Surprise gifts from DH/SO

No car surprises, heck, feel free to surprise me with car shopping, but I want to pick out my own car, thank you very much.
My husband surprised me with a kitten once. I went from surprise to anger to tears of joy in about 60 seconds, so obviously I am ok with pet surprises. We already had 2 cats though, so it wasn't like it was a huge adjustment.

I agree with you completely. 

A friend of mine needed a new (second hand) car, and she was quite excited about what kind she might get. Then one day her husband 'surprised' her by bringing home a car he'd just gone and bought for her. Without telling/asking her, and without taking into account what she wanted. He drives a work van so this car was going to be the family car. But it is too small for their family of 5 (3 teenage kids) to sit in comfortably. 

I would have been effing furious if my partner did that. 

My tired brain did not immediately go to "musical instrument" when it saw organ. Now I can't stop laughing at the thought of a surprise organ.

We were in a position at the end of last week where we needed to do something about ds' car. It was getting close to 100,000 miles and is a brand that I would expect not to last much longer. I found dh a car and sent him the link, but we went together to check it out and buy it. Ds got dh' s old car. If dh had not been available, I would have bought the car myself, but not without his input.

For the most part, I don't really like surprises unless you're talking about a $5 box of Girl Scout cookies or a candy bar from the gas station because he had to go in to pay. Anything that would make the budget overly tight for a long time or that would add something to our household that would require a ton of care on my part that I didn't have a say in or explicitly agree to beforehand would be a no-go with me.

FWIW, when DH brought home the baby chicks on the spur of the moment because he wanted to play farmer, I told him right then not to expect me to do much to care for them, and for the most part I don't. I might throw them some stale crackers or something, but you're not going to see me scrubbing out their scummy waterer or shoveling out their poopy coop. Sorry, no. I will give them food and fill their water and collect the eggs when DH is off hunting for ten days, but other than that I don't even do that. Not my chickens, not my farm, LOL. I take care of the kid, the dogs, the house and his office (plus my own business) and that's plenty.

Now on the flip side of that coin, when my BFF approached me to take in this rescue poodle last winter, I really didn't want to get another dog at that point but I really felt sorry for the poor little thing. Of course I discussed with DH before saying we'd take her. If he would have had strong reservations about it, I would have said no to my friend. But since he said to go ahead, I knew that caring for her would be about 95% my responsibility (and it is) so I can't complain when she needs/wants to go out at 6:30 am and he's sleeping soundly. My tired butt gets up and takes her out.

My dad bought his wife a car for Christmas one year - totally a surprise for her. I think they had been talking about her needing a new car, but he found and bought it himself. My younger son was in on it, as he went to drive it home from the dealers and park it at our place until Christmas Day. She loved the car and drove it for many years.

My DH's biggest surprise gift for me was a year before we came here to live permanently. He was here for a few months, including over Christmas, and I was back in Australia. My older son had told me he was 'helping dad with your present', but I wasn't expecting to get a return plane ticket to Germany, leaving on Dec 26th! My only slight panic was packing - I had been planning on going to the beach for a couple of weeks, and now I was headed to snow - but apart from that I was overjoyed.

HA! I forgot my guy brought home baby ducks one time. He rescued them from an alligator at work. The ducklings were to be set free once they were big enough, but some guy from the water department working in the backyard snuck into the yard one night and stole them! Surprisingly, he didn't show up to work the next morning.

SMH. People are strange. He could have just gone down to the local feed store and bought some ducklings cheap if he wanted them that badly.

In general, I like surprises and my husband is pretty good about surprising me w/ gifts which I really like.

However, I think in some instances the giver of a surprise gift is really just being manipulative. For example, I have a friend whose husband surprised her w/ a car. Her husband has always been controlling. I always suspected he surprised her with the car because he wanted to pick out the exact car which he wanted her to have without having to deal with any input from her.

So yesterday I had this big long giant post about how stupid I am when it comes to technology and all I wanted was some way to listen to music in my little apartment. I had all kinds of techno-dummy questions about wifi and bluetooth and speakers and on and on and even a promise not to hold it against you if you laughed at me.n Then it disappeared when randomly the board decided to boot me off and it disappeared.

But kind of out the blue, my ex-husband gave me a blue tooth speaker and taught me how to use it and...now I have music. 

So some surprises are good.

No surprises. Though DH knows what my hobbies are and my likes, he never gets it right. We are at a point anyway that if we want it we get it ourselves.

Getting an animal and buying a car are two decisions I want input in making. I take care of the animals so I don't want to be committed to animals I didn't choose. And my DH is a foot taller than I am. What kind of car he finds comfortable and what kind of car I find comfortable are two different things. I cannot imagine him picking my car for me.

My dad always surprised my mom with new cars. And you know she really resented him for it. He thought he was being generous. She felt controlled by it. Their whole relationship she felt like he didn't allow her to make any decisions.

My MIL went out for groceries when DH was growing up and came home with a new house. This was back in the early 80's, maybe things were easier back then, but I can't imagine it happening that quickly...LOL.