DH is lovely but a bit of a hypochondriac and he gets manflu on a regular basis, along with a host of other weekend ailments that require long lie-ins, not getting washed and dressed before lunchtime, naps in the afternoon, special bedding arrangements, special treatment in general, and very many medications lined up by his bed (eight at the last count - haemmorrhoid cream, Piriton, decongestants, Kalms, Solpadeine and so on). He takes his temperature at least three times a day and more usually a dozen times, periodically announcing things like, "It's 98.5, I have a temperature, I had better lie down, I feel rotten" leaving me to cope single handed with three kids yet again (bear in mind I have a disability and it's painful to walk and lift toddlers so this is particularly tough).
Now I think we can safely say his illness barometer is completely different from mine. However what I really object to is that he puts on this violent consumptive cough, wherever and whenever we are, and hams it up something rotten, holding his head and flinging his whole body into it, barking away, interrupting conversation for a 10 metre radius, and spraying cough everywhere. Then he feigns dizziness and sways like a Victorian corset wearer. It's like an April fool impersonation of a plague victim aimed at alarming the public to maximum effect.
I have just had ten days of this now, including (once again) organising a medical consultation over the phone for him yesterday so he was reassured he was not going to die of pneumonia or whatever, and an incident in Waitrose where he sprayed cough dramatically all over the aisle much to the alarm of the other customers, I am getting very fed up, and so is the rest of the family, so I said to him, "You have had a cold and a bit of a cough, you are not the first man on the earth to have a cold and a bit of a cough, so the hamming it up all over the place is getting to me. Take some cough mixture and get dressed and stop being silly.". He has now flounced off, deeply offended.
He seems to have some dramatic illness every blardy weekend and more frequently in the holidays. It's as though illness is some sort of hobby for him. Meanwhile I sit indoors waiting for him to get better seeing my life slip away (I get told off for abandoning him if I go anywhere).
WWYD? AIBU?
AIBU?
Long ... AIBU to object to DH's hammed up consumptive cough?
BoffinMum · 23/04/2011 11:28
A calendar is needed - mark the sick days and correlate them with weekends! Definitely either go out of have people round to help you with distracting the children.
I'm very grateful to my DH for going to ground when he is ill or hungover rather than dramatising an ailment as a deathbed (you know: with mandatory attendance). Sorry that seems like boasting; I only wanted to point out that not every man gets "manflu" and there is a more sensitive/ civilised way to deal with being ill when one actually does get ill.
Can any of his relatives or friends intervene, to shame him out of leaving you to carry everything so very frequently?
Hope Easter morning sees him resurrected! 
I had a partner like this - we didn't have kids together to be fair and every ailment he had whatever the doctor gave him "didn't work" 
and in the end it would go away on its own .
We had sevreal highly embarrassing out of hours gp surgeries "incidents" where is was quite clear to everyone other than him that he was full of shit.
For this very reason he is an ex.
I now have a normal partner.
Thanks for making me laugh out loud though OP - how can you still fancy him??!!
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Back now, very interesting responses, thank you. I thought I would update you all.
After letting him sulk for an hour I went and told him again in my nice voice that he was being silly and this had to stop now. To give him credit, he admitted he had been exaggerating in order to ensure he got sufficient sympathy, as he thought I was generally unsympathetic. I said I was no such thing, this myth had been going on for our entire marriage and was a load of rubbish, that he got all the sympathy necessary, and that it was time to get dressed and go out into the garden now. He meekly donned his holiday shorts and a t-shirt (he normally overdresses and then complains he gets too hot, so this was significant). He then sat on the lounger like a normal person being pleasant and friendly, coughing twice an hour in a more normal fashion (rather like his toddler son, who has the same bug). Occasionally he made me a drink, or proffered some other peace offering, and we had a very nice late lunch together which was collaboratively prepared, and which he cleared up afterwards. He was friendly all afternoon and played with the kids when necessary while I put my feet up for an hour. He is about to cook me a nice steak for supper while I make the pudding. I think he may just have grown up a bit with regard to this hypochondria thing. 
I am going to confiscate the thermometer and cull his medicines and log any further occurrences so I have a bit more evidence of silly behaviour in the future. Hopefully sorted now. 
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.