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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be fed up of "me too"?

81 replies

Nickynackynoodle · 20/04/2017 12:15

Any time i say to DP "I'm tired" or my foot is sore" or anything about me, it's met with a "me too" or "no I didn't sleep well" or "my spine has fallen out"

It's so fucking annoying! Like I'm not allowed to be the only one who's under the weather.

I've started doing it back to him but he doesn't notice.

Anyone else?

OP posts:
NightWanderer · 20/04/2017 12:54

Just do it back! It will drive them crazy.

TransformersRobotsInDaSky · 20/04/2017 12:54

Oh my DH does this too and it drives me crazy. Agree it's his way of empathising but it has never and will never help. He also convinces himself that he'll immediately catch whatever illness I've had, so once I'm recovering I have to put up with days of 'I think I'm starting with what you've had' which never comes to anything but he wants vast sympathy for anyway.

SumThucker · 20/04/2017 12:55

My mum has a bizarrely weird habit of doing it to my dad, EVERY time he mentions something. Really annoying.

SoupDragon · 20/04/2017 12:58

Surely the only correct answer to the OP is "me too!"

SumThucker · 20/04/2017 13:00

Aaah yes Soup Grin

Plainlycrackers · 20/04/2017 13:01

Yup my DH does this... v tedious... I started doing likewise, he didn't seem to appreciate it muchGrin

lalaloopyhead · 20/04/2017 13:01

I have a colleague that does this, when they do it to someone else I have been known to say 'alright its not a competition!'

Honeybee79 · 20/04/2017 13:03

I am also in this club. It's bloody tedious.

tobee · 20/04/2017 13:03

I find this with most people, friends, relations, work colleagues, strangers but equally annoying are people who never get an ailment you regularly get so minimise it. So for e.g my dm and I both get indigestion often. She gets it worse. But I get headaches, she never does and I have one and it means nothing. Basically, people are very wrapped up in themselves, there's nothing to gain from mentioning ailments but I do anyway! 🙄

thenewaveragebear1983 · 20/04/2017 13:04

My dh asks me how I slept every morning. Then he has always, always, slept marginally worse.

Dh: how did you sleep
Me: ok, ds woke a few times
Dh: yes I heard you get up to him, I couldn't get back to sleep after that

Or

Dh: how did you sleep?
Me: I slept ok actually
Dh: I was up loads once with the baby, had a terrible night.

Etc etc

He uses it to gauge how terrible to make it sound like his night has been. Makes me want to scream- I'm not a morning person, can you tell??

watchoutformybutt · 20/04/2017 13:08

My mother does this without fail every single time any of us are unwell.
You have a sore throat? She's sure she has tonsilitus.
You're feeling tired? She hasn't slept for days.
You're cold? She's absolutely freezing, can't get warm.
Had a bad day? She's been low for weeks and weeks.

It's become a bit of a running joke now, me and my dad just look at each other and eye roll.

DaemonPantalaemon · 20/04/2017 13:08

Just keep telling him you are having a bad period. No me too then!

christinarossetti · 20/04/2017 13:09

My dh does this. He's 'coming down with something' several times a week.

He's pretty much always more affected by whatever the unwell person in the house has, although even he drew the line at competing with nappy rash.

DropZoneOne · 20/04/2017 13:11

Yes! I noticed it a couple of years ago and it drives me batty! Thing is, he's pointed out that I do it to him, but I only started doing that when I noticed him two-shedding me constantly.

I stopped answering anything other than "great thanks" when he asked how I was. Didn't stop him moaning about his health even though there's never anything wrong

toffeeboffin · 20/04/2017 13:12

Another one here.

And it's anything too, even stuff he doesn't get, like headaches.

OvO · 20/04/2017 13:15

My DH does this. I will smother him in his sleep one day.

I have a disability and he will even try to compete with me on that!

My favourites are when he complains that he hardly slept. I do like to point out that I was literally awake the whole night and heard every fucking breath he took and he slept fucking fine.

He not a twat in other ways so I let him live. Grin

Meekonsandwich · 20/04/2017 13:15

What the heck!!!!
You all need to ltb!
Im all for partners being sensitive but Jesus!!
My dh hasn't called in sick in the 4 years I've known him, he pulled a muscle in his foot at work, it went black with bruising and swelled and he strapped it up and carried on, painkillers and kept going.
If I'm ill, he asks me if I need anything and then let's me get in with what i want to do, be it go to bed or watch tv ect.
I would go bananas if someone tried to one up me all the time!!!! I'd cut friends off for that!
I hope you all winge and whine at your dp when they're ill and been up all night, you don't have to put up with that!

Pringlemunchers · 20/04/2017 13:15

My dh developed a stomach complaint, for my pregnancy. Cue nine months of doctors appointments, hospital visits, endoscopy etc (nothing found). Then whilst in labour he is squaffing the gas and air , cause his back hurts sitting in the chair for 40 hrs !!!

Nickynackynoodle · 20/04/2017 13:17

They're not actually ill though meek he's only been off sick with the actual flu. Heaven knows what would happen if I got flu. He'd probably have some rare viral disease as well.

It's the one upmanship that's annoying. Particularly when the symptoms clearly weren't bad enough to be mentioned previously!

OP posts:
MorrisZapp · 20/04/2017 13:19

There may be men on earth who don't do this but I've yet to meet one.

user1andonly · 20/04/2017 13:19

Yes, dh does this too. I don't think he's trying to empathise. I think he's got ishoos from his childhood of having to be the most ill in order to get attention (I haven't actually got a clue and I'm not a psychologist!)

Once when I was in the early stages of pregnancy and a sahm to two manic toddlers (one still woke at night, the other rose, full of beans and ready to start the day before 6am) I remarked that I was exhausted... yup... he was tired too as work had been busy lately. I wanted to kill him. He got all offended by my angry response that, on this particular occasion, I was more tired than him and had zero sympathy for him and his bloody work (ffs!!)

He also does it if if I try to talk to him about issues with work or whatever - he will listen up to a point but then always has to relate it back to a similar experience of his (which is often only very tenuously connected to what I am saying) This, I do believe, is his way of trying to empathise but it's very tedious! I don't do it to him. If he wants to talk about stuff, I make a point of making listening noises and trying to get him to decide for himself what to do (even when it's hellishly boring!)

Cartman03 · 20/04/2017 13:20

I have the same problem. I assume that DH fears I am about to say I'm too ill to pick up the kids/make the tea/put the bins out so he's quickly getting his ailments in there in case I ask him to help.

Davros · 20/04/2017 13:24

When my DH does this I follow my original complaint with "oooh I've got a pain in me ovaries" and he knows I'm telling him to stop annexing my issue!
I had disturbed nights for 10 years with DS who has ASD. DH snored like a freight train through most of it. DH now has problems sleeping and I just leave him to it, I sleep like a log now DS is in residential. I've done my bit!

SongforSal · 20/04/2017 13:24

I am embarrassed to admit this. But sod it.

Last year my Dp literally phoned an ambulance for himself in the middle of the night. After they listened to his chest it transpired he had a mild infection. The next day he was given a few days worth of meds.

During this time, I had a chest infection that lasted almost a month. My meds were stronger, and prescribed for double the time.

He of course slept on the sofa like a wounded shoulder whilst I carried on looking after the dc's. Crap. Sharing this has just made me angry with him again.

BearsDontDigOnDancing · 20/04/2017 13:26

Dh is also another one who is like this and as with PP he did this when I was in labour with DD. She was 8lbs 12 and I was actually pushing and he was sat on the other side of the room moaning how he was in the worst agony ever due to a tooth ache.(which he still moans on and off for now, not that he will ever visit a ruddy dentist) Me and the midwife both sort of paused in what we were doing and both turned our heads at the same time to just stare at him. Is sorta funny now 8 years later.

I have a bad night sleep, he has had a worse night, which is always bloody funny as usually my bad night sleep is caused by him snoring, so not sure when he was awake enough to have a bad night.

I have a cold, he has a worst one.

Or a couple of weeks ago, he was feeling ill, but no just normal ill, oh no, he was all dizzy and faint, which involved him telling me how bad he felt again and again, and at one point, he bent over to put a load in the washing machine, I was in the kitchen, and I heard a lot of dramatic moaning only for me to look at him, and he was stood there looking at me, waiting for me to give him attention to then dramatically clutch his head and say how he felt so dizzy he thought he was going to faint. I had had a bad cold, so was feeling rough. But you know, nothing compared to him.

I just ignore him now.

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