My (20/F) boyfriend (21/M) is upset that I bought a similar teddybear for an ex-boyfriend

My guess is he thought this was a special and unique thing for the two of you to share. When he found out the whole story, that world image blew up. It was a shock and a little bit depressing.

As to your question, "did I fuck up?", my answer is a little bit.

The key to this kind of thing is framing and disclosure. For example, if you had presented this to him along the lines of "This bear is important to me. My ex had one like him made. I hate that we had something that I don't share with you and I want to fix that. Can we get a bear for you?"

With that kind of presentation, there is no surprise factor. If he doesn't like the idea of doing something you did with your EX, he has a chance to make an informed decision before anything happens. And he would have known from the beginning that this was not something unique between the two of you.

As to how to fix this, in the grand scheme of things, this isn't a huge issue and there is a good chance he will get over this himself. Were I in your shoes, I would probably tell him something along these lines

"I am so sorry I did not let you know my EX had a bear like this too. I hated that I had done something with my EX that I didn't with you. I now realize I should have let you know that before we made the bear. I think the problem here is we need something that just the two of us have done with each other and no one else. Will you help me figure out something we can do that neither of us has ever shared with anyone else?"

/r/relationships Thread