To find H's tiredness unattractive

He needs to see his Gp regarding the fatigue and gastrointestinal symptoms.
These symptoms are red flags for some more serious issues than laziness.....

I have sympathy! My DH is similar (age 42) He's always just needed more sleep than me but also he gets up and starts work earlier. He also has ADHD so is just a bit more on the go! I think his quality of sleep is also terrible - I think he may have sleep apnea tbh but keeps getting fobbed off by the Dr. I just feel a bit bored sometimes - sat next to someone snoring on the sofa at 9pm watching a film basically alone. Also, the snoring itself is just really annoying 😆

It's deliberate. He's checked out of the marriage and family life. The Dressing Gown Of Doom, it's a thing OP. It's what the lazy ones do when they want to pretend they're ill or more ill than they are. Often noted alongside the Slipper Shuffle Of Sorrow and a woebegone expression, completed with dramatic groans and sighs each time they move. If they're pretending to have A Deadly Virus (man-flu) there'll be a lot of sniffling into a disgusting tissue too. It always comes with a total inability to get out of bed/off the sofa and do anything at all, requiring them to be waited on hand and foot. Usually occurs whenever there's anything going on that they'd rather not do, like visit your parents or look after DC in school holidays.

Another prime occurrence is immediately after you've been genuinely ill and they've had to actually do a bit of housework or childcare. The second you're out of bed, they'll be supposedly hit with the same thing, only ten times worse of course and you have to spend your recovery running around after them as well as doing everything you usually do and all the things they didn't do whilst you were incapacitated. This punishment ensuring that next time you don't try to stay in bed for even a day, not even if you're really really ill.

Yours has taken it to the next level OP and is trying to make it a full-on permanent lifestyle choice to include all evenings and weekends, for all eternity. Somehow managing to convince you that he's simultaneously a young fit gym bunny in the peak of health and also a 90 year old man who's Not Long For This World and can't possibly be asked to do anything at home ever.

You're being played.

Oh dear. He sounds like me. I struggle to stay up past 9pm and often doze off before that. I'm sitting here in my dressing gown now and I am fundamentally lazy. Except the alarm goes off at 6 every day and I am at work by 7 and don't usually have a lunch break by the time I've got home, eaten, done the usual home stuff, I'm just exhausted and I lie on the couch. I've been to the GP so many times, I must have TATT on my notes and, besides a vit D deficiency a few years ago that is now resolved, there is never anything wrong. It is annoying, I hate myself for it but I just cannot function on less sleep.

Thanks for the tips.

A lots of that is on my list already. And it helps to an extent - I can fight one bad influence without it dragging me down, but a combination wins.

My original question was more about attitude - what would help to the OP/anyone whose partner is in this situation to not felt let down.

However, when I read the OP's update about her DH being fit and exercising regularly, just opting out of life, it seems as a completely different situation.

Not everything needs a label.
Christ sounds like he just wants to be left alone, not everyone is going to have the same outlook and energy all their life we change.

leave the poor guy to get on with his life.

Newsflash: we all need different amounts of sleep. Farting is a human function.

you clearly have the ick - do the guy a favour and leave him.

or do the grown up thing and ask him what's up?

Get over it love

He's probably fed up of playing happy families and pandering to others.
It does happen.
My husband is 75 and I don't judge him for such things, it looks like you might have "the ick".

All these things are likely criminal to some on the internet!

Well I think Esther Perel said it best when she talked about the fact that the way a lot of people conduct themselves in their romantic relationships if it were a business or a job, they’d be getting the sack or there wouldn’t be a business. Putting in little effort and just expecting your partner to be attracted, or not realising that sexual attraction has to be kept up in a long term relationship. You’ve got to keep working at it and cultivating an environment that’s conducive to it.

Same but im not divorced never married thank god.
But I've been single for years.
And huff and puff mooch and fart when I want.
Im not as active as I use to be as I said in my previous post.
But everyone seems to think you need a doctor because we have slowed down.

I go to bed early but cant sleep till almost 2am so sit with youtube.

"He makes the kids get him stuff while h lies on the sofa."
I'd be knocking that on the head for a start. I'd be telling him they are neither servants nor slaves. I'd be telling the kids that daddy needs to move more, so it would be kinder to daddy if they didn't fetch and carry for him.

"He says he just wants the quiet life and "im old just leave me alone". He says i make him feel judged."
I'd be telling him that I AM judging him, and finding him lacking! And - "I'm old"? At 47? My DH is 62 and doesn't behave like that! And I'd be making sure that the last thing he gets from such behaviour is a quiet life.

"My husband is creeping off to bed at 8.30pm some evenings to look at his phone and ignro3 me."
If he's soooo tired, why is he taking his phone to bed? Porn? Is that what his behaviour is all about, prefers the synthetic world to real life?

I'd be having a Big Talk with him. Pointing out how his behaviour is impacting yourself and the children and yes I am judging you and no I am not putting up with this any longer, you either go to the GP and get checked out or you get up off your arse and participate in family life. And no more taking your phone to bed either.

Thing is though it isn’t just being tired. It’s being tactically tired to get out of participating in family life.

Most middle aged people with jobs and kids are tired.

But this is turning it into an art form and doing it selectively to avoid the dull drudgery of family responsibilities. There’s a long history of middle aged men doing this to manipulate their “tiredness” to get their spouses to step up to fill the gap they have created.

This guy is allegedly fairly fit so there’s no obvious indication of a health issue. By all means get health issues ruled out but I don’t think this is the issue. Its weaponised tiredness.

Move him into spare bed.
he can make all the farts and noises he wants in there and it’ll do wonders for your rage.

OP my husband was a bit like this for a large chunk of last year, was tired, grumpy (sometimes), had bad wind, indigestion, was focusing on negative things. He had a heart attack day before Christmas Eve, came out of the blue.
Thankfully he is going to be ok, it maybe that your husband's underlying issue is medical, would be worth him getting a check up at the GP just to rule out anything.

Most adults are tired. Not much point in talking about it constantly.

My DP was like this. But he could go out each weekend to get drunk and game, eat takeaways and fall asleep on the sofa. I thought I was solely a bad lifestyle.

he had no drive to anything - well I thought with me. I have him an ultimatum to go to GP

he had diabetes type 2. Unsurprisingly as he ate rubbish and became overweight. This gave him a shock. He now lost weight, exercises and is in a better mood.

I think his tiredness made him mildly depressed and he was stuck in a rut.

so unattractive op!

My husband is 48 and we have a 1 year old and 4 year old.

we still are out clubbing all night regularly and at several music festivals in the summer - up and out every weekend - decent social life etc

if he was behaving like yours id be pissed off tbh - especially if he wouldnt see a doctor

Id just start carving out my own life without him at this stage op - get out and do things and take holidays with friends or the kids and leave him to mope!

Perimenopause explanation. It's not the actual menopause, it's the period running up to it, during which women start to experience various, mainly pretty unpleasant symptoms

www.lscft.nhs.uk/services/service-finder-z/community-pain-service/perimenopause-menopause-and-pain

I love going to bed at 9pm...

To be fair, as a woman, I was much more tired at 47 compared to 41. Worlds apart. This is when the age difference starts to matter. Hope you work it out.

Does he pull his weight around the house/with the kids? Or is he leaving you to do it all?

Well no, not that extreme but on that spectrum. 😆

We only had one tv growing up, it was my Dad’s after 6pm so we learned to find other interesting things to do.

How is his eating and how full on is his job?

Kind of like the Royle family except in bedroom rather than lounge -