“I Legit Bawled": 30 Gifts That Made Men Feel Truly Understood And Loved By Their Partners

I got hit by a car 20 some years ago and my brain is a bit scrambled from time to time. Memory comes and goes.

My wife got me a little booklet of receipts and clippings and photos of all these dates/outings we’ve had over the years. She’ll mention to me in conversation and I can’t really recall but seeing the physical memories really brings me back to those moments.

Excuse me while I cry.

My wife's birthday is 2 weeks apart from my mom's. Before this past year my mom had never been to Europe before. My wife was turning 30 and my mom turning 60. Instead of planning her own 30th birthday trip, she instead planned a trip for the two of us to take my mom on a trip to Europe for her 60th birthday. It was such an incredibly selfless thing to do and it was a trip of a lifetime for all of us.

My wife is a portrait artist - and an incredibly talented one, at that.

For my first birthday after we met; she went way back through my IG for reference photos and painted a portrait of my beloved dog that'd passed away several years before we met.

It's one of my most very loved possessions.

When my 30th birthday hit, my wife had just left me for the man she had cheated with, my family was on vacation out of the country, and none of my friends remembered what day it was. What should’ve been a milestone celebration became one of the bleakest days of my life.

Then I met a woman who lived on the opposite coast. We didn’t really click until our mutual friends got married. That night, we sat on the beach talking until the sun came up, and after she flew home, we kept in touch by phone every morning and every evening.

A few months later, as my 31st birthday approached, she called to say she was coming to stay for two weeks—that was my gift. She also said she’d make up for my 30th. She didn’t lie—those were two of the happiest weeks of my life. And at the end of her stay, we decided to get married. That was over 30 years ago. She’s sitting by the fire as I write this.

I used to work building maintenance at a daycare and was the only man in the building. During my time there I had to put my dog down and ended up taking 2 weeks off work afterwards. When I returned, 4 or 5 of the women I worked with called me into the supervisors office and handed me a bag. They had all chipped in some money to have my late dog’s picture put onto a stone plaque. I immediately broke down and hugged them all. To this day it’s the kindest, most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me.

This may seem like a little thing compared to some, but recently I'd been going at 150% for months. Between work, family obligations, all sorts of stressors in life, I desperately needed some down time and saw no chance for it in the near future.

Then I noticed on the calendar my wife had cleared an entire week and wrote in "khendron is a vegetable" with a cute sketch of a different vegetable every day. Each day I'd ask if there was anything that I needed to do, and she'd just say "No, you are ... an asparagus today. Go do whatever you want." Love that woman!

When I was younger I only made 5.15/hr at a non-profit org... I worked really hard 40+ hours a week. The struggle was real. Lived in my car for a minute. I cashed my paychecks into 20s, cuz once you break a bill, it's gone... despite being poor, I refused help from anyone. Felt like I had to earn everything.

Somehow I was finally able to get things together and get a place and a dependable car. I wasn't completely worried about where my next meal was coming from....

Found out years later, my girlfriend was slipping 20s into my wallet. She knew I couldn't stomach to count my money all the time, and I would never accept the help... Roof over my head and food in my belly... sneaky b***h touched my soul a little bit.

There was these Christmas ornaments that my family had when I was a kid. It was a set of 1980 Avon gingerbread man and woman. Their smell always reminded me of Christmas. When I was a teenager our dog ate them. I mentioned this to my wife one day and this last Christmas she somehow found the two ornaments online and gave them to me for Christmas. It was the only gift I ever received that made me cry. I love those ornaments.

My MIL had an uncanny ability to find shirts and jackets for me for Christmas. I usually hate people giving me clothes and I'm difficult to shop for. I never expectied a gift from her but she always found something so I wouldn't be left out of gift opening. Everything she got me always ended up as some of my favorite stuff. I'm still wearing a jacket with a rip in the shoulder because it's one of the warmest most comfortable jackets I have ever own. She passed away 15 months ago and it makes me sad to think of getting rid of anything she got me. F**k cancer.

My girlfriend gave me a little bullet necklace that contained the ashes of her deceased child who passed away from terminal illness before I came into the picture. Her actual father is a d**g addicted, abusive a*****e. She gave me that and told me I was the father her little girl deserved.

I wish I got to meet you A

A backpack

we never had that much money at home and so I had to make due with a backpack that had me cursin more often then not, broken zipper, pens slipping out through cracks, the works

and then one day out of the blue, a clasmate presented me with a new backpack, almost same colour as my last one

I never knew why she did that, I still have that backpack and it vexes me to this day.

My wife gifted me an incredible watch when I earned my masters degree. I’ve worn it proudly and gratefully for 45+ years.

Bit of backstory; I'm a widower and spent a year living with my parents in a depressed rut. Then got a new gf and over the past year or so things have progressed to the point where I stay with her at her house more often than I'm at home, but I don't LIVE there just yet. I have two drawers and a section of the closet but I still officially live with my parents.

So I just had my birthday recently. I came home to her that day to a pile of presents... all amounting to making me more comfortable and at home at her place. Among other things there was a pair of slippers for around the house, my very own coffee mug, and a robe embroidered with my initials.

It didn't bring me to tears but I wasn't too far off. All I could do was to stand there and hug her for a while. Might be the sweetest and most thoughtful gift I've ever gotten. We're still trying to take it slow-ish and not rush to that point but we've both come to the conclusion that I'll be moving in sooner or later. Love that girl.

Tickets to my favourite band that was on my bucket list since a teenager. The concert was in a different country and she hated the genre but went anyway.

My most cherished item is from my late wife. It's a throw blanket with a custom inscription that talks about my dedication to her and how I stuck to my vows. I can barely look at it without getting emotional, let alone talking about it.

Gifts from the heart mean SO much more than toys and c**p bought from Target/Walmart/Amazon, etc. Etsy seems to be the place for meaningful gifts IMO.

Edit: 2nd favorite: Etsy. A custom painting of us sitting at a lake with our current 2 dogs and our other 2 late dogs. The late dogs have wings. The outfits of her and I matched our standard camping outfits. It's still hard to look at these days.

When I was in 11th grade I was really sad that all the guys in my class had girlfriends and were exchanging gifts on valentines day and I joked about it to my mom not thinking much of it and the next day my mom bought me chocolates and a teddy bear with a heart. My heart melted and I started crying a bit it was really sweet of her.

I was living in Alberta in the winter.Broke as f**k.Living in my van -20 Celsius.My ex girlfriend gave me a blanket/comforter that thing kept me alive.That was 12 years ago.She passed away in 2021. I still sleep with that blanket.

I have epilepsy and thanks to that and my meds, i have a horrible memory.

My girlfriend started making my one year anniversary gift the day we started dating. She wanted me to remember everything we did in our first year, and secretly scrapbooked absolutely everything.

Movie tickets, room keys, hundreds of photos, inside jokes, texts we’ve sent eachother, dreams and goals we have, etc. Aside from the blank scrapbook, she made everything herself. All the artwork, design, and layout was original.

It is easily one of the most precious things I own. The fact somebody literally took a year to build something for me without saying anything was unreal.

My wife is the best gift-giver, especially around Christmas. Here are a few of my favorites:

When the Wii first came out, she got up at the butt-crack of dawn, very pregnant, didn't wake me up or tell me she was going anywhere. I thought she went out grocery shopping or something and let me sleep in. When she got home, she told me to go out to the trunk to bring in the groceries and there was a Wii sitting in the trunk. She'd waited in line pregnant all morning to get me a first wave Wii.

Last year or the year before, she gave me a copy of Jay and Silent Bob's Mall Brawl and she made me a custom Clerks comic strip to go along with it that she drew completely by hand on her ipad pro (you can actually see this on my post history).

This year my wife got me really good seats to see Foo Fighters when they come to Seattle, and since tickets are all digital now, she made me custom "tickets" and encased them in an acrylic frame.

It's sitting right here in front of me. It's an small wooden box that is filled with hand-written cards, each one telling me something she loves about me. It's hard to read because I get emotional.