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The Best Passive-Aggressive Gifts for Your Significant Other

As you can see, it’s gift-guide season. Whether you’re shopping for your parents, your design-junkie friend, or the luxury-loving label-conscious woman in your life, we pretty much have you covered. But before you click and buy, humor us for a second and consider a different gift to give your significant other this season: the relationship-saving present.

The relationship-saver is an inexpensive way to prevent your significant another from annoying the living hell out of you. It’s the saving grace when you’re two seconds away from smothering your loved one in their sleep as their snoring keeps you up for the umpteenth night in the row. It’s the answer when he picks a long hair of his clothes and shouts, “SERIOUSLY DO YOU SHED EVERYWHERE?!” And it’s the solution to many, many, MANY fights over who gets custody of the lone charger in the apartment. Yes, it’s passive-aggressive, but trust us, it’s for the benefit of everyone.

Many a relationship has experienced the wrath of the charger dilemma. You can’t find your own, so you just grab the one in front of you. Stop right there. In the crime of charger kidnapping, no one comes out a winner, and there’s shattered feelings all over the floor. The next time your significant other kidnaps your charger, take a deep breath, fight the urge to strangle them with it, and go on Amazon. A three-pack is the most diplomatic choice — one for you, one for your mate, and another as a backup when one of them inevitably self-destructs.

That age-old proverb about opposites attracting has hit home and now your nights are spent arguing over whether to leave the lights on or off. So you’re a night owl and your mate can’t fall asleep unless it’s pitch-black? Give them this eye mask and you can read in bed in blissful peace.

If the happiness of a relationship was charted on some sort of graphic visual, it would be directly proportional to quality of sleep. When snoring enters this equation, it’s not even plausible to ask for a full eight hours — just a few nice REM cycles will do. Here’s where this nifty invention comes in. Throw it on your partner, smack them so they roll over, and you can finally get a good night’s rest.

If snore prevention lets you down, there’s always these. At eight bucks for 50 pairs, it’s a deal.

Tired of waiting for someone to find their phone, keys, wallet, and watch? Buy an organized tray where they can put all of their crap in one spot. This doesn’t guarantee you’ll leave the house any faster, but at the very least it’ll save you the frustration of having to help search.

Call it “man box,” “woman box,” or simply “box of crap,” it’s a functional storage solution for all of the junk that won’t be a blight on your home décor.

Research (a.k.a. an informal Cut survey) shows that 50 percent of a relationship is spent looking for keys while the other 50 percent is spent lecturing your significant other about how annoying it is that they keep losing them in the first place.

Long hair, whether it originated on a pet or a person, sheds. It forms puddles on the floor and clings to every article of clothing. Inevitably, this leads to fights when one person finally becomes fed up over having to pick every last strand off their clothing. Step one? Get them a reusable lint roller.

$18

You have two options for step two. If you don’t want to spend a lot, get a Swiffer to gather up all the hair on the floor.

Though if you really want to make life easier on all parties involved, a vacuum cleaner is really the best option. This one has enough power to suck in all of the long strands of hair, and cleanup is simple — there won’t be any disgusting tangles that require a pair of scissors to remove.

What does a television have to do with staying together? Plenty. One unnamed editor’s boyfriend gifted her a TV to better watch sports from her place. And his-and-her televisions meant no more fighting over the remote.

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The Best Passive-Aggressive Gifts for Your Significant Other