A
female
 ,
anonymous
writes:Separated from husband, planning on filing for divorce, just giving him time to adjust to the break up. For V-Day he bought me $1,000.00 gift certificate from a nice jewelry store. I don't know what to do! We've been apart 2 years and I've told him I'm not coming back. I don't want to be cruel about the divorce, I'm not even taking the normal "half" most women go for. I'm letting him keep the house and most of the furniture. I just want out. He's not a monster, I'm just not in love with him anymore and I feel like I've wasted alot of years pretending to be someone I'm not. Do I give back the gift certificate? I know he won't go and get a refund. He'd be too embarrassed because we live in a small town and he knows the jewelry owner. So it would just be $1,000 out of his pocket for nothing. But I feel so awful about using it! I thought about buying HIM something with it, like a nice watch but I know he'll be upset and doesn't wear jewelry. What should I do???
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female
reader, Plexi  +, writes (10 February 2009):
 i think you need to return the gift, its the right thing to do. can you go to the store and get a refund and then mail your husband the money with a note thanking him for his intention but that you can not accept it.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (10 February 2009): Since you say you didn't get your fair 1/2, then I don't see a problem with keeping it. He might be trying to even things up. So it is definitely fair to keep it, and you shouldn't feel guilty about it. In fact, he should feel guilt for trying to buy back your feelings. Deep down he knows he's setting himself up for a let down. Money can't buy you love...and you've been apart for 2 years? That's a long time. Like the other poster said, be thankful, but it doesn't change the way you feel. Maybe send him a card of thanks, but it was too high a gift to give.
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A
male
reader, Tomas  +, writes (10 February 2009):
Depending onhow much money you two havehow much you like jewelrywhen the gift certificate expireswhether it seemed to have been given generously rather than passive-aggressively, You could put it into a safe deposit box and basically treat it as a $1000 bill on your side of the ledger. That is, when you split the $10,000 (or whatever), he takes 5500 and you take 4500 plus the certificate. That's one route.Another is to reimburse him (essentially buy yourself, go in with a friend, etc, on some jewelry). You could try to buy something and then sell it on eBay, but I fear you'd find out how big the markups are.Depending on its emotional meaning to you, if he acknowledges you haven't even taken your "fair share", you could either just buy yourself something that you'd enjoy that wouldn't also make you sad - or - do a variation on the first option and stick the certificate in a safety deposit box and tell him that, if you two part amicably, you will take the certificate and buy something and enjoy it and thank him for it, but if things unexpectedly get unpleasant (which you of course don't want but who knows) then you will give it back to him to do what he wants with it.I guess I'd lean to the last one, provided it doesn't expire. "Thanks for this, I'm not comfortable spending this right now but I appreciate the gesture. How about I hold onto it for now, and when we're done with this ugly process, if you still want me to spend it, I will."Good luck.
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