Extremely uncomfortable about what my boyfriend has done to ‘cheer’ me up

[JasmineD]

I’ve had a rough couple of weeks; an elderly relative’s health has deteriorated and I’ve had some issues with my job.

My boyfriend told me earlier in the week that he is going to do something to cheer me up, and then started hinting at a gift he has got me and kept saying how much I’d like it.

I went to his last night, after dinner he gave me a gift bag and something was really neatly wrapped. I opened it and it was an underwear set.

He must have been able to tell I looked unimpressed and said he’d put a lot of thought into it and got ‘advice’. Now he doesn’t have any close female friends so I’m not sure who this advice was from - it only leaves work colleagues or family (he has two sisters and a mum he’s very close to).

It then transpired this item was a size too small for me, and when I pointed this out he said he went by what was in my draw. I have an old outfit in there which is buried at the bottom and I’ve not worn for years. So he had gone through without my knowledge looking for something similar and got the size wrong.

I don’t really wear this sort of thing now (and this is that cheap/scratchy feel material too!) but that’s beyond the point - I feel a bit gross that he thought this was an appropriate present to ‘cheer me up’?

@JasmineD cheap crotchless underwear is never a gift for us though is it. :/

would he appreciate a vibrating cockring? Or would’ve dislike the implications many men make when presented with one?

has he bought you underwear before? Is this the type of stuff you’ve even worn for him before? I like some of it for cheeky times and the chap now knows what I do and don’t like. But I always made it clear that it didn’t pass as a gift for me ok birthdays or Christmas’s etc. it’s a gift for him that he’s like me to wear.

Frank conversations and I’d make it clear no matter whom he spoke to - male or female - not to take further advice on yours and his relationship. I’m also wondering why he’s so coy about who he asked?

That hole he's digging just gets deeper

Sorry but in the context of this thread I just spat out my drink laughing!

Hmm.

He's obviously never seen the film where Harrison Ford gets the heroine after the useless boyfriend gifts her sexy underwear, but Harrison Ford gives her a new briefcase.

I had to Google: "Working Girl". (It's of its time - some aspects are problematic - but that one thing still stands out.)

cracked me up 😂

I hope you give it straight back to him, telling him that you’re not a fucking idiot, it’s a gift for him, not you, and if he seriously thinks that some porn inspired, nylon crap made in China will make you feel empowered or sexy, then that is his explanation for why you don’t want to rip his clothes off twice a day. He’s clueless.

However, if you do decide to let it go, then I hope you buy him a vibrator for his birthday. Wrap it up beautifully. Make a huge fuss about how excited you are for him to open it. Drop hints about how you’ve researched the best one and you can’t wait for him to use it.

I never noticed till you mentioned that 🤣🤣🤣

As a word of caution, @ToadRage, please make sure you’re paying in to your own pension, and prioritising your own career for when the penny drops.

This seems to be a recurring problem in so many spheres - men think about sex all the time and assume that women are exactly the same as they are. See also; the sending of dick pics.
It's the lack of emotional intelligence that gets me. Surely....surely they understand that just because THEY are led by their dicks most of the time, it's not the same for a lot of women? That an awful lot of women don't think about sex nearly as much as they do? Or do they only meet the women who do, and therefore think that all women are the same?

😂😂

Sorry things have been so hard.
He sounds so dim.
I'd really get the Ick.

A few if my friends including myself have had to have conversation several times with partners and husbands about how sexy underwear is for them not for us and explained in detail why. I don't think its unusual for men to drop the ball on this one

Well, my first thought was 'aw, the gift of thrush, how lovely' and then read that the pants are crotchless? Oh my actual God.

I find when I’m feeling low due to my misogynistic bosses behaviour, nothing picks me up more than my flaps dangling out of my crotchless pants. I really feel peachy after I do it. #SelfCareMatters

Eugh, wasn't there a recent thread where the OP had gone off sex, having recently had a baby - and her husband and his mother colluded to find ways to persuade her to start giving him his jollies again?

Yes that’s a good comparison. They would love random vagina photos so think we want dick pics.

Time to get rid of this loser OP. You know it.

Indeed there was

That was a bizarre one.

Has happened to me. You’re justified to be upset to the level of posting on MN.

Generally I love lingerie and have a collection. I also work with high end fashion brands, for context.

LTR ex got me some cheap awful lingerie for a special occasion. It massively upset me on so many levels:

• Someone else choosing what I should wear (control)
• Him thinking I’d wear £5 slave labour clothing
• Him thinking I needed to be sexier somehow and like I wasn’t enough
• Just poor fashion taste
• Showed me he had no idea who I was

Now, he didn’t mean it maliciously, he knew I liked lingerie and fashion, and thought it would be a way for us to reconnect, and yes, maybe that I’d feel sexier and more empowered. But he just wasn’t someone that had any sense of style or an idea of what a woman like me would like to wear. After 15 years together?!

I broke up with him not long after.

Broke up with someone else after I had told him I hate others trying to dress me, when he sensed I was losing interest, and gifted me lingerie as a desperate act to reconnect. He was done very soon after.

The reason why lingerie as a gift upsets me:

• Hate others dressing me (control)
• Hate being told by anyone else what I should look like
• If cheap and tatty, it makes me feel seen as cheap and tatty
• I like sex, but being told we should have it soon in this way is so needy, pushy and such a turn-off

I think sex is the solution for men sometimes when they’re having a bad few days, and how they like to ‘connect’ - they just assume it’s the same for us women and they’re wrong in that.

I feel his biggest mistake was not putting himself into your shoes and not demonstrating he really gets you. Many men/ people make that mistake, gifting people what would work for them (sex, day gokarting, something expensive) instead of observing what you’d consider a treat for yourself