40th Birthday Gifts For Wife - This Year's Best Gift Ideas (2024)

Ring this one up as a gift for both of you (and you can never have too many opportunities to work those in). Smooth, cool, silky satin sheets blow cotton away by any reasonable standard. After a long day of reminiscing about all the great years you’ve spent together, this is the stuff that you’ll want to come home and writhe around in. The only problem is you’ll want to stay in bed all day. Better cross a couple of weeks off your calendar just to be safe.

In classier quarters this might be called a “decanter.” But the built-in stupidity of a decanter is that it’s really just a big glass you’re not allowed to drink out of. You see, in the genteel world of wine, “classy” consists of adding unnecessary steps to what should be a simple process. Of course, bourgeois society has attached all kinds of stigma to drinking straight from the bottle, so some kind of compromise is necessary. And that compromise is right here.

Experiences make some of the best gifts, but it can be a real challenge to come up with good ones over and over again. This birthday grab bag allows the recipient to choose any one experience from a list of over 300 options that range from relaxing dining experiences and laid-back ocean cruises to extreme sports adventures in far-flung locales. With experiences available in 100+ countries scattered across six different continents, this is an especially great choice for globetrotters in search of unique and thrilling activities in faraway lands.

This Zimbabwean kissing lovers sculpture is like a yin-yang for people who really like to get it on. Two lovers’ faces encapsulated in stone for eternity, gazing into each other’s soul, for one brief moment not thinking about whose fault it is that the garbage never got taken out. Yes, the gods have smiled kindly upon these lovers, freezing them in a moment of carefree bliss from which they never have to descend back into the mundane world inhabited by us poor mortals.

Nothing brings a middle-aged adult back to their youth like a box of classic candy from their childhood. We all tend to get attached to the things that we eat when we’re young, and we’ll keep eating it and even enjoying it, even if it’s not that good. Which explains the survival of weird Halloween staples like candy corn and circus peanuts. But the Retro Candy Box doesn’t stoop to the level of serving up that kind of generic crap. This is the candy box full of classic stuff that even a 40 year-old can get excited about.

Life is becoming almost infinitely customizable, so why should jewelry be any different? Think of this as your iJewelry store. Diamond rings don’t exactly come cheap, so why should you have to choose between one ring that has your favorite setting and one that has your favorite diamond? Now you get to tell them which parts to put together, just like at Burger King. The only way you’re going to get more DIY is if you grab a pickax and head out for the mines. And we all know you don’t have time for that.

Once you’ve been together a while, you’ll probably want to inject a little creativity into your date nights. This is a great way to do that, using the prompts provided, albeit with parameters that you set yourself by filling out your own specific date night activities, instead of leaving it up to someone you’ve never met and whose mental state you can’t realistically vet. You’re in this for the long haul - don’t let date night become another boring ritual.

Take a little field trip to the spot where your two souls first collided. Revisiting the place where your journey together started will mark just how far you’ve come. You may not have known it back then, but this little slice of the universe gave birth to what the two of you share today. Go ahead, see if those butterflies start to flutter again…

Who needs photorealism when you can have the charming warmth of skillful human error? There is something undeniably touching about having an artist recreate your image by hand using the old-time tools of long-gone artistic masters. After all, any old fool can press a shutter button and spit out a photo of your homely mug. It really means something that another person was willing to stare at that photo for hours while they painstakingly recreated your form by hand, imbuing it with all the personality and living charisma of your aura. Help someone you love celebrate a cherished moment the old fashioned way.

Playfulness is an essential ingredient to any successful union. Don’t starve your marriage of the joy and laughter that can sustain it for many years to come! Carve out some time for a little card game action with your favorite partner in crime and feel the buzz that you get from a little homegrown rivalry. Challenge your spouse to a game that lasts all week long, as you earn points and reap rewards by performing tasks. We bet neither of you thought that you’d be battling to do the dishes.

Extend the celebration of your love for weeks, months even, with these personalized devotion vouchers. Your soul mate will revel in the chance to squeeze as much attention out of you as they possibly can—they might even try to double or triple their bounty if the rules allow for it—and you can earn extended reward points for being such a generous partner. Send your sweetheart on a shopping spree through the romance department where expiration dates never apply!

If you’re considering going with gift as common as flowers, you might consider stepping it up a few dozen notches by dipping them in 24k gold. Just gather up all your extra gold, melt it in your crucible, and toss in your plants. Or just buy this Eternity Rose instead. Actually, it’s probably electro-plated not really dipped in molten metal, but you get the point.

Flowers are a classic gift, but they’ve got one fatal flaw: no matter how beautiful, they tend to wilt too soon. But you’re smarter than that - you like to play the long game. The Flower of the Month Club lets you automatically replenish those flowers at regular intervals so that there’s always a fresh collection in the recipient’s house. Even if you’re not a hippy, you can always employ a little “flower power” to make someone feel loved and appreciated.

Forty used to be the standard age to judge someone as being over the hill. Now, with our breakthroughs in medical science, improved understanding of nutrition and exercise, and advances in collective denial, we all know that 40 is young as hell. But in case they insist on having a mid-life crisis, here are 40 expert-selected ways to distract themselves from their dark night of the soul. Help them go boldly into middle age.

Your anniversary is a wonderful opportunity to stop fighting for a whole day and express your love anew (unless one of you forgets, and then it’s World War III). But as sweet as anniversaries are, they only take up one three-hundred-sixty-fifth of your time together. Imagine if you could extend that for a whole month. Well, now you can. This romantic jar contains 31 love-soaked messages, so the good feelings just keep on coming.Choose from ready-made sets with messages already included, blank cards that you can fill in yourself, or Kindnotes will custom print your personalized set and jar.

Get them started on that Bucket List while there’s time and health to finish it, with a tangible, physical bucket. They can pick an adventure whenever life permits. It's a gift that gives them the opportunity to make memories, rather than giving them a reason to make more closet space.

Sure, it will be strange when you have to get that cheek swab from them without them knowing what you’re up to, but it will all make sense when you reveal this custom portrait that showcases their unique DNA. Or you could just give them the DNA collection kit as the gift if that’s easier. Or just swab your dog. They’ll never know the difference.

For the true art connoisseur, sometimes a poster reproduction of a famous work just isn’t enough. And no, you’re not going to fool them with a “really nice” giclée print off Amazon. These are real, one-of-a-kind, straight from the hand of the artist genuine pieces. Whether it’s a canvas painting, a piece of modernist furniture, or an $18,000 metal balloon dog, there’s something for everyone here (and, believe it or not, for any budget if you’re willing to dig a little).

If the last thing they need is another “thing”, then the best possible gift is to take a trip together. Whether it’s a short day-trip to the beach, a weekend in Vegas, or a vacation overseas, travel creates memories that will last forever, long after their gizmos have become obsolete, their doodads have broken down, and their whatchamacallums have faded into obscurity.

Everyone used to have that one weird friend who would set up a portable swimming pool in the middle of the living room just so they could take a bath and watch TV at the same time. Now technology allows them to bring the TV to the bathtub, not the other way around, in the form of a small tablet. But electronics and water still don’t really mix that well, so you need something like this. Provides space for food, beverages, soap, aromatherapy candles, entertainment, and whatever else they might want within arm’s reach while soaking away their worries.

Bronze casting, like marriage, is an ancient tradition. Now you can combine the two with one of these lovely sculptures depicting couples in love. With proper care, a marriage should last forever. A bronze sculpture should as well, with even less care.

We all like to think we’re larger than life, but in truth we’re really just branches on the grand tree of our ancestry. Screw that, most of us are just leaves at best. Some of us are maybe just a little speck of caterpillar vomit on one of those leaves (you know who you are). Your family tree doesn’t have to be that detailed though.

In a couple of generations, nobody’s even going to know what the hell a book is. Have you seen a teenager try to figure out how to use one of their parents’ audio cassettes? But for those of us in the know, books are the real source of pure knowledge and wisdom, untainted by the runoff of digital culture. Like a cold, clear mountain stream, but with words.

If someone has reached the age of forty without realizing the joy of luxuriating in a hot bath while drinking a glass of cold white wine, buy this gift for them. If they have reached that age and know exactly how nice it is to do that, then, again, buy this gift for them! It works either way.

40 years is a long time, they probably know that better than anyone else. Remind them of all the milestones and memories that have come before this one and give them a gift to treasure with a book designed especially for them. It’s also a great way to make sure they never forget any embarrassing moments. Like we said, 40 years is a long time, there’s bound to be a few.

An old classic that they love, perfect for an old classic that you love. Whether you track down a childhood favorite or a book that has a particular meaning to both of you, owning a first edition is the ultimate gift for literature lovers and they are sure to be touched at the thought that’s gone into finding a present that is perfect right down to the last letter.

Give the gift of beautiful views, bucket-list achievements, and especially if they’re afraid of heights, hours of entertainment for you. It veers away from cruel since it’s completely safe, but you’ll definitely get your money’s worth watching them rotate between admiring the splendor and clutching the basket while praying in four languages. Especially since they only speak one.

We like this because it looks all sci-fi while also actually being kind of sci-fi. It is a cordless neck and shoulder heating wrap that can warm sore bones for up to an hour per charge. Get them up off the couch and looking like a space villain at the same time.

Flowers don’t just look nice and fill the air with pleasant aromas, they also carry various levels of symbolism. Much like the zodiac, each month has its own flower variety, reflecting the character of everyone born therein. Or at least, that’s what someone decided a long time ago. And it sure is a nice idea. Regardless of whether the person you’re buying for really is a carnation at heart, or whether they’re more of a Venus fly trap, these earrings are going to look great on them.