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Totally agree with what has been said – a gift is a gift and does not have to be returned. But, like many rules, I believe there is an exception. That would be an engagement ring (which i realize isn’t what you are talking about). Personally I believe that if the woman decides to call off the wedding she should return the ring especially if it is a family heirloom. If he calls off the wedding things get a lot more complicated. If the ring is an heirloom and the break is amicable I think it is nice if the woman returns it. But if he breaks things off say because he was having an affair I hope the woman keeps the ring and does whatever she wants with it. I realize a lot of people may disagree with me about the woman returning the ring but I do think if a woman accepts a ring and promises to marry the man but then does not she should return the ring. There will probably be exceptions to this that people can come up with. 🙂
I agree with everything that has been said! A gift is a gift! I agree with ddvm that if a woman breaks off the engagement, she should give back the ring; she accepted the ring on the promise to marry the gentleman. But in this case, it’s just jewelry he’s asking for–you accepted it when things were better between you, but he gave it to you. It does make me wonder why he’s asking for this jewelry back now? My feeling is if you give in to him and give back the jewelry, he may want more–all those crazy hoops that people come up with. I hope this goes well with you and he just goes away.
Rebound much? >__>
EDIT: Uuuuhh this was a reply for Hannah’s post. Don’t know why it didn’t go under her post.
Replies aren’t nested anymore. I had the same confusion when I replied in another thread a few days ago 😉
Kujacker – Haha! Yes, or cheating, I could never figure out which.
And yeah, Pam changed the forum a few days ago so that we all have the same view now. It was confusing to have the option for both of them because of how replies worked, amongst other things. Unfortunately the solution provided a bit of confusion in itself ><
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Please visit My Webpage to see my art and PYO's that I've done in the past!Well, if there are exceptions, I think I need to elaborate.
It’s complicated. I kind of have to start further back. (TL;DNR = He was suicidal and I kind of saved his life. So he got me a bracelet. Then, in black and white terms, I cheated on him once. I spent a year afterward with him trying to make it right to no avail. Now he wants the jewelry back, and I’m not sure what to do.)
Shortly after “Kel” and I fell in love, I found out he was suicidal. Two solid months of utter hell ensued as I tried to pull him out of his depression enough to get help. (I suffer with depression, there is no way I could have just walked away without trying to help.) After two months, I was drained. But Kel was doing better and it seemed like maybe we would have a chance.
Kel then decided it would be best to fly from San Diego out to his Aunt’s in Virginia for three weeks to take care of his mental health, and get back on his feet.
The night before he left, he told me, “You’ve definitely earned girlfriend status.” I chalked the awkward wording up to his inexperience in relationships, but I was kind of miffed about the way he said it. Then he was off to the other coast.
Within a week out in Virginia, he was considering taking a job and asked me what I thought of coming out there with him. I had just taken a job in my dream career field here in San Diego. I couldn’t abandon my life out here for a suicidal guy who had just changed me to “Girlfriend Status”.
Within a few more days, he couldn’t even answer me when I asked him “Are you coming back at all?” He told me he didn’t want to make promises and not be able to keep them.
This distressed and frustrated me. And broke my heart.
One night, after another 3-hour, tearful conversation with Kel, I was chatting online with a friend whom I hadn’t seen in a long time. I won’t paint some pretty picture. I was sad and hurt and lonely, and felt used, and unappreciated, and abandoned. When “Ben” joked about coming over, I told him sure, come hang out. He spent the night.
About two weeks after being changed to “Girlfriend Status”, I cheated on my “boyfriend”. I didn’t feel great about it afterward. I’ve never cheated on a boyfriend in my life. I never did after that night either.
I didn’t even have 48 hours to figure out how to deal with the guilt and whether or not to tell Kel. He called me at 4am the morning of my first day at my new job, screaming at me, that I was a bitch, a liar, a cheater.
A month prior I had checked my email at his house. I thought I signed out. Apparently I didn’t. And he had kept me signed in for a month. He claims he didn’t read my email until the night he called me. To this day that is up for debate. But either way, he read the chats I had with Ben and figured out what had happened.
My mistake after that, was trying to make it right.
Kel did take me back within a couple weeks. We tried to work on it. We tried to sort it out. I mean, we really TRIED. All kinds of self-help books and websites. Endless talking/arguing/fighting. Always breaking up and making up. Eventually I even footed the bill for two sessions with a marriage counselor.
I tried to do everything he demanded, within reason. He would read through my phone calls and texts. Overanalyze every male relationship I have in my life, coworkers and friends. They were all a threat. Almost every week he dumped me. I figured, eventually he’ll have to figure out that logically I can’t be doing all of the things he’s accusing me of. (All this time I was working 70 hour weeks at my new job.) But no, it always came down to THE ONE NIGHT I SPENT WITH BEN. No matter where the discussion started, that’s where it would end. He could NOT accept why I cheated on him. I tried for a year to explain how I felt in the situation without him turning it into blame. That proved impossible.
I think I would have kept going to counseling sessions with him for a while longer, if he would share the bill with me after I got the first two sessions. But he wouldn’t really answer when I brought it up. And eventually I couldn’t stand to be dumped every week anymore. So we kind of mutually ended it.
I have never cried more over a man. I don’t know why I loved him so much.
So there you have it. The bracelet, he gave me as a gift for saving his life, so to put it. Obviously it has a lot of meaning for me. It was really the only way he acknowledged that I’d been there for him. That’s the bracelet he wants back now.
So I’m not completely blameless in all of this. I acted terribly. But I tried for a year to make it right. And honestly, he was downright cruel. Our fights were always him yelling, me sobbing. Never the other way around. He would say things so wretched that the words felt like fists.
To me, it’s the only memento I have left of the one time I did right by him, and he recognized it. Even if the relationship went all to crap afterward. I guess that’s why I’d rather not give it back.
I don’t know. Long post. Would be curious to know what anyone thinks who could make it this far. 😛 Thanks for reading.
I think you’re still in the right if you tell him you’ll be keeping the bracelet. Or don’t tell him anything at all (do you guys still talk regularly?).
Although I don’t condone cheating, he did kind of have you backed into a corner. You may have had a strong connection with him in the first two months of the relationship when you were helping him with his depression, but to go across the country and to say he wasn’t certain he was coming back immediately puts the relationship at serious risk, and that wasn’t at all your fault. It sounds like you had a stressful relationship to begin with, so it is only natural for you to crave some fun, stress free man time.
Honestly, as you were describing what happened and how he made you feel, I was taken back to my first long-term relationship. He was also very depressed, a drug user, and when he got especially mad he had the tendency to get into fights with me and would throw fists – both the physical and emotional kind. I wanted so badly to save him that I deluded myself into thinking that staying with him was the only thing keeping him from hurting himself. In NO way am I trying to compare how we were to how you guys were, but I can sympathize with really wanting to make a stressful, volatile relationship work.
Still, I think you have every right to keep that bracelet. You obviously weren’t the only one in the relationship who did something to hurt the other, and it almost sounds to me as if he is demanding it back in order to cause more stress and hurt feelings on your end. If for an entire year, every argument that you two had ended up being about how you cheated, what’s stopping him from turning this into that too?
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Please visit My Webpage to see my art and PYO's that I've done in the past!Keep the bracelet. You saved him and he is still alive to ask for it.
That being said, not to make cheating ok, he felt that your relationship was disposable by dangling the decision to come back in front of you after you convinced him to get help. In my view, your “girlfriend” status was a thank you, not a real commitment, if he couldn’t tell you whether or not he was coming back. It’s not fair that you were expected to commit and he didn’t have to.
By the way, reading your personal email (and all the other BS afterward) was pretty low and a violation of trust as much as (or more than) the cheating. For pete’s sake, I have a guy friend who uses a suggestive code phrase to let me know that he’s feeling down because of his girlfriend. If my boyfriend read my email without understanding that, he’d think I might be cheating, too. But, it’s a code phrase that my friend uses with the understanding that it’s a code phrase, nothing more. And it’s no one else’s business what I get in my own private mail.
*hugs Chris* I’ve been..am? Attracted to “broken” men too, so I’m right there with you! Not a concious choice to be attracted to that type, but hey it happens.
I had a friend who was kind of like that. He had very low self esteem, and didn’t want to believe he was an awesome person, so no matter what I said or did, he believed what he wanted to. Kel sounds like he is believing what he wants as well.
It sounds like Kel didn’t really know what he wanted from you. If you two didn’t discuss exclusivity, if he never introduced you as his girlfriend to anyone else, then who’s to say you two weren’t just friends with benefits or really close friends? Although cheating is wrong, I don’t think what you did was cheating. And I totally agree with ghostndragon-if he can’t even decide if he wants to come back, he must not have put great importance on your relationship with him. What are the alternatives?
1. Long distance. Long distance only works on a temporary basis. If neither one of you have any intention of ever moving to the location of the other person-call it quits and find someone in your own city or own state, or heck, even own TIME ZONE.2. He finds out you don’t want to move to Virgina and one of you breaks it off with the other one. You’re in the same boat you are now.
3.You find out he’s not moving back to Califorina and one of you breaks it off with the other one. Same boat.
And if he can’t forgive you for when you “cheated on him”, your relationship will never and would never grow. Holding grudges only makes you a bitter and sour person. And honestly, what good is it? What does it do? What does it accomplish? Nothing but stress and anger. Let go of the bad.
I’m pretty sure you guys are older than 17 years old-which means you’re both adults. Chris, YOU made the right decision. You just landed your dream job and you should not have given it up for a fragile relationship. Now I’m not saying no man is worth giving up a job and moving- over-but if he doesn’t have a job in Virgina, how would you two support yourselves? Moving in together is a big step, even if you think you’re ready. (been there and done that O.O)
What if you left that awesome job and moved to Virginia and things didn’t work out?Kel should have done the adult thing and communicated his feelings better to you instead of avoiding the situation. I KNOW this because that’s what I used to do when I was young and dumb. My current (and most wonderful) boyfriend, Josh, helped me see just how important communication is. Even if its something unpleasant, its not going away. Kel should have said, “Look…I’m really liking it here in Virginia. I don’t know if I want to go back to California. …” (and here’s what he should have said) …”I really like you and I have feelings for you. Since I don’t know what lies ahead in my own life, I can’t possibly expect you to put your life on hold for me. I would love to keep in touch with you, but we should put a relationship off. If I come back to California, and you still want to work things out with me, I’d love to be your boyfriend…but right now, there’s too much uncertainty in my life. I need to take care of myself before I can take care of anyone else.”
But instead it sounds to me like he was all, “Err, um, uh….well….uh…k g2g bai.” when asked anything big, important or real.
I know you (and I dont mean you specifically, I mean that in a general sense) can’t help who you love, but that guy sounds like he needs to get his ducks in a row first before he can take on a relationship with ANYONE even in a friendly way.
Here’s the way I see it: Ive got things from ex boyfriends and from people I no longer like or speak with. Why? Because that person was once my friend or my lover. I loved that person once. We had great times together. Although I have bad memories of that person, I throw those bad memories in the trash and only keep the good memories. If you throw all the memories of that person away, good and bad, what’s the point? You’re throwing away part of your life that you spent with that person too.
If you want to hang on to his memory, keep the bracelet. Tell him its not about the monetary value but more the sentimental value.
I agree with what the others have said.
No matter what happened later on, it doesn’t erase the reason for the gift.
In my view, your “girlfriend” status was a thank you, not a real commitment, if he couldn’t tell you whether or not he was coming back. It’s not fair that you were expected to commit and he didn’t have to.
THIS. Oh, so very much this!
ghostndragon said it much more eloquently than I could, but I agree wholeheartedly.Commission spots are currently closed! Please message me for details.
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