If I had known it would be the last gift I ever gave my husband, I would have chosen something better. It was March 2020, and on his birthday, I was in Istanbul for a work trip, speaking at a conference and exploring the city. That trip was my last outing before the pandemic lockdown, and now, looking back, it feels like another world—a time when people still hugged freely and shared bites of food from each other’s plates.
He never had enough pens for his work as an academic, so I bought him one from a small, independent stationery shop. I can’t say it was an imaginative choice, let alone an extravagant one. Though the pen had a gilt-edged, shiny finish, it was just a rollerball. The shopkeepers seemed surprised I didn’t haggle, but to me, the price reflected the depth of my love for him. It wrote smoothly and felt substantial in my hand. Stepping out of the shop into Istanbul’s beautiful haze, I couldn’t wait to fly home and give it to him.
After more than 25 years and three children together, finding gifts that wouldn’t add to the clutter was often a challenge. Yet the desire—or the duty—remained strong. His was the face I pictured as I ate breakfasts of olives and salty sheep cheese overlooking the Bosphorus. “Miss you!” I texted him, describing the incredible market I’d just visited.
Three months later, we were sitting on a park bench in Cambridge when he told me he didn’t love me anymore, “not like that.” He added that he hadn’t felt that way for “three years, maybe four.” He never explained what “like that” meant, and the phrase haunted me. If he didn’t love me, why had he said he did so many times, in so many ways? And why was he trying to kiss me right there on the bench? Just a week earlier, he had walked into the garden and told me how beautiful my hair looked in the light. I was stunned and confused. The day had started like any other, with him bringing me tea in bed. Though we both worked hard, we still shared a life and a bed. It would be another couple of months before he left a letter revealing he had fallen in love with someone else.
After he left, I found myself reflecting not just on our relationship but on all the objects that had come from it—relics of a love now broken. To my grieving mind, many of our household items seemed either blessed or cursed. With his love gone, the comforting feel of touching the salad bowl or the piano had faded. Two months into our separation, the heart-shaped tin I’d used to bake our wedding cake fell from the dresser shelf, as if leaping off on its own. It felt like a sign.
I wandered through the house, searching for evidence that our relationship was always doomed. Instead, I found countless reminders of how we had celebrated each other’s birthdays and Christmases right up to the end. Over the years, he had given me so many thoughtfully chosen books, fragrant bottles of bubble bath, and—completely unexpectedly—a garden shed for me to write in, though he ended up using it more than I did. I had given him countless bottles of Armani Eau Pour Homme, a clean scent he never strayed from and always seemed pleased with, along with bourbon, ballet tickets, and a blue suit that was his favorite. The hanger in our closet that once held it now stood empty and forlorn.
His thoughtful generosity was one of the things I loved about him—that and his loyalty, which made me feel secure enough to pursue anything in life, as long as I didn’t ask him to dance (he hated it) or give him flowers (they triggered his allergies).
Our gifts to each other were so woven into the fabric of our shared lives that I almost forgot who gave what to whom. There was the cream-colored kitchen radio I bought to console him after I had…He was devastated by a miscarriage, grieving for a child he would never hold. Then there was the mezzaluna he bought me, which we both loved using to chop herbs. He searched through several kitchenware shops before finding one, since I wasn’t the only Nigella Lawson fan eager for a mezzaluna that year.
His thoughtful generosity was one of the qualities I cherished about him—along with his loyalty, which gave me the confidence to pursue anything in life, as long as I didn’t ask him to dance (he despised it), give him flowers (they set off his allergies), or invite friends over too often (he was happiest when it was just the two of us, a DVD, and a bottle of wine). His sister once told me he said he had never even glanced at another woman with desire during all our years together. Until now.
People can move on with surprising speed—he remarried just 18 months after leaving—while the remnants of a long marriage take much longer to untangle. In my drawers, I still had two cashmere sweaters he had given me, far more luxurious than anything I’d ever bought for myself, and I couldn’t bring myself to part with them. One day, when he came to pick up our son, I was startled to see him wearing a petrol blue sweater I had given him one Christmas, though I soon regretted the gift because it never fit him well. I wondered how he could leave me yet still hold onto that unflattering top.
It began to dawn on me that the gifts from our marriage—whether given or received—might not have been the pure, tender expressions of affection I once believed. I discovered a wealth of writing to support this idea: Marcel Mauss argued that gift-giving, at least in tribal societies, can be about power and competition rather than love. He believed there was always an ulterior motive, even if it was just to make the other person like you more.
The first gift I ever gave him, back in the 1990s, was a cheap paperback of George Herbert’s poems. My intention then was to impress him with my refined taste. He wasn’t yet my husband and had been one of my college professors, though our first kiss—and my gift—only happened after he had stopped teaching me. I was 19 when we met, and the age gap didn’t seem to matter then; he was only seven years older.
I gave him that book several months after we had fallen in love and begun seeing each other secretly. I chose it because Herbert’s words were some of the most thrilling and erotic I had ever read, even though he was a 17th-century priest directing his love toward God: “You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: / So I did sit and eat.”
Those lines reminded me of the first time my husband asked me out to dinner. While many of my student friends survived on instant noodles and toast, he had a car and took me to a restaurant with tablecloths and candles. He ordered oysters and steak tartare. My childhood had left me with social anxiety and a troubled relationship with food, and I felt he was giving me permission to live and eat freely again.
One of the mysteries of marriage is that, when things go wrong, you can end up knowing a person less rather than more over time. Our gifts had become tokens exchanged by strangers. We were both so polite and skilled at avoiding difficult conversations that much of our inner lives remained hidden from each other long before he left, even though we talked constantly. In the final years before our separation, buying him presents sometimes felt pointless, unlike in the beginning. I would stand in menswear departments, wondering why I should buy him another sweater when, like the lover in Nina Simone’s song, he didn’t care much for clothes.
A couple of years before he left, he gave me a bottle of Jo Malone Pear & Freesia cologne. When I smelled it, I had a visceral reaction.A wave of dislike washed over me. Is this how he sees me? I wondered. The perfume itself was lovely—subtle and perfect for summer—but it just didn’t feel like me. I remembered the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s idea that gifts can be a way of controlling someone. Even the thought that my husband imagined me smelling this way made me feel trapped. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, I thanked him warmly but never used the perfume, just as he left the Istanbul pen I gave him untouched in its box.
Some things are impossible to understand when you’re in the thick of them, no matter how hard you try. It takes stepping back to see clearly.
I came to realize that exchanging gifts was neither essential nor enough to sustain a marriage. Nearly two years after my husband left, I met a friend for lunch on my birthday. She was someone I had always believed had one of the strongest relationships I knew—a couple who never tired of each other’s jokes and still held hands like teenagers well into their fifties. She confessed that in all their years together, her husband had given her only a few gifts; he simply didn’t see the value in them. I wondered if my own marriage might have lasted a little longer if we had eased up on the obligatory gift-giving and focused more on shared laughter instead.
Sometimes, leaving can be a gift in itself. I knew it had been incredibly difficult for him, especially since it meant we were no longer raising our beloved children together. He wrote to me, acknowledging how hard the decision had been because I had given him so much.
After my tears subsided, I saw that his absence had given me something too: a new life where I could explore parts of myself that had been stifled in our relationship, as much as I loved and missed him. The freedom to become a more complete version of yourself is the greatest gift one person can give another. I finally got to enjoy the dancing I had always wanted, even if it wasn’t with him, and the lively dinners I craved, even without him at the table. My cooking became more adventurous now that I no longer had to hear him say it didn’t matter whether I used tarragon or parsley.
I started growing roses, free from living with someone who couldn’t have them in the house. When we met for an awkward coffee to discuss the children, I told him about my new passion for roses and said, half-jokingly, that he had given me the gift of flowers.
The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss, and Kitchen Objects
$32 Amazon
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about The Story of a Marriage and Its End Told Through Gifts designed to be clear and conversational
General Beginner Questions
1 What does The Story of a Marriage and Its End Told Through Gifts mean
Its a way of looking back at a relationship by remembering the significant presents the couple gave each other Each gift marks a different stage from the hopeful beginning to the final goodbye
2 Why use gifts to tell this story
Gifts are powerful symbols They arent just objects they carry emotions memories and unspoken messages about the relationships health at the time they were given
3 What kind of gifts are usually part of this story
Common examples include early gifts like personalized jewelry or books middlestage practical items like a coffee maker and final gifts that might be impersonal or even hurtful
4 Is this a real official way to analyze a marriage
Not in a clinical sense but its a common and powerful literary and personal reflection tool It helps people make sense of their past by focusing on tangible memories
Deeper Meaning Interpretation
5 What does an expensive gift early in the relationship often symbolize
It can symbolize hope intense passion and a desire to impress and build a future together Its often about potential and grand gestures
6 What does it mean when gifts become less thoughtful over time
It often signals that the couple is drifting apart The effort behind giftgiving can fade when daily life stress or emotional distance takes over showing a shift from romance to routine
7 Can a gift signal the beginning of the end
Yes A thoughtless generic or even spiteful gift can be a clear sign that one partner has emotionally checked out or that there is significant unresolved resentment
8 Whats the significance of the last gift before a breakup
The final gift is often deeply symbolic It might be an attempt to apologize a passiveaggressive jab or something purely practicalshowing that the emotional connection has been severed
Common Problems Pitfalls
9 Is it unhealthy to keep these gifts after the marriage ends
It depends on the person For some keeping a gift is a way to honor a happy memory For others it can prevent healing