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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/poetrycode on 2023-10-04 17:41:20.
It's been a tough 2023. For context: I recently moved to a new country to be with my wife and celebrated my first-ever birthday away from friends and family. My wife travels a lot for work, I still don't have a job here and I don't speak the local language fluently so that makes things harder.
It was my birthday last week and my parents were insistent about gifting me something nice. I'm normally not huge on celebrating my birthday but told them I could use a new pair of Airpods after they asked me a couple of times. Because they're in a different country and not super tech savvy, they just transferred the money to my bank so that I could buy them. Around the same time, my wife was going to the US for a work trip. I asked her if I could order the Airpods from Amazon to her US address because they were significantly cheaper there and she agreed. A couple of days later, we were on a video call (she is in the US by now) and I noticed that she was wearing Airpods during our call. Now, she used to have her own pair of Airpods (which she lost somewhere) but it has been a while since she used them. I asked her if this was my birthday gift to which she nonchalantly said yes. Now, I normally wouldn't mind had it been a t-shirt or some other thing but she knows how much I love technology and love unboxing and tinkering with gadgets. As stupid as it may sound for a full-grown adult, this is also my first pair of AirPods and it is one of the few things I had been really hyped up about. So I kind of flipped out in the moment and she said that she only opened them to test them, just in case there was an issue and they needed to be returned. I asked her why did she not ask me or at the very least unbox it with me on a video call and she just said that it didn't occur to her. She's still on her work trip (will return home after two weeks) but she's been using my Airpods on and off for the last 10 days despite the whole conversation. I know that I'll get them as soon as she's back. She also apologized last week and said that she would make up to me but I can't help but feel irritated. It just doesn't feel like a birthday gift anymore and I'm just not excited anymore. I was even considering asking her to keep this pair because she doesn't have one and buy me a 'new' one instead.
Am I being an asshole or overreacting in this situation?