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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU in not wanting to examine dirty tissues etc?

18 replies

ArbitraryUsername · 11/10/2013 22:26

Firstly I must make it clear that I am not a medical practitioner. I make no claims to know anything useful about health and medicine.

Despite this DH is sulking upstairs because I refused to offer any kind of medical opinion on the teensiest spot of might be blood he insisted on showing me just now. He's been doing something involving squirting water up one nostril and having it all gush out the other, and seems mightily put out that I have no desire to watch him do this. And then he wants me to examine tissues for what may or may not be blood and offer an opinion on what might have caused it. (Note: 'squirting water up your nose probably irritated things' would go down badly).

Apparently I'm unreasonable and unsupportive for not wanting to check out his dirty tissues and for refusing to offer an opinion on what the contents might be (beyond 'if you're worried see the GP on Monday').

So tell me: did I sign up to having to examine body fluids and other vile stuff when I got married, or is it fine to leave that to the GP?

So as not to drip feed: DH very often tries to get me to examine tissues, bits of phlegm he's coughed up, even his bowel movements. I have never shown any desire to do so. He's also a bit of a hypochondriac, tbh. Or, at least, makes the world's biggest song and dance about any and every health issue. To the extent that everyone in the house has to know about him bathing his eye with cooled boiled water and cotton wool because he needs to keep them clean. Even distant relatives have to know all about it. He phoned his poor mother recently because he had to tell her about the panic over a bit of blood in his poo after making me look at it (that was confirmed to be a constipation related injury). My lovely MIL has even less desire to know this stuff than me, but is too polite to tell him to shut up.

For further disclosure: I have an auto-immune, inflammatory arthritis which affects most of my joints and causes serious pain and exhaustion. I feel like I'm coming down with the flu pretty much all the time, and I take serious amounts of strong painkillers to get through the day. I barely mention any of this to DH. Indeed, if I try to get up and let out an involuntary gasp of pain, he usually gasps in pain and actually pretends his slightly dead leg from sitting on the sofa is comparable to or worse than the pain my doctors are happy to hand over opiates on repeat prescription. All of this makes me less than sympathetic about his regular health panics, and really unwilling to examine phlegm.

Surely no court in the land would convict for murder on the competitive pain thing?

OP posts:
CocacolaMum · 11/10/2013 22:29

by the sounds of it you would probably get a medal.

Donkeyok · 11/10/2013 22:29

arragh yuck no way Shock he'll be asking you to do the retal thermometer next!

Donkeyok · 11/10/2013 22:30

rectal

bundaberg · 11/10/2013 22:31

oh sweet jesus no!

good god woman, you actually looked at his shit??? tell him to get a grip!

ArbitraryUsername · 11/10/2013 22:31

I would never allow a rectal thermometer in my house for just that reason!

OP posts:
ArbitraryUsername · 11/10/2013 22:33

Well, he was having a huge panic about 'so much blood' so I thought I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. Then told him it was probably constipation related and he should see the GP and kept changing the subject every time it came up.

So he phoned his poor mother, who at least is far enough away that she can't be made to look at such things. He doesn't even ask how she is in these phone calls. She limits visits unless he's not here.

OP posts:
BillyGoatintheBuff · 11/10/2013 22:38

I could not live with someone like this!! argh! it would drive me potty. It's all attention seeking behavior isn't it? It always makes me think that someone didnt get enough love when they were growing up an so they form weird behaviors to gain sympathy etc

ArbitraryUsername · 11/10/2013 22:47

I find it hard to live with him a lot of the time. It is very annoying attention-seeking behaviour. I try my best to ignore it. But eventually I just get very annoyed at him.

He has just come in to enquire about sex. Given that he's been trying to make me examine tissues and discs his nasal cavities, I just gave him a withering look and said 'no'. The worst thing is that he believes it just because I'm tired and sore. Not tired, sore and a bit disgusted.

Maybe he needs a pus porner for a wife?

OP posts:
puntasticusername · 11/10/2013 22:47

Oh dear. It sounds as if he has somehow managed to equate being ill, and getting attention for it, with Love. I'm not sure what to suggest other than to minimise the amount of attention you give him for his medical worries and maximise the amount of love you give him for other things. Though when I write it like that it sounds a little like the way one would treat a small child...

echt · 11/10/2013 22:54

LTB.

Not helpful, I know, but eeww.:o

ForTheLoveOfSocks · 11/10/2013 22:56

I'm a pus porner wife, but there is no fucking way I would look at DH's shit! And I think I would draw the line at snot

QOD · 11/10/2013 22:57

My dh is notorious for this! I never tell anyone I feel ill until I'm vomiting , crying, coughing, twitching on the floor in agony because his response is ALWAYS ...

"Oh actually ..."

ArbitraryUsername · 11/10/2013 23:02

Vomiting and lying crying on the floor don't seem to have any effect of DH, so self absorbed is he. In fact, once I had to abandon cooking dinner for some vomiting and lying on the bathroom floor and he just moaned that I'd left the pan untended. He has improved since that point, thankfully.

Interesting that phlegm disgusts pus porners. I can absolutely see why. .

OP posts:
bundaberg · 12/10/2013 10:36

Yes also a pus porner but totally draw the line at examining tissues and shit!

I agree with poster further down about disengaging from the health issues and putting extra effort into showing love in different ways. It is how you'd treat a child I suppose, but it's because it's a good way of altering behaviours isn't it?

puntasticusername · 12/10/2013 17:03

Exactly, you make a big fuss of the behaviour you want to see and ignore the rest (unless someone is actually about to lose a limb). Positive and negative attention both, as negative attention is still attention and a child will take that if it's the best thing on offer - it's better than being ignored.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 12/10/2013 17:11

Could you humour him?

OMG Dh. It must be bowel cancer go to the gp. And then nag him ceaselessly til he does.

Or tell him the blood in his tissue is a brain prolapse or something.

If you can be more concerned about his ailments than he is, and nag him incessantly to seek treatment /do something health related he will stop :-)

ArbitraryUsername · 12/10/2013 17:18

I don't think I could be more concerned than he is. Encouraging him would make him unbelievably horrendous.

It is like dealing with a poorly behaved toddler. Not least because finding some behaviour that I'd want to encourage is so bloody hard! I'd have to start with encouraging the least awful behaviour in the hope that some positive behaviour starts to emerge. Confused

Maybe I should make him a version of the 'home credits' system we use with DS2 (so called because his school give out something called 'school credits' and he likes consistency). I doubt DH would be as excited about being able to choose a bit of plastic tat to put into his credits box though.

OP posts:
SecretWitch · 12/10/2013 17:26

YANBU. I live with a "taster" and a "smeller". Dh will rock up with cold cuts in his paw and say "' Secret, I think this rotten. Would you take a bite and tell me?" or " Ewwww, this milk smells horrid, just evil! Secret come take a whif and tell me if I am right!"

No, just no. He should be the judge of his own secretions.

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