Sex File: I hate the lingerie he buys for me

Pic: iStock

My partner recently spent quite a lot of money on some exquisite sexy underwear for me for a big birthday. This is not my type of thing at all. I'm not uncomfortable with my body - I just hate feeling trussed up. I thought after so long that he knew that and fancied me as I am, but this makes me wonder if I was wrong. What should I do?

When men gift lingerie they do so because either they would like their partner to wear it, or they think their partner would like to wear it. 

When this latter assumption turns out to be wrong, the recipient is left with a dawning realisation that the person they have been sharing a bed with doesn't appear to know them at all.

Gifts should always bring joy, but they often have the opposite effect. Especially gifts of lingerie. 

There is, I suppose, a very small chance that your partner is trying to boost your already healthy body confidence by giving you "exquisite" underwear, but it is a very small chance. 

It is much more likely that he googled "what to get a lady for her big birthday", and hey presto! 

This is a surprisingly common and incredibly expensive problem. 

In fact, research that was conducted with 1,600 women in 2012 estimated that men in Britain waste more than £100m a year buying sexy bras, knickers, G-strings and fishnet stockings that are never worn.

One of the big problems is that because we are all so polite, we don't feel that it is OK to be honest about gifts that make us feel uncomfortable. 

Regardless of how inappropriate or thoughtless something is, when you receive a gift, any gift, you are not allowed to express anything other than gratitude and delight, even if you hate it. 

And of course, if you don't like their present, you may also, however temporarily, dislike the person who gave it to you, because how could they think you would like it? 

This fear of causing offence means that, over the years, many couples could fill a spare room with gifts they never needed and never wanted.

I can't tell you whether your partner loves you "just the way you are", or whether he would fancy you more if you were trussed up like a shire horse in suspenders. 

But I do know that if you don't tell him the truth about how you feel, you are not giving him a chance to learn what it is that would bring you real joy. 

Nip this problem in the bud by telling your partner how you feel, getting the receipt, returning the offending items and buying what you want. 

In future, provide your partner with a very specific list of what you want and where to get it, several weeks in advance of any potential gifting opportunity. It's not romantic but it does maximise the chance of you getting a present that you want.

Mind you, it still goes wrong though. It was my birthday a few weeks ago and on the night before while I was out and about, I noticed that I had several missed calls from my husband. 

I texted him back the number 6.5. Cryptic? Nope. Both of the men I have married have called me the night before my birthday to "randomly" inquire about the size of my feet. 

This year I just cut to the chase. With Christmas on the horizon, we both need to act now.

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