Hypochondria....but taken to the extreme. Or maybe this is normal hypochondria?

[Dipsomaniax]

My dh has always been overly concerned with his health. His mother was the same but to some extent had legitimate health concerns. I always thought dh (only child of a very dysfunctional family) equated ill health with attention.

He talks about his health 24/7 . We (wife and teenage children) mostly laugh gently along or ignore. We have private health care and so he has had every last test he might need, I would say 95% of our claims have been on him and his dm.

Because its private they explore the most ridiculous and suggest tenuous links which of course he grabs on to. Mostly they come to nothing but he clings to whatever he can and is on numerous medications (none of which he would die without).

Today one of our children has diagnosed with an issue. Solvable with a few years physical therapy but distressing for our child who is robust and healthy. Anyway they're coming to terms with it but dh has spent the evening talking about himself and his issues and I said (lightly I thought) maybe you need to see a psychiatrist about your health issues. He has eaten me (loudly and to the full knowledge of our children: a disjointed rant) that he does have a mental health issue but how dare I mention it. And on and on. He was savage to me.

This is what his mother was like: whatever issue anyone had hers (or even her distress about their issue) was greater.

What do I do next? He's my husband, he's mostly fabulous. The health thing has always been kind of funny but is getting a bit out of hand. He will rant for the next few days or ignore me or sulk. But the issue will still be there. Its been there for years. There is no room for any of us to have any issues, it's only about him.

I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to be this person either.

Only he can change, and only you n decide if you want to live with it. He sounds insufferable, abusive to you, and seriously lacking in empathy towards his dc. How can you like him?

He needs to get counselling and sort himself out.

He has a health anxiety, does he have a mh illness diagnosis, he should speak to his doctor. Its manipulation to shout then ignore you, don't laugh at him or ignore it, he needs a seek help, if he doesn't then not sure what you can do to protect yourself, you don't want this to pass onto your teenagers,

You realise if in future you became ill, it'd be all about him? Would that lack of support sit right with you, knowing his mostly imaginary health worries blow everyone else's out of the water? Even his kid's?

He sounds absolutely awful and he's making everyone's lives awful because they have to live with his self-indulgent shit. I wouldn't have got beyond first base with him tbh, so I think you should do your children a favour and divorce him.

You realise if in future you became ill, it'd be all about him? Would that lack of support sit right with you

I do know this. Tbh I have always known this but I'm tough and well able and he's the last person I'd be looking for comfort from.

When I had our first child the nurses had to look after him. They laughed at it but rolled their eyes.

Our kids know that I am the carer. He's the fun one. I'm less fun. That's all fine.
I think he's let this anxiety run away with him but it seems to be suddenly full on. That it's not a joke. Tonight's attack seemed vicious but non-sensical.

So it's all good and well to say he's selfish etc but he is my husband of many years and is mostly lovey.

I suppose I was looking for assurance that I'm not being over the top in suggesting he looks for help with this issue

(He was strongly suggesting, in his argument, that I am the one who was being unreasonable so it helps to hear I am probably not)

His mother was the same but to some extent had legitimate health concerns. I always thought dh (only child of a very dysfunctional family) equated ill health with attention.
Even with your calm, normal behaviour, your DC are growing up with their DF displaying the same behaviour as his disfunctional DM.
Therapy is the bare minimum I'd expect him to seek, to break the cycle of using illness as a weapon/bargaining chip.

DH has got terrible health anxiety, and I reached my breaking point when my Dad was dying from liver cancer and DH asked if it was catching... at that point, I flipped and told him he was never to talk to me about it again and he needed to book an appointment with his GP.

It has really helped - I now just completely refuse to engage with it. Some might find that harsh, but I'm a type 2 diabetic and there have been times when I've needed some help/support and nothing comes.

He has eaten me (loudly and to the full knowledge of our children: a disjointed rant) that he does have a mental health issue but how dare I mention it. And on and on. He was savage to me.
So lots of attention and discussion and centering of him and imaginary physical health issues even to detriment of his children, but forbidden to mention his actual poor mental health?

It's not good enough to just say, oh I have health anxiety but I'm not doing anything about it. He knows he has it and you know he has it. He needs to do something about it (counselling and medication) but he will probably resist medication because he wants there to be something 'wrong' with him.

I understand that you love him and that you're happy other than this, but I don't think it's a great model for the kids to be taught that Dad wants the attention even if one of the other members of the family is really ill, and that Mum has to put up with rants from him.

Anyway they're coming to terms with it but dh has spent the evening talking about himself and his issues

That could easily be because it's less scary/upsetting than talking about your DC's news.

Passive aggressively "joking" that someone needs to see a psychiatrist is pretty manipulative and unpleasant behaviour. It's also extremely dismissive and I can see why he was hurt and reacted.

If you cause someone pain, you can't be surprised they have a pain reaction. It's human.

He might indeed benefit from psychological support, but I don't think the way you went about suggesting it was particularly helpful or supportive.

You just described my mother. Whatever anyone else was suffering she was suffering worse. I have some fairly serious health stuff going on and part of it is constant pain- if I mention it to her she has to one up me on how her pain is worse.

That's not nice for a kid to grow up with a parent like this.

My dad just died. A long difficult battle with cancer. The whole time it was all about her, and how hard it was for her. She would go on about this and take support from the nurses there to change his pads and bedding right in front of him.

You are married with kids so maybe to you staying is the best thing. If you understand at the times you will most need support he will leech your support away for himself and you accept that then stay. Or leave up to you. But please make sure you support your kid with the emotions they have about their health thing separately from their fathers presence. If it's happening over everything then your kid will be being hurt by it

www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/munchausen-syndrome/overview/

That could easily be because it's less scary/upsetting than talking about your DC's news.

By which I mean, people don't have "rational" reactions to difficult news. They go into shock, they try to find control, they go into denial and carry on like nothing's happened...

They do all kinds of things that rarely look much like the "perfect" response to difficult news that plays out on TV and in fiction books.

When faced with upsetting news about a family member, I can understand why someone might focus on something that feels more controllable about themselves. It's basic self protection.

This

what is the point of him?

if he won’t get help, he needs to go.

So you were giving birth, he made it all about him to the extent it took the nurses attention away from you, and you just carried on? I find that extraordinary tbh. He is really, really selfish and uncaring. You may be tough enough to cope with his shitty behaviour but your children certainly won't be. Poor kids growing up with such a toxic person in their lives.

Would say he has Munchausen's- to an extreme extent. It is a mental health condition but he is not taking any active steps to manage it and it's unfair to impact the rest of the family to this extent.

Passive aggressively "joking" that someone needs to see a psychiatrist is pretty manipulative and unpleasant behaviour. It's also extremely dismissive and I can see why he was hurt and reacted

I get to be the only adult most of the time and now I'm failing at parenting my husband according to you???
How else do you suggest I get him to sort this problem out? Do you imagine that this is the first time in 25 years this has come up?

I think it sounds like it's got to the point where it's gone from a joke to needs dealing with.

I wouldn't put up with his sulking. I'd be telling him in a very firm way that he either gets help for his mental health issue or he can fuck off back to his mothers and to never whinge about his health to you again.

I wave the pom poms for anyone willing to put the work in to help themselves. I can't do self indulgence for long though. It's tiresome.

See below.

I had a really bad year of health anxiety right after having my first DC. I was always a somewhat anxious person but it really intensified and any time I even heard mention of an illness I became absolutely convinced I had it or was developing it. It was totally beyond rationality and the people closest to me could (and often did) try to reassure me for hours but I just was not convinced. I even sought multiple opinions from doctors and was still sceptical. It took over waking hours, I couldn’t focus on anything else. I walked around feeling that that day could be my last, that death or terminal suffering was imminent.

The best thing I ever did was self-referred to CBT programme. It was all online/ on the phone (covid times) but it really shifted my mindset and gave me strategies to break the cycle of ‘catastrophising’ and basically being so self-obsessed. I really recommend the book ‘Overcoming Health Anxiety’ by Rob Willson. Lots of the strategies I was taught and still use are in there. It’s been three years and I still have the occasional thoughts but they are so much easier to brush off now.

So basically absolutely selfish?! 'Self protecting' and him him him when child is ill?

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got."

Time for a change, isn't it? I'd imagine you've been accepting this behaviour as a part of him, smoothed it over, 'managed' him. I think you have to stop that.

If he had cancer, would you accept him refusing to seek treatment? I doubt it. So you need to bring that to bear, and insist that he seek treatment. That insistence will be coming from a place of love because you don't want him to be ill; stress that to him alongside insisting he seeks treatment. But be clear that you ARE insisting.

I expect you've downplayed other people's needs in his presence, so as not to set him off one-upmanshipping. Well, that needs to stop too. You both have a child who has an actual physical condition requiring physio, and that child should absolutely NOT be made to feel that they have to minimise their feelings on it. Appeal to his fatherliness - is that what he wants for his child? Then he needs to seek treatment.

You know him. What do you think will work? Because you need to accept that your current/previous strategy is not working and you need to change tactics. So what do you think will be sufficiently different from what he has faced until now? Will calm firm insistence be enough, or too similar? Do you need to respond in kind and eat/rant at him? Do you need to threaten him with divorce, or will that make him stubbornly resistant?

Think it through. But whatever you choose, you need to choose a change from before, because - it's not working.

Oh, and - "He's my husband, he's mostly fabulous."

It's not good enough to be 'mostly fabulous' if the rest of you is toxic and damaging to others.

If he was my husband I would talk to him straight about how difficult it is for you and family (& maybe others), to have to listen to his constant litany of ailments. Tell him to think before he speaks because he makes a fool out of himself.

My mother was like that and at times, quite tactless and insensitive.