or You like drinking."

Another tempting shortcut is simply asking the gift recipient what they would like and then buying it. At first glance, this is a highly risk-averse approach, meant to avoid gifts that are so bad that they shake the very foundation of the relationship. It is certainly true that the stench of a bad gift—a gift that suggests that you don't really understand the gift recipient—can linger. This reflects a bedrock principle of behavioral science known as loss aversion: Bad gifts have a stronger impact on the relationship than good gifts.

However, on closer inspection, the "just ask" approach does come with some substantial risks. It's very easy to ask that question in a way that suggests that you find the whole gift-giving process to be a burden. For example, consider the following way that someone might ask their romantic partner what kind of gift they would like:

"OK, I guess your birthday is coming up. You didn’t really like what I got you last year, so could you just tell me what to buy you this year?"

How romantic. This phrasing might seem unrealistically negative, but these requests are often made in a moment of exasperation. Cory Stieg, a writer, told the story of how her boyfriend asked her to make a list of possible Christmas gifts because she didn't like his previous Christmas gift.

He ended up buying her every single thing on her list, including many big-ticket items. The message seemed to be, "There, is that enough for you? No more complaining, right?" They broke up less than a month later, and she gave the gifts to Goodwill.

Only giving a requested gift robs you of an opportunity to communicate what you understand and appreciate about your partner. Research by Amie Gordon and colleagues has documented that married people are likelier to appreciate their spouse than to tell them they appreciate them. And even when we express appreciation and admiration for our partner, we rarely do so with a lot of specificity (saying, for example, "I love you because.…"). Gift-giving occasions are crucial moments that reveal and shape how the relationship is going.

Also, asking potentially negates the surprise element. Good gifts require surprise. Why else would Americans spend billions of dollars on wrapping paper every year? Of course, if you are asked to list potential gifts, you can still maintain a sense of surprise by not being too specific in your requests.

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For example, if you list "a piece of Taylor Swift memorabilia" or "a weekend getaway to a city we've never been to before," the gift-giver still has a lot of room to surprise and delight. These broad hints make for a much more rewarding gift-giving experience than sending your partner a link to the item you'd like to receive. A happy middle ground is very possible.

Adapted from Tightwads and Spendthrifts: Navigating the Money Minefield in Real Relationships by Scott Rick (c) 2024 and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group.

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