Only seven of the 100 guests I invited to my wedding brought me a gift. I am shocked and furious but my husband says I’m being unreasonable… am I? VICKY REYNAL replies

I would not dream of going to a wedding empty-handed – yet when it was my turn to get married only seven out of the 100 guests who attended brought me a gift. I thought I was being gracious by not including a wedding registry or asking for contributions to our honeymoon. My husband tells me I am being unreasonable and missing the point. I am furious!

L. L., via email. 

Money psychotherapist Vicky Reynal replies: It is understandable to be angry when we feel unseen or somehow betrayed. This isn’t about the gifts, but about a breach of an unspoken expectation and social contract which you have honoured time and again. When others fail to meet a standard you’ve quietly lived by – especially on a day that holds such emotional weight – the sense of hurt can run far deeper than it might appear.

First of all, let’s acknowledge the grief that might be sitting beneath the anger. You had expectations (conscious or unconscious) that guests would acknowledge your joy and celebrate this milestone with gestures of thoughtfulness. That didn’t happen the way you imagined. This can be hurtful, not just because they didn’t do what you expected, but because of the meaning you gave to those absent gestures.

Perhaps your history of generosity has been your way of saying: ‘This day is important. I am here for you and love you.’ Why didn’t your friends express this to you in return on your big day?

Given how strongly this has affected you, it’s worth wondering what it might be touching on beyond the wedding itself. Is this reaction partly about feeling misunderstood – not just in this instance but more broadly? Has there been a painful pattern of people not intuiting or attending to your needs? Is there something going on in your life at the moment in which not feeling seen and understood is particularly painful?

And, if so, might your husband’s dismissal of your response as ‘unreasonable’ only compound the feeling that your inner world is being overlooked?

‘Perhaps your history of generosity has been your way of saying: “This day is important. I am here for you and love you,” writes Vicky Reynal (picture posed by model)

There may also be another layer – not just frustration with others, but with yourself. Are you angry with yourself for giving more than you receive in relationships? Does this go further than the exchange of wedding presents? That can slowly build into resentment with that part of you that always pleases others and leaves your own needs unexpressed and unfulfilled.

Why didn’t people give gifts? There may be many benign explanations.

This past year has been financially and emotionally difficult for many, and your decision not to mention gifts may have given people permission to save money – especially if they interpreted your omission as a signal that presents were not expected or even welcome.

We’re living through a cultural shift in wedding etiquette. While gift-giving used to be a firm obligation, it is now a much looser and more ambiguous expectation. Couples ask for charity donations, a contribution to their honeymoon fund or nothing at all. Some guests feel that travel costs or time off work count as their gift. In this climate of uncertainty, generous people still give, but others – especially those less attuned – feel justified in opting out.

But I would also invite you to think about your decision not to mention gifts in your invitation – in other words, not voicing what you were expecting in the hope that people would guess and deliver.

As much as we’d like people to anticipate and meet our needs, we come up against the harsh reality that, in life, partners and friends are not mind-readers and unfortunately, simply put, if we don’t ask we might not get.

So we might wonder why – if gifts did matter to you – you set people up to disappoint you in this respect. If this is a rare occasion in which you have found that people disappoint you, then it might be an opportunity to reflect on why things turned out this way and what you could have done differently.

Do you often take a very cautious and polite approach with people, maybe trying to please them and not ‘impose’? This could be why you didn’t include a registry or bank account for people to send money to, but you didn’t consider how this might be perceived by others.

I have found that when a client repeatedly finds people keep disappointing them in one way or another, that there might be a deeper issue at play. It begs the question: might you be creating situations in which people end up disappointing you? If that’s the case, then what could be going on is what Freud (the father of psychotherapy) called ‘repetition compulsion’.

In other words, you might be recreating situations of disappointment because as a child you might have felt deep sadness related to people not meeting your needs in a good enough way.

When past pain and trauma is not resolved or worked through, then we might feel compelled to repeat it, hoping for a different outcome, but ending up in a similar emotional landscape. You give and don’t receive, and people disappoint you.

What’s important now is not to judge yourself for caring about this, but use it as an opportunity for self-inquiry and to become clearer in your relationships about what you give and hope to receive.

What are the values and needs that this situation has brought into sharper focus? How can you honour them more clearly in the future – not only in how you give, but in how you allow yourself to receive?

With this insight, try speaking to your husband and let him know that while he doesn’t need to agree with you, maybe he can try to at least understand why the low number of gifts has been hurtful. This clearly isn’t about the material, but it’s far more personal – the need to feel seen, acknowledged, or of relationships feeling balanced.

Do you have a question for Vicky? Email vicky.reynal@dailymail.co.uk. Her book, Money on your Mind, is out now with Bonnier Books, £10.99