To be thoroughly pissed off with dh being ill

[SitOnMyHouse]

He has a slight fever and a sore throat. I have offered lemsip, ibuprofen and hot water bottles. All refused because ‘I need to be able to feel my symptoms in case I need to go to hospital and tell them what’s wrong’. He didn’t want dc’s and I to go out today in case his illness ‘spiked’ and he needed urgent help. He won’t go to bed as he works away during the week and wants to see his kids. We’ve been told to keep the noise down as noise makes him feel sick (not easy with a 6 and 3 year old who aren’t allowed outside). The TV makes him feel dizzy every time he looks at it so that’s not allowed either.

We’ve been together a decade and this is only the second time he’s ever been ill. I’d forgotten just how pathetic he is about it. Dc and I have all had similar symptoms this week and even my 3 year old coped so much better.

If he’d just buggered off to bed and let me get on with my day as usual I would thoroughly sympathetic (mostly). I’m now listening to him snorting away on the sofa and feeling slightly murderous.

To be fair, it's recently been proven that flu affects us men differently.

raisin if this guy had flu he wouldn’t be sitting downstairs wanting to see the children. He would scarcely be talking.

Typical man if you ask me. They love to massively exaggerate how 'ill' they are, because they love the attention and the drama.

Just like women at 'that time of the month', eh?

Fucking hell - a rope guide to the toilet! 😂😂😂 I have no idea how you agreed to do this for him!
How the fuck does he think everyone else on the planet manages day in day out with minor viral illnesses. He’s bloody lucky to have only been ill twice in 10 years.
Also can’t believe he’s mentioning ‘hospital ’ albeit in in a theoretical senses with cold symptoms.
Tell him to get himself together or ship himself off to bed.

This is one of the funniest things I have ever read, sorry OP. Why does he think he might have to go to hospital for a sore throat?! He can't be that bad if he's refusing painkillers. What a wet blanket

@gamerchick not at all I am rarely ever ill or feeling anything other than on top form however when I am my DH will do whatever he can to make me feel better, as I would expect, as I do for him on those very rare (twice in ten years seems rare, no?) occasions he is himself unwell. I think the point that is being missed is that it’s less about the severity of the illness and more about the frequency on which help is being asked - quite frankly even if DH wasn’t ill whatsoever I would be more than happy to indulge him for a day or two every five years, seems a small price to pay to keep a good man happy imo. I am sorry if you don’t have anyone to indulge you every five years, it’s not such an unreasonable request in the grand old scheme of things is it 🙄

Athena1- that has made me laugh out loud, brilliant :)

Ok, I'll admit I didn't read the rope bit. 🤣 That's crazy.

Right and if he refuses all offers of help while making you and the kids stay in the house in silence while you wait until he sees whether he wants to go to hospital or not... Would you be as sympathetic?

hirooo I’m not sure what I’ve done to make you think I’m being awful to him. I’ve offered him medication, kept the dc’s in all day and quiet and made him endless cups of tea. I’ve just posted on MN for a bit of a vent as he’s pissing me off.

I don’t think he has health anxiety or anything. He just gets ill so rarely that when he does he immediately assumes it’s terminal. He just genuinely can’t cope with pain and doesn’t seem to understand that some people suffer from pain all the time. I have a chronic health condition that impacts on absolutely everything I do. I try incredibly hard to mention it as little as possible because it’s boring to hear and I gain nothing fr moaning.

@gamerchick to be honest I would be concerned if my DH mentioned anything about attending hospital - he isn’t the sort to make a meal out of anything too trivial (a little like a man who has been ill twice in ten years) and I would suspect he is downplaying his symptoms.

Also, ‘while making you and the kids stay in the house’ - there isn’t a man alive who has been able to do this

If someone is ‘unwell’ once every five years I will indulge them, if they do it more frequently then hell no. This does contrast somewhat with sick leave threads where from what I can discern people think it is reasonable to take 3-4 periods of sick leave per year

Mental!

He goes to hospital and the first thing they would do would ask “have you taken any paracetamol to help? No? Well here try these and see how you go”

Drama queen to the extreme here

@SitOnMyHouse apologies, this is less about you and your frustrations than the general lack of sympathy for someone who has been ill twice in ten years. I, like you, suspect he isn’t dying and he is likely playing it up somewhat but I just think, you know what, twice in ten years, that’s acceptable - also, for a father not to want his family to be apart from him when under the weather is a refreshing change on here and one that should be welcomed. Granted, a rope to the bathroom? Silly sod

I feel your pain SitOnMyHouse. My DH currently has man flu a cold. He is being equally pathetic. Conversation has just gone like this:
DH (in pathetic voice) - I feel hot
Me: Have you taken your temperature?
DH: How do I do that?
Me: With the thermometer in the bathroom cabinet
DH (fetches thermometer) Where do I put it?
Me (very tempted to tell him!) Under your armpit but why didn't you get the 'in ear' thermometer?
DH I didn't see it (it's in the same place as the one he brought downstairs!) Takes temperature
DH It's 37.6 - am I going to die?
Me No, that barely counts as a fever.

I can guarantee he will get up and go to work tomorrow in spite of whinging for the last 2 days and I will get zero sympathy when I go down with is symptoms by the end of the week!

My policy with DH (or anyone, really) is that they have my full and complete sympathy ONCE they are medicated. My brother is the king of laying around, moaning about his awful headache- but saying he doesn’t want to take paracetamol 🙄

My Mum’s the same- she always says that if you don’t want to take the medication, you can’t be feeling that unwell...

Also, ‘while making you and the kids stay in the house’ - there isn’t a man alive who has been able to do this

That's the spirit

@TheVoiceOfRaisin fuck off, stop being a smarmy, inflammatory git

1. The rope thing is the funniest thing I've read in ages
2. I work for the ambulance service and when people say 'no I haven't taken any paracetamol because I didn't want to mask my symptoms' we tell them to 'take paracetamol' then go get back in our ambulance and curse A LOT about how stupid people are. Please tell him this.

I had to rig him up a rope, like in Bird Box, from bed to the toilet as it was too painful for him to open his eyes

Fucking hell. I'm sorry OP, that made me laugh a lot.

So upside is in 10 years he's only been like this twice. So that's something.

I think you need to get a little firm bedside manner going. Insist he takes something, show him NHS website advice etc.

Honestly, it's all a little attention seeking. But I know plenty blokes like that to be honest.

Is he doing the pathetic cough with his tongue hanging out?

If he really gets sick that rarely then it’s going to feel like a much bigger deal to him than to someone who catches everything going. We judge how sick we are by past experiences, and if he doesn’t have many then he won’t have much of an idea what’s normal sick and what’s actually worrying.

He’s being ridiculous of course, but since it’s a twice a decade occurrence I think I’d mostly humour him.

HirooOnoda - I am not projecting anything.
I never suggested he go away for a week. Just go to bed. Big difference. It's not reasonable for him to expose his children to his illness when he could easily take the meds offered and gone to bed. But oh no, he has to stay. It's not sweet in a pathetic sort of way. It is pathetic.

DH was a fan of refusing to take medication while moaning about how ill he is. I found throwing paracetamol / ibuprofen at him and giving no sympathy or attention whatsoever until they had been taken (and given chance to work) stopped it relatively quickly.

In our house the rule is that if you're ill, you go to bed out of the way so the other one can carry on with their day. Because we love each other, the one who is well will check in on the unwell one and offer medication / drinks / food etc every so often although we are both quite self-sufficient in general. I think that's fair, and I'm the one who's usually in there as I suffer with migraines quite often.

OP, I would just continue your day as normal from here and if he moans, point him in the direction of paracetamol and bed or kill him

Did his parents over-react to illness? He sounds very odd.