Long ... AIBU to object to DH's hammed up consumptive cough?

[BoffinMum]

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?

I'm sorry Boffinmum :) - I shouldnt but your OP cracked me up and some of the responses too.....my throat hurts so much from laughing!!!

I'm glad your hubby has recovered.....:)

It's a miracle!

I bloody hope he hasn't read it. I would have a fit! MN is my place. He was only let on for the purposes of the live labour thread (as BoffinDad).

He got a bit tired this evening and lapsed ever so slightly, but is still a lot less daft than this morning. Phew.

Boffin, good job! My ex was similar - phoned me at work once, saying he was dying. He had a bad cold. He would ring the GP and demand to be seen at once. Maybe your DH resents the attention you give to your children. However, his retiring to bed means you have to give the children more attention, not less!! Wonder what would happen if you became ill? I became so ill on holiday one summer that I needed to see a doctor. Ex would not get up and take me, so I drove myself to the surgery, bent double and just about able to peep over the dashboard. I had salmonella. He was so concerned that he went off to the pub. We were staying in the Highlands and, mercifully, the children (5, 11 & 12) were able to play safely outside. He was most irritated at my spoiling the holiday. Happy days!

What lovely news, and a fantastic turnaround! Have a lovely Easter.

He's lapsed a bit, I had to give him a shove in the coffee queue after church as he was about to phlegmify all over the Easter biscuits. He has been quite grumpy all day, a little bit of a martyr, especially when I made him fire up the BBQ. But he has not dared do the Regency sway nor hold his head as though the top is about to fly off. I would have branded him with the BBQ tongs had that happened, and I think he knows it.

Funny you should say about me being ill, I am actually quite frequently ill with bad osteoarthritis and I am off into hospital again on Tuesday. I have pointed out being disabled is in a different league to him having a bit of a cold so he can't use that as a basis for competitive symptoms, but I am not sure he is aware he is doing that to a degree. He has taken the afternoon off to go with me but tbh if he is going to be like this I don't want him there, hacking away and being grumpy, making an idiot of himself.

He keeps asking me whether we are going to be happy again and what is up with me. I am really still fed up with him for behaving like this, and he just doesn't really get it, does he? Don't want a Big Talk as we have been here before, it all ends up centring on me being unsympathetic and intolerant and discontented with my lot, yada yada, and we never make progress on the fact he is actually a bit too selfish sometimes with regard to this, and that most other women would kick him up the arse as well. I also don't think he realises how utterly unsexy it is to line up meds and fuss about health and lie around in a dressing gown endlessly smelling unwashed and moaning. His alternative mode seems to be charging around the house doing random domestic tasks in the wrong order and not completing most of them, having struggled to focus and follow through (for example for some strange reason pushing the knackered kit car to the side of the drive near the front door two weeks ago so it blocks access, and not pushing it back). It's as though he has forgotten how to spend time with us all.

Hmmm.
He's not going to change miraculously overnight is he?
How long has he been doing this?
What do your kids think?

Oh fuck
Big row now
Crying

Been like this on and off entire marriage
Kids by and large agree with me

He needs help. He obviously has some sort of anxiety problem.

he says i have anxiety problem and i am never happy and need antidepressants

Well he's wrong. You sound completely normal and nice and very very tolerant.

I do think you maybe need to go to the GP together and spell out exactly what's going on. The temperature thing is weird; the demands for attention and sympathy don't sound within the realms of normal either. I think he might have some genuine ishoos which you could do with exploring.

He is wrong. He cannot be ill all the time. If he is he needs to go to his GP and ask for a hospital referral. Otherwise, it sounds like he needs to seek counselling.

BoffinMum what you have described in this thread is someone who is very anxious about their own health but unable to see that it's the anxiety, not the health which is the issue.

Could you get him to write a diary of his concerns, what he thinks is wrong and his self medication and then share it with his GP? If he won't do that it's because he realises that it is not normal. If he will do it hopefully the GP will get him some CBT to help him overcome it.

Perhaps he sees your lack of sympathy as you being unhappy and self absorbed? If he feels that he has been genuinely ill he won't see it as compassion fatigue and a perfectly normal reaction to his attention seeking behaviour.

I really think he needs help with this and he sounds genuinely unhappy. It would be a shame for your relationship to break down because he doesn't get the help he needs.

He sounds very defensive ("he says i have anxiety problem and i am never happy and need antidepressants"), so do you think he really does understand that this is the wrong way to behave, and is unable to admit it, because it seems so monstrous? If so, involving a third party is probably the only way to get some sort of change. If I were acting like an idiot and were ashamed of it, it would be a lot easier to admit to a third party, who could help me change it . That may not involve explicitly apologising to you and the family, but you do seem a reasonable person, able to accept change as admission and compensation, and not requiring public penance.

The trouble with this is to get him to seek that third party, and for that maybe a fourth party is required: someone else who can tell him to stop making your life hell (as it sounds as though he would be antagonised by such a call from you).

Sorry this is so devious, and concentrates so heavily on saving his face, but it seeks clear he needs a real exit; today's reasonableness sounds a foray - under full cover! - from his unreasonable dominion. He needs to be tempted further along this path.

Sorry that's a bit vague. Have you ever posted about this in Relationships?

It is funny how we have to go through childbirth and still manage to bring up the kids without complaint or ailment. We cant sod off to bed when we feel a bit under the weather. Who is going to do basically....everything? Tell him he needs to help you more, end of! I have had to do similar with my husband who also has a hyperchondriac (spelling?) mother who is evrn more annoying than your husband. Firm words have stopped the constant ailments. My mil is another kettle of fish. If you cough, she has flu. if you have a bit of hayfever she has an asthma attack. Funny but can piss you off too x

Have told him all this but it has now been turned on its head, and oh yes, I am intolerant and miserable all the time and a malcontented wife and nothing he does is ever good enough, etc etc. and I should accept him and his family for what they are, and he is wondering why he bothers.

Oh dear.

I should invite you all into my kitchen for the next Big Chat probably. I am absolutely not getting through to him. Ironically he is quite happy to be office counsellor for his predominantly female work colleagues, but he can't see why I am unhappy.

Once I was a glamorous 20-something.

After a 12 hour day at work, doing a pretty knackering job for practically no money, my 90 minute evenings are now spent slumped in front of the telly with him watching people getting murdered. I am occasionally allowed to watch Nurse Jackie and its concomitant marital dysfunction as light relief.

My weekends are spent nursing him or worrying about what illness related scene will be caused next or apologising for his health ishoos if it impacts on what remains of our social life.

My holidays are increasingly spent in his FILs externally picturesque but otherwise gloomy, rather dirty, largely smelly cottage with rudimentary facilities, clearing up other people's muck before I can do anything whilst making sure my toddler doesn't impale himself on the clutter.

Plus I can hardly bloody walk.

Can't the man see I am knackered here? And disillusioned?

Oh Boffinmum!

Am so surprised to see you posting this. Forgive me, but you have always come across as very pragmatic and sorted in your posts. So sorry to hear your not-so-DH appears to be taking advantage of his wife's organisational capabilities.

Is you DH an academic as well? Forgive me asking - but I just wonder HTF he gets away with this sort of malarkey at work - is he pulling lots of sickies? You can be sure there is nothing really physically wrong if he's only ever "ill" at home.

Quite agree this would apprear to be symptomatic of a deep-rooted health anxiety issue. Assuming he isn't taking the P. to avoid household responsibilities.

My DH does this. I've had to beat it out of him gently dissuade him from this sort of behaviour over the last 5 years. His family all use illness as a substitute for emotional attachment - no overt affection ever demonstrated, but lots of FUSS if you are unwell.

V. V. dysfunctional.

It's not just flu.........it's manflu

Boffinmum it's sounds like you've touched a nerve and he's gone into self-defence mode. If you quietly stick to your guns he may realise that you have a point.

No more sticking around to look after him. Get on with enjoying your life with your DC and let him catch up when he's sorted himself out.

Your holidays sound like they leave a lot to be desired. Can't you just book a cottage somewhere and invite DH to join you if he wants to?

I am indeed very pragmatic and sorted, but I am also only human and at the moment I am a sad human.

DH is not an academic (god forbid) but he does work in the public sector and seems to take rather more sickies for little things than I would (I only tend to be off if I have a hospital thing or proper flu or bad upset tummy so I can't travel in).

His mum used to make a major fuss over every little physical ailment, crying wolf all the time, until she collapsed with end stage renal failure. It was like Spike Milligan's epitaph, "I told you I was ill". I think he's learned this nonsense at her knee.

I am going to be very quiet today and not really engage much.

I hope that works BoffinMum...if only to make him see that you won't Mother him anymore. Which is what you've been doing...and who's looking afer you? Not him by the sound of it.

I think you need to simply stop pandering to him, don't fetch him any medication or do his tasks...remove the medication from his table and say it depresses you. Who wants to be married to a baby?

Sorry to read all this Boffinmum. FWIW, I have oesteo arthritis in both hips so just wanted to empathise with you on that one :(

He does sound like he has some underlying problem and you sound as though you have been a saint thus far. As a pp said, I think it's important at this stage to stick to your guns. I wonder, it there anyone else who is close that could sort of back you up? Any male relatives, close friends of his? With a kind of "actually mate, she has a point, you are rather..." someone that isn't YOU. Appreciate you may not want others involved but I have found it useful in the past (unrelated issues with dh) that if someone other than me mentions it , he takes more notice IYSWIM? All the best.

I have moaned to his family in the past but they haven't said anything to him. They just nod and smile at me, waiting for me to finish.

He is branded as a lovely husband because he helps in the house a fair bit, and changes nappies, and 'lets' me have a career, which gives him an aura of supreme niceness meaning nobody can ever criticise him.

I of course help in the house a fair bit too and change nappies, and 'let' him have a career too, but that is expected.