My 15-year-old stepdaughter never acknowledges my birthday. Am I wrong to stop buying her gifts? | Leading questions

I have been with my partner for 13 years. When we first got together he was father to a two-year-old. His marriage had already broken down and the divorce was bitter. His daughter, who only stays every other weekend, is a beautiful girl. I love her very much. I always took time and care to help make her birthdays amazing. Going the extra mile to decorate the house, arranging parties and food and buying thoughtful presents … lots of them. When it is Father’s Day or her dad’s birthday, even when she was very little, I helped her make cards and token gifts for him, or reminded her to bring something on her next visit.

What upsets me is that she is 15 now. I’ve known her since she was two. I have never received a birthday gift, card, squiggle on a paper or any acknowledgment at all that it’s my birthday. Obviously mostly because my partner didn’t feel it was worth the effort to remind her or encourage her. But now she is older, has a decent allowance, and is perfectly able to plan amazing gifts for her friends. Even so I’ve never received a thing beyond the message I got last year. I expect this year will be the same. If this happens I would like to sit both of them down and explain how hurt I’ve been by this, acknowledge her father’s part in not instigating anything when she was young and state that I simply opt out of buying her gifts any more now that she is older, informed and still can’t be bothered. Am I wrong?

Eleanor says: It sounds as though you’ve put a lot of effort in and not got a lot back. That always stings. But before saying you’re done with gifts, I think there are a couple of tempering considerations.

Related: My family have all but ignored the anniversary of my partner’s death. Am I wrong to feel so hurt? | Leading questions

One is about why she isn’t doing this. We tend to give gifts and assurances of how we feel most often when the other person might not have certainty about how we feel. Because we want to remove any doubt, we give lots of symbols that show our feelings: think how many more tokens of affection there are in courtship than 50 years into the marriage. (Perhaps part of why you made so much effort for her was to remove any possible doubt about whether her step-parent loved her?)

The trap is, if we’re confident the other person knows how we feel, sometimes we don’t bother with symbols that show it. That’s a shame. Everybody likes to hear “you’re loved” even when they already know it.

Maybe she doesn’t buy you gifts because she assumes there’s no need; her love goes so without saying, there’s literally no need to say it. She might not realise there could have been any question on your part about whether she’d love you back, and so any role for reminders that she does.

Another consideration is how much this falls to her dad. It’s striking that you did the reminding and arranging so she’d have gifts on Father’s Days and birthdays (maybe you still do?). That mental-keeping-track so often falls to the women in the house. It sounds as though part of why you’re hurt is that he didn’t teach these rituals of consideration for you, in the way you did for him. We want to be careful calling that her thoughtlessness. It might be worth talking to her dad first, to point out the gap in emotional work: “I don’t need anything big, but it hurts my feelings a bit that you didn’t remind her to mark my days the way I did for yours.”

The last thing is that she’s 15. Things are going well in adolescence if the worst thing you do to your parents is take them for granted. You say she’s older and informed now, but in truth a lot of people make it to their 20s or 30s before fully seeing their parents as people. The childhood view of parent-figure as somehow both God and part of the furniture can take a long time to fully lift.

Again, that doesn’t mean you have to like it. But it means the explanation might be adolescence instead of insult and neglect.

Saying you’re done with gifts at the same moment you say this has been bothering you might feel like a rupture. If what you really want is to be cherished more, and to have your birthday feel nicer, you might have to ask for that. If it’s true you’d like some reassurance about whether she values you, it might even be worth saying that. Maybe not to her, on the principle that one should be careful about exposing emotional vulnerabilities to teenagers. But at least to her dad.

Part of the deal of parenthood is never quite getting back the same love you put in. But a cake and a present isn’t a lot to ask for. I’d start with making sure they know how much it would mean.

***

Ask Eleanor a question

Do you have a conflict, crossroads or dilemma you need help with? Eleanor Gordon-Smith will help you think through life’s questions and puzzles, big and small. Your questions will be kept anonymous.