To find it hard to be sympathetic when DH is ill

OP, your husband sounds like an absolute fanny.

And I'm not usually one to call someone a fanny because I happen to think fannies are pretty awesome.

But if you're getting up with kids at 5am vs his 8am dressing gown shuffle... when you have the same cold as him AND you're pregnant, yeah he's a fanny.

Hahaha bingo!!

You don't think like me so must be a man! 😂

Not a man. I just don't hate my husband enough to mock him when he's unwell. And I wasn't specifically talking OP, I'm talking about ALL of the women here who have basically piled in and mocked their own husbands for being annoying when ill.

Of course he's being shit by not helping his pregnant wife, no one would disagree with that. But the mocking - the dressing gown of doom, he's breathing performatively loudly, I can't sit in the same room as him because he won't have a lemsip and shut the fuck up... That's contempt. And depressingly it seems normal for women to stew in contempt for their husbands and take the piss out of them for being stupid and useless. At least on MN it is anyway, I don't know anyone who hates their husband that much in real life and aren't actually divorcing him.

YABU. Women are like household appliances. We don't get sick.

You wouldn't expect the toaster to catch a cold, would you? So if it wasn't functioning properly, you'd be annoyed with it, rather than sympathetic.

OP, my husband is also fucking ridiculous when it comes to being unwell.

He woke up with a sore foot last Wednesday and hadn't moved from he sofa until today. He regularly stays in bed for 7-10days when he has a cold and gets grumpy when I don't appear to believe that this is necessary. He gets sick about once every 4-6 weeks.

It's so unattractive and he feels so sorry for himself and can't do anything around the house for the whole time so just makes my workload heavier. He wants to be looked after and I can't bring myself to indulge him as in that moment I dislike him.

ETA- in fairness to him, he's pretty good when I don't feel well.

I can see where you're coming from, but doesn't it also show a certain level of contempt to make out your illness is so much worse than someone else's, to expect that they get on with their usual duties and you don't?

I am unsympathetic when DH is ill. He becomes a lump incapable of doing anything, even basic communication. While I carry on regardless of how unwell I am. I do comment on this but he's one of those men who just ignore it & carry on rather than address it.

What really peeves me is he won't stay in bed. He comes out, lies on the couch and breathes heavily with his mouth open, like a death rattle, all day. Then snores. I've got to listen to it, keep noise down & can't even sit down for a bit to watch tv or read a book because he is so loud, or wakes up and needs something.

Sympathies OP, my DH is the same.

And don’t get me started with the noises he makes.. groaning, coughing fits, then yelling because the coughing hurts his back…
It drives me mad.

You have to be a man to have read the original post and reply this. Of course it’s purely natural to feel resentment when you’re pregnant, dealing with DC, working and feeling ill and your other half is doing naff all to help despite probably having the same illness. You’d be insane to be okay with this. You can love someone and also be annoyed by their behaviour at times.

I don't blame you! Bloody annoying! Of course you feel like that!!

You sound pissed off but also like youre making light of it. This is a man who is happy to let his pregnant wife pick up the slack for minor illnesses, and who accuses her of being unsympathetic when she asks for some help.

Tell him on Friday you're so ill that you're going to your parents / a friend / stay in bed all weekend. That he has driven you to it by refusing to help once in all the past few weeks you've been not well. And that's why you keep catching stuff because you're so run down. And then relax

This isn’t really relevant-and OF COURSE I don’t mean people with chronic illnesses and disabilities and other health issues. And obviously being pregnant is a different ball game-but people do seem to be ill a lot. When people say they are ill-what do they mean? Is having a cold being ill? I think I’d have to have proper flu to call myself actually ill. And the same goes for DP…

I knew an older couple and the wife said she allowed her husband one day to feel sorry for himself and then he had to get on with things. Another man l knew had a doctor for his wife. If he had a cold she would say: “pull yourself together, man!”

ln your circumstances, the next time he has a cold, he is allowed to wear the Dressing Gown of Doom for one day only before pulling himself together and getting on with things.

in my experience it usually involved a lecture about how ungrateful i was, how hard he worked, how i clearly didn't care and had zero consideration for how ill he was, how bad he felt, and how much he sacrificed for the family.

Reason No #367 why he's now my ex husband,

What do men like this actually say in response to a factual statement about you being ill yourself but not having any choice (because he wasn’t nursing you or creating space for you to have a lie-in or a nap)? When you point out their selfishness and hypocrisy, what do they say? I’d be so shamefaced if my OH had to say this to me!

If I was you I’d spend a couple of days in bed and tell him he has to step up

Do you don the dressing gown of doom and expect to be pandered to when you're ill while everyone else has to get on with it?

OP next time he gets a sniffle, tell him to do the poorly cough with the sticky out tongue. It seemed to cure my husband when he tried the shuffly slippers and clinging to door frame thing.

Luckily I don't have a man to give no sympathy to but my dc do complain that I'm not very sympathetic...I have zero sympathy for anyone who is unwell and doesn't do everything they can to feel better, ie medication, hot bath, cold shower, early night.

Men are definitely less resilient than women, and I'm sure I read somewhere that they actually do feel more pain than women, obviously do not repeat that in a man's earshot!

Bloody hell what a bucket load of resentment there is on this thread for men you are supposed to love.

If my husband had this level of contempt for me I would be quite upset.

YANBU except for "He refuses to see a doctor". Why would he do that for having a cold?

I have one of these too. Totally over the top drama for a common cold. Luckily the kids (teens) think he’s ludicrous too so we all just laugh about how ridiculous he’s being.

Oh my Christ I could have written this myself. It does my head in.

This has made me chuckle because I've had the very same argument with my DH today. We both have an unusually debilitating cold so (since I also feel awful) I'm not doubting in the slightest that he's ill, but the way he hams it up veers between comical and infuriating. He won't talk about anything other than his symptoms and how dreadful they are, and goes around the house groaning and having a coughing spasm whenever I'm near.

I wonder if there's a biological reason men cope less well with being ill? Maybe in their caveman days they could no longer chase gazelles so risked dying of starvation? Whereas women are used to dealing with low-level pain for much or their lives (or indeed high-level pain when you look at childbirth) and they learn that playing the gallery for sympathy is ultimately pointless! Just my theory but you have my sympathy....

Mine drives me nuts when he is ill.. the first couple times in our relationship he went on so much I thought he must be dying .. it’s pathetic.
It’s because they don’t have periods … if they did they would learn that they have to carry on.