To think we really need to find a cure for man flu?

[emptyshell]

Preferably before I throttle my husband.

He's come home from work today, all ashen and melodramatic, vocabulary reduced to "cup of tea milk two sugars"... and vanished off to bed.

Meanwhile guess who is charged with moving all our worldly goods to new house down the street a box at a time? Muggins - just shifted 10 boxes of books downstairs - and he's slept through it alllllll.

Incidentally - I had this bug a few days ago, felt pants, went to bed early a couple of nights but managed thirty nursery kids and packing boxes through it all - he's just a wimp! And his bloody mother encourages it!

Science must find a cure and save all our relationships before we kill the male of the species in frustration. If he thinks I'm cooking dinner tonight as well he's got another thing coming and I'll stick the hedgehog bread somewhere the sun don't shine!

I don't get this man ailment exaggeration thing. DP just doesn't do it at all. A few months ago, he got a horrible infection in a tooth, and flew to Greece anyway to do a presentation with his whole face swollen up so he looked like a tapir. And then on the plane back the cabin pressure made the abscess burst all over his dinner. And he still went to work the next day.

I think he's bonkers, and sometimes wish he would malinger a bit more.

Mine's dreadful - he's been insisting for the last five years that he's got a cracked rib because it hurts when you poke him (so don't poke yerself you wally), and any cold fells him completely - think he's from the school where mummy sent you to bed with TLC when you were ill and my mother clipped me round the ear and told me to get on with it!

If he doesn't get out of bed and help soon I'm packing the Xbox and taking that to the new house :D

Watch this:

It will cheer you up

Awesome - that IS about the level of him!

My dp once convinced me he had glandular fever for two days and had me running round after him .

It was only when I was telling a friend how ill he was and how I had cooked him a chicken curry from scratch as it was the only thing he fancied a woman apologised for butting in and told me no way did he have GF as you could hardly sip water never mind eat curry.
Turned out the GP had taken blood which would test for infections including GF but she thought he probably just had a 24 hour bug.

He has also sat and watched me try and feed a screaming baby,sort out two preschoolers and cook a meal while he nursed his cold flu.

Then there was the time he said he had foot rot and needed to buy brand new trainers ..it was dry skin.

This was all a few years ago now and he has shot himself in the foot because I don't give him any sympathy now when he is ill as I just don't believe him.

Another thing that bugs me is he always says that painkillers don't work in a sad little croaky voice.

Maybe we can start a campaign? I'd sell badges to fund research.

DH gets absolutely no sympathy from me when he has a cold. If he wants to lay around in bed that's up to him, but he doesn't get meals or cups of tea brought to him. He will usually get straight on the phone to his mum for some proper sympathy

Agree DH gets little sympathy from me either he recently told my mum that 'he's not allowed to be ill' which I firmly believe to be true if you have young children.

Caught him on the phone seeking sympathy from his mum, so yes I blame their mothers

Must remember this as I cling to DS when he has the sniffles

1 boot, applied with medium force to backside, should do the trick. Re-apply as many times as is necessary.

No cure needed, let them suffer. Add no sympathy.

This drives me nuts too! DH regularly gets bad headaches, which I know are rotten and I do have sympathy to a certain extent. Years ago when he got a headache the whole world stopped and he would turn into this moaning grump who could really be quite a shit. So one day I told him that yes, I was aware he had a headache, but to that didn't give him the right be a moody lump. He was a bit taken aback but could see how pathetic he was being, particularly when I've soldiered through vicious period pain with barely a word. In my view it's fine to state that you're in pain/ill but after that whinging and whining will not get you any sympathy. It took me a while to get the message across but basically every time he tried to be grumpy with a headache I just called him on it. Nowadays he hardly even mentions them, and I know that's not because they're any less painful but because he knows that as an adult the world doesn't stop unless you're genuinely ill. I do honestly think also that because he doesn't lay around whining he doesn't suffer as much because it doesn't really interfere with his life any more.

That said, a minor cold still warrants airlifting the nearest emergency centre! I indulge him now to a certain extent but I do believe that once you have kids you don't get to stop unless you're genuinely half dead. Our first is due in December so he might get a bit of a land the next time he tells me he has the "flu"

My DH does this too - but he won't help himself. If he has a headache I say 'take a parcetamol' he'll say 'no, i don't want to be taking them things all the time they're no good for you' but he's happy to be in paid in pain all day and moan to me about it!

Helpless men just irritate the hell out of me.
I have finally trained DH not to be all whine-y when ill, because it just winds me up and I become all brisk with him and Nurse Ratchet-y.

But, I do have a heart, and if he is genuinely streaming with cold I make a mean chicken soup.

Anything more vague, I just give him the death stare and snap, you look fine to me.

I have same problem as pottonista.

I have married into a strain of man hood that just does not 'do' illness. Both my FIL, and DH have had serious medical situations where they have refused to seek medical attention because they were busy making the condition much worse. DS is following this pattern.

Coming from a family with endemic man flu I had thought this would be better but it is not.

Oh it progressed to full blown flu... I'm still fucked off with him for the throwing up all over the bed then lying there helplessly calling me on his mobile to come clean it up while he lay there issuing melodramatic edicts about changing all the bedsheets (thankfully he hit a grotty bedspread which he refused to attempt to clean up and just insisted we had to throw it away)... which he would have expected me to do for him.

I told him I wasn't changing the bedsheets until he'd finished throwing up since he hadn't got any on there. Guess I'm horrid.

Oh god, did it go like this:

" emptyshell, I've been sick. You need... you need... you need to change the sheets now."

In a really pathetic, whingey voice that made you want to hit him over the head with a packet of Andrex tissues?

I told him I wasn't changing the bedsheets until he'd finished throwing up since he hadn't got any on there. Guess I'm horrid.

No practical. Get him a bucket or bowl then sit down and tell him you can not cope with his illness and a house move - it is just not possible.