to ask dh to stop on his way home from work to pick up some sanitary towels?

[TheRhubarb]

I've run out and my period has just started. I normally have a good supply but the car has broken down so for the past 2 weeks I've been without a car. That should have been resolved this weekend but the old banger he went to buy to replace ours, also broke down. No car means online shopping and when I do online shopping I often forget these necessities because I'm not confronted with an aisle full of them to remind me.

Nearest shop is the village PO which will be full of the horsey set after school and probably won't stock any decent pads (I need nighttime ones as well as ordinary winged ones). So unless dh gets some on the way back I'm stuffed. However he HATES me asking him to do this (yes I have asked before) and I realise he finds it really embarrassing, but I don't know what else to do?

Oh come on. they are just sanitary towels. He's being silly.

(Btw MN keeps going offline for me too so I'm sure I had a more coherent post before.)

In these teccy days you could even send him a web link to the right ones! Or a photo of the box

Ask him! He's not a teenager don't get at all why he would be embarrassed.

Self checkout FTW! I think this is the exact event they were created for (and buying thrush cream ).

Seriously though your DH is getting off lightly. My DH has bought them for me nearly every month for 13 years! He is Tampaxman!
He sometimes gets muddled with the colour coding, but he says its not embarrassing, just confusing and he gets worried it will be wrong. With full instructions he does well.
YADNBU

Thanks LRD. No he can't help the way he was brought up and he is a very kind-hearted and lovely man, but he can get flustered and embarrassed easily.

I told him I wanted some nice underwear for Christmas but not impractical sexy ones, I said they had to be practical and suitable for every day use as well as pretty. So I got a 3 pack of high waisted knickers with nylon panels. One brown, one red and one black. They are old lady knickers.

I think he just panicked and grabbed a packet as they are easier to buy than single pretty knickers.

So I buy my own underwear from now on.

Funnily enough though, those knickers are great for my periods!

I've lived in villages and cannot believe an adult has even thought to question this!

I buy DHs razors etc if I'm off work and he needs them, he buys my stuff if he's off and I need em

Tell him he's not 12 and get on with it!

What? This isn't the most embarrassing thing he could buy surely? YY to giving strict instructions. I asked for maternity pads, and got given incontinence knickers! The nurses couldn't stop laughing!

Sorry, half my post died when MN when off line. I am slightly on a soapbox here so forgive me rhubarb.

I'm thinking about the way loads of posters don't think it is at all embarrassing to buy tampax etc, and thinking about how different attitudes when we're growing up matter a lot. I never saw my mum buy tampax until I was 13 and needed them too. She used to buy the regular shop and either hide them or leave them out and buy them separately when she was shopping on her own. She kept them in her knicker drawer and not in the bathroom, so until I got my period I never knew what they looked like. If the OP's husband was brought up like this, is it any wonder he's a bit bemused?!

This is why I like the practice I've often seen, of having a jar of tampax by the loo, along with the cotton wool or handwash, so they're discreetly tucked away in a container, but easily available when you look. That way you can grow up not thinking they're odd lady-products!

Anyway ... sorry, that is my rant but it's sort of vaguely on-topic!

"No he can't help the way he was brought up"

he can help acting like its still the decade he was a child/teenager in! (assuming he's in his 60s or something!)

Most people move on from things they were raised with!

DH has bought allsorts for me, including sanitary towels and breast pads. When my DS was just 2 days old, and my knee ligaments ruptured (again), I wasn't able to go shopping for a few weeks. I had more pressing things on my mind than online shopping, so he did what he needed to do and never once complained and would have experienced my very hormonal and in pain wrath if he had

Oh yes, buying razors, sooo embarrassing!

Hey go easy on him ok? He is my husband you know and I love him. I just asked in case other partners were equally embarrassed and I should spare him the blushes and buy the village shop's own label XL sanitary towels that come wrapped in a brown paper bag or if I should insist he man up.

As it happens he's agreed along with the rest of the shopping. So he's probably not as bad as I thought. As LRD has said, the poor man can't help that he was brought up in such conservative surroundings. If you compare him to his dad, he's practically a raving hippy!

LRD, yes I was brought up the same. My mother never told me about periods, I found out through friends and my sisters. Thanks for your posts, they are pretty much spot on (as always) and helpful.

School run now.

Oh tell dh to grow up, my dad used to buy san towels for me and neither he nor I were embarrassed by it. Dh wouldn't think twice about getting tampax if they were on the shopping list and I have bought dh pile cream before now. Grown ups don't fret over these things, seriously!

you don't have to be raised watching something being bought in order to cope with buying it what's that all about?

its not difficult

I didn't grow up watching anyone buy male grooming products, my dad just used shampoo! doesn't mean I freak out in the male grooming isle because my husband uses razers and hair gel and I'ld never witnesses anyone buying them or grown up in a bathroom that displayed them! e

neither of us have younger siblings so never saw anyone buy nappies when we were growing up.... we cope with buying them all the time!

I think people are being a bit harsh on the OP's husband. After all, he's said he'll go.

I found it embarrassing to buy tampons well into my 20s. My parents were SO uptight about stuff, my mum never told me about periods, never bought me sanitary products...I just found out at school then sorted myself out. It was something that was so wrapped up in shame for me because it was just never mentioned, my mum's sanpro was always hidden away...so silly.

So I can really see where he's coming from. Of course he should buy them, but in some households, it is seen as shameful and we don't all just shake off our childhood stuff as soon as we hit 18.

slightly off topic but I sent my husband to buy sanitary towels and other essentials after birth of DC3 which he did - but also came back with new 3 wheel pram! We already had an old but perfectly servicable one but apparently this one was the top of the range high tech equivalent. I always remind him of this when I come back with a new outfit after popping out for a pint of milk.

'you don't have to be raised watching something being bought in order to cope with buying it hmm what's that all about?'

Yes, of course you don't have to be raised watching something in order to buy it.

That is why (presumably) all of us, and may of our husbands/partners incuding rhubarb's have got round to buying stuff for periods.

That doesn't change the fact that if you look at how periods are presented in adverts, they're made out to be both disgusting and embarrassing. It is not at all like - say - buying a pack of tissues or nappies, though it could be.

IMO it's a really big feminist issue, and the way forward isn't to guilt-trip or shame and women who do respond to cultural conditioning.

Sure, he should buy the tampax. No-one disagrees. But there is a cultural context here and IMO denying that is like pretending no-one every suggests periods are anything but delightful public events.

(And thanks rhubarb)

yellow I think you are spot on.

The important thing is doing what we can to change these perceptions, isn't it?

I believe you are also spot on LRD.

Even for the least squeamish amongst us, we still don't yell across the office "oi, anyone got a spare tampon? I am gushing with blood" in the same way you'd say "chuck us a hanky, my nose is running".

So I'd say it is still tied up with shame for a lot of people, even the majority of people, which is ridiculous. Periods are painful, they make you grumpy and on top of that we are embarrassed by them.

I think mine was probably embarrassed the first time he picked some up-even though it was along with the rest of the shopping.

PFB was early & I had nothing so he had to get it all-san pro, breast pads etc.

OP-as long as you´re bringing your children up to see this stuff as "normal".

That said, I think teenage son would cringe if asked to pick up a box of tampons/towels-even though they are in the bathroom & he knows what they are for.

I got it wrong. Went for tampax ; came home with tin tacks. (Never lived it down)

is he embarrassed by your children because they came out of your womb

Sorry but he needs to man up and deal.

My friend once rang her husband to ask him to bring round her handbag that she'd left at home - she was at a friend's four doors up and he was on the way there anyway. He put it in a plastic bag for the journey so as not to be seen carrying a handbag. I thought it was sad - they'd been married for 30 years and he couldn't bring himself to carry her handbag because it might somehow contaminate him with womanliness?

My dh bought me pantyliners (gag) instead of maternity pads. Fucking clueless, yes. Embarrassed, no.

My DP buys these things for me more often than I do. YANBU!!