DH no sympathy for pregnancy exhaustion

[NCforpoo]

DC wanted to dance with me. Usually I'm up and bopping round the room with the best but this pregnancy has knocked me for 6. He's let me have a lie in until 930 which was nice but he doesn't seem to understand the physical exhaustion that I'm experiencing. Has anyone managed to get their DH to understand what its like to just feel like your body is twice as heavy and aches all over. I'm only 12 weeks!

[NCforpoo]

They step up, do a bit extra, fetch them a cup of tea. Just as when anyone is suffering.
And he is doing all that. He just gets fed up I think because he feels its making a difference. But sleeping more, eating, it makes little difference to the exhaustion or nausea!

[TheInvestigator]

You've told him how you feel. He doesn't care.
Finding a different way to say it won't change that.

[NewAccount270219]

Tell him it's like having constant flu? Though it sounds like he might just go on about how he'd still do everything 'with a cold'. If he's the sort of person who doesn't have much time for other people being ill then I don't think any analogy will get through to him.

[NCforpoo]

Exactly! Icantthinkofasinglenamehelp
I didn't understand what pregnancy did before I was. When I was in my early 20s I was horribly unsympathetic (not to their faces!) of pregnant women who said they were tired. I just didn't get it. And with previous pregnancies I wasn't this exhausted or this nauseous (i just threw up instead :) )

[Candleglow7475]

Ok Even though I think he needs to just show some flipping compassion .... to explain I would say imagine your body is growing my baby, it’s using all of its energy (every last scrap) to make cells, grow bones, make extra blood, form organs and keep this new life constantly growing and expanding, couple that with weight gain, stretched ligaments, growing breasts, you might be able to understand why I need more rest than normal.
Honestly you don’t have to be genius to work out a pregnant woman uses a lot of energy to grow a baby and might need more rest than normal.

[mum11970]

Are you just wanting an analogy to give him some idea how exhasted you you feel? Does he exercise, weight train? If so, explain to him it’s like that fatigue you get when you literally just have to stop because you’ll throw up or even the thought of one more rep is going to kill you. There comes a time when you can no longer push through, you have to stop and that is how you feel for most of the day.

[timeisnotaline]

Tell him it’s like having the flu. And that baby in the past 6 weeks has grown an entire central nervous system and all it’s organs and took all that energy from you. If he had to repair even a teeny bit of damage to his major organs and central nervous system he’d probably be in bed in hospital hooked up to a dozen machines. You are all of those machines for your baby.
I get more nausea than vomiting op and it is like constant flu, and I lose shocking amounts of weight. My dp hasn’t been pregnant obviously but is very kind about it. I cannot imagine a universe where he would shout at me about my lack of physical input to our household while I’m growing a baby. It is unkind.

[NCforpoo]

mum11970
Thank you. I'm not sure what I was after to be fair- some shared experience or someone having explained it well to someone before. But I'll try that.
Thanks

[lottiegarbanzo]

He can use Google himself, to learn about normal pregnancy symptoms, if 'knowledge' is what is required. He's the one lacking and requiring knowledge. Therefore he's the one who does the googling - or starts the threads on MN.

What's so hard about believing his own wife when she says she is experiencing tiredness like no other tiredness and can only do x and y, not z?

In a few months' time you will no longer be pregnant. He will still be disabled by his lack of insight, empathy and compassion.

He'll never be famine victim. So that's just like missing lunch, is it?

[lottiegarbanzo]

I just don't understand why you feel the need to justify yourself to him.

State facts. He can take them, leave them or do his own research to understand them better.

When he is really ill, does he have to plead with you to believe him and 'let him off' normal tasks? Or does he just state facts and stop doing things he cannot do?

[PregnantSea]

I was fortunate enough for my DH to be extremely hungover at one point during my pregnancy (he rarely goes out drinking).

In the morning he woke up, puked, and then curled up back in bed groaning and asking for paracetamol and water. I told him that this is how I felt for the whole first trimester. He understood then.

[lottiegarbanzo]

So it's not necessarily that he is a 'bad person', rather that you are being 'too nice' and trying mother him and do his thinking for him, instead of letting him stand on his own two feet and deal with the situation at hand - as you would have to if he was very ill.

[SeaToSki]

It might be worth getting your thyroid, vit b12, vit d and magnesium levels checked. If anyone of them is low it can make you feel like death warmed up and all of them are commonly low in non pregnant women. Vit b12 levels have also been associated with nausea.
Apart from that, so sorry your DH cant see it. Mine can be obtuse too unless it is pointed out to him repeatedly. I perfected the growing a placenta, growing a baby retort

[HopefulAgain10]

I disagree with you. Hes a very unkind and selfish man. Selfish because he cant even entertain the idea that you cant get on with it.

I'm also PG and my dh cant do enough to ensure I'm ok. He was the same with our first DC. I once asked him how is he so understanding. He said he has no clue what it's like to be pregnant, and I'm doing the most amazing thing in life so whatever i need he will make sure I'm ok. I think because he doesnt know what it's like, he just takes my word for it. A one in a billion man.

Tell your dh the day he is able to grow a human being and know what it's like, then he can tell you how you should be feeling.

[ZippyBungleandGeorge]

It's probably the nausea and sickness making you so tired so early on, have you seen your doctor? I found taking a good pregnancy vitamin helped with energy as well as looking after my diet (lots of veg and lean protein) rather than just eating ice cream all the time like I wanted to. I had a different experience to you though, I didn't even know I was pregnant until ten weeks and didn't really have any symptoms other than what I thought was a cold, and it was late pregnancy I found tiring, and had horrendous back and pelvic pain, although that might've been working until two days before I had DS!

[lottiegarbanzo]

Incidentally, his standards of knowledge and understanding apply equally to crying babies. He doesn't know how it is to be them, or to feel the way they feel. He will never again be a crying baby himself. I take it, with your previous DC, he's shown himself capable of responding to their needs?

This tells you that not believing because 'not understanding' is a choice.

[WaterOffaDucksCrack]

Sorry but I do think he's unkind! My male partner has no idea what it's like to be pregnant. But he does everything round the house and for out 2 boys aged 4 and 2. Doesn't disturb me in the mornings and lets me wake up when I like. If one of the kids wakes up in the night he sorts them out automatically.

He understands how tired I am. He saw the morning sickness (I'm 19 weeks now and still have to take 3 tablets a day). He did say him throwing up due to a bug was different/worse than morning sickness as it was an illness! I can forgive him for that as he was in the throes of norovirus and has never said anything like that since!!

He does all these things because he loves me, respects me and cares for me. I am normally a type to be in complete self denial I'm ill and soldier on so he knows I feel bad!

[ZippyBungleandGeorge]

Oh DS enjoyed the commando dad books, the light hearted but informative and one starts in pregnancy, I think it helped him to understand what was going on physically. I also had the bounty app and each week would say to him, this is what my body is doing, this is what DS is developing now, he should even ask me what fruit size is he this week? 😁. I think it helped make it a little less abstract.

[ZippyBungleandGeorge]

*would not should

[NewAccount270219]

I didn't understand what pregnancy did before I was. When I was in my early 20s I was horribly unsympathetic (not to their faces!) of pregnant women who said they were tired. I just didn't get it.

But did you shout at them? Because if so then you managed to not be actively horrible even while not 'getting it', so why can't he?

[lottiegarbanzo]

But OP, I realise the above will have sounded very harsh to you and you're already having a really difficult time. Congrats on getting this far and may the relaxing into feeling good about this pregnancy continue, however tired you feel.

Just please don't tire yourself out further by trying to solve someone else's problem for them. Especially when that comes at your own emotional expense - by ignoring the fact he shouted at you and how that makes you feel and trying to paper over that gap with helpful action. It's fine to feel upset by his behaviour and it's fine to show that. It also fine to assert yourself firmly back.

[VampirateQueen]

Try sitting him down and just explaining how you feel, they say the the first 3 months and the last 3 months are the most tiring, but I had horrendous morning sickness with my 2nd until I was 16 weeks, I didn't feel any better until that point. I know you have had kids before but has he looked into what the baby you are carrying is growing and developing week by week, that might help, also it is much more tiring when you have other kids than when you don't. How many have DC do you have? If you have more than 1 other do you have DD's or DS's? I just ask because my pregnancy with my DS was much worse than with my DD, I know I already had my DD to look after whilst pregnant with my DS, but the pregnancy with him really knocked me for 6, I felt like I had been hit by a wrecking ball.

[AmIRightOrAMeringue]

I explain it as the type of tiredness you have when you have flu

[toucantoo]

God help you if you get really ill one day with some god awful sickness that leaves you very poorly. Sounds like DH will be annoyed with you. 'Darling I'm tired. Chemo has wiped me out....' DH: 'stop being a lazy arse....'

[NCforpoo]

I said before he's picked up all the housework and he's looking after DC when I can't. Or when I go to bed early. Practically he is helping. But it just the not understanding that even after lots of sleep I'm still knackered. That I feel sick all the time. And it's exhausting doing anything.