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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU - day out and partners migraine

170 replies

StonedRoses · 05/10/2019 17:31

No idea if I’ve behaved really badly or not - so want some suggestions. After a busy week we planned a family trip to a NT place just under an hr away
As we were setting off at 10:30ish my DW started with a migraine. She’s had them for yrs but now well controlled and only every few months.
So we turned round and she waited to see how it went. By 11:30 she decided she was going to bed and that we should still go. DS (9) very excited. We got there, had a play, lunch in the cafe and a walk round the grounds. Left about 3 but traffic bad so didn’t get back till after 4.
DW is furious that we stayed out ‘all day’ and abandoned her. My view is she was going for a lie down anyway and better off with kid out the house.
The only thing she’s said to me when I asked how she was doing was ‘well I haven’t died so I must be fine’
AIBU to take DS out for the day when she has a migraine and can’t join us anyway? I know how shit they can be but us staying at home wouldn’t make it better

OP posts:

fargo123 · 06/10/2019 00:52

She doesn’t like being left alone. So I don’t usually go out without her except for work or if she’s made plans. It has caused issues with our marriage but I’m working on that

So it's it's okay for HER to make plans, but not okay for you? She's a selfish, self absorbed, controlling brat who needs to grow up.

It's not you who has to work in fixing this problem in your marriage, it's her. She needs to shape up, or ship out.

managedmis · 06/10/2019 00:59

She sounds hard peddal

incognito76 · 06/10/2019 01:10

She doesn’t like being left alone. So I don’t usually go out without her except for work or if she’s made plans.

OK, so this, not the migraines, is really the issue here. Your wife is needy, controlling and selfish and you really need to wake up for this.

As for her saying that you should have made sure she had water and paracetamol before you left, she is being a giant baby. Migraines are horrific how the hell does she think people who live alone cope? What does she do when you’re at work?

She needs to grow up or fuck off.

rubydoobydoo · 06/10/2019 01:54

I've had horrendous migraines - visual disturbance, vomiting, loss of speech etc as well as the headache, lasting 3 days at worst - when I lived alone.

I was GLAD I lived alone as I couldn't have coped with anyone being anywhere near me at the time! All I wanted to do was lie down in the dark until it went away and made sure all the painkillers were next to me for when I needed them!

Your wife is being very unreasonable.

Namechangeforthiscancershit · 06/10/2019 02:22

I'd really rather get my own painkillers (every 4 hours anyway?) in a silent house and water than listen to a cooped up child.

Sure you could have left it out for her but taking your son out for the day would have made a million times more difference to me.

Jenasaurus · 06/10/2019 12:31

Hi Op, I agree with other posters, your DW is being clingy and needy, when you actually gave her some peace to get better. Is there something else going on with your DW, though that makes her like that Has she ever had a traumatic event in the past when she was left alone and its replaying those memories, not an excuse but her reaction seems extreeme

MitziK · 06/10/2019 12:58

Fine. I'm a drama queen because whilst I deal with autoimmune disease, constant pain, deformity and taking medicine that if it works, could end up killing me, work fulltime and have supported DP for six years totally, I can't function at all when I get a migraine - the hemiplegic description sounds quite accurate, really, they suggested cluster headaches at the time I was put through for urgent scans because my GP saw me in the surgery just as one hit and thought I was having a stroke or had a brain tumour.

As it is, one other reason why DP hands me the tablets is because I genuinely cannot remember if I've taken any or when I did during a migraine - he noticed I asked him several times whether I'd taken anything/could take more yet, having to count on my fingers several times to work out if ten to two thirty was four hours or five. Seeing as I've got degree level qualifications in mathematics, being unable to tell the time during an attack or remember whether there were six or four tablets in the packet earlier is pretty alarming.

All I said was that a) I can't function, explaining why and how DP helps me and b) I'd probably be a bit grumpy if DP went out without at least checking I had/could get to medication first.

ElizaPancakes · 06/10/2019 14:26

The fact she only took paracetamol tells me it wasn't a migraine anyway. I think she just likes controlling OP and getting lots of attention while she's at it

That’s a bit unfair. Four paracetamol at the onset of aura helps mine. Two of those and two ibuprofen, a cool quiet room and a cool flannel on the back of my neck sorts it out 9/10. Triptans do nothing for me.

@MitziK your comments were about your migraines. No one is a mind reader about any other conditions you know.

What would you do if DH wasn’t there? Permanently?

cuppycakey · 06/10/2019 14:28

Agree with most PP - I rarely get a migraine but when I do I have to take to my bed, take heavy medication and basically pray to pass out for several hours.

YANBU

bookwormsforever · 06/10/2019 16:51

@MitziK, this thread is not about you and your experience of migraine. OP has already said that his wife's migraines are relatively well controlled. If your migraines are that bad, do you then bitch and moan that your h has gone out and entertained dc for the day? I bet you don't.

OP, you haven't been back to the thread for a while. Are you OK?

Ponoka7 · 06/10/2019 17:05

OP, you're a Doctor?

AnnaMagnani · 06/10/2019 17:14

As a migraine sufferer I would have been highly delighted that stayed out all day so I had silence to lie about with my migraine - I can be annoyed with my DH for breathing too loudly when I have a migraine so keeping your Ds away would be great.

I would wonder if she is snappy because she is still 'in the migraine' as I know anything I say on a migraine day should be taken with a pinch of salt as I am so emotional.

The following day whatever was bugging me, doesn't seem nearly so important.

MitziK · 06/10/2019 17:20

As I said previously when asked, I would do the same if I lived alone as I did when I lived alone. Not function for days.

Reasonableness is considerably more difficult when you're in that much pain - I have also seen somebody at work have a similar one where the first indication was that they 'saw a bright glow in the corner' and promptly burst into tears at least twenty minutes before the pain hit.

Whatever the rest of a relationship is like, it's a lot harder to be calm and logical if there's a migraine involved - there's something about them that makes everything heightened, including any worries or emotions from day to day stuff. Knowing just how they can be for me - nothing has the ability to do this, not dental abscess, not quinsy, not flu (and I had some cracking ones before I qualified for vaccination), not even the bout of pneumonia I had when I lived alone where I was trapped on the floor unable to catch my breath or the meningitis I had aged 15 where I just drifted in and out of sleep for a few days, none of them felt as awful and all encompassing as a migraine does.

So I wouldn't take irritableness around a migraine as proof of a good or bad relationship - I'd separate migraines from the rest of the time.

NWQM · 07/10/2019 09:05

I agree with @MitziK

Migraines are just awful. Terrifying. Personally I need to be left alone mostly but there are times though when I need comfort and reassure.

Let's look at it from a different perspective....

'Yesterday we'd planned a family day out. We were all looking so forward to it.... but my cursed migraines struck. I felt so awful and scared. I have them a lot but in the middle of it all sense goes out the window and I honestly struggle to think that I will ever be well. I imagine I am having a stroke or it must be a brain tumour or... sounds dramatic now but the pain is incredible.

What did my family do? My DP? Carried on with their day. Exactly as planned. No-one helped make sure I could survive the day on my own. No kindness was shown in getting me say a drink or a sandwich ready for when I came round.

They stayed out 6 hours.

My medic husband acknowledges now getting me paracetamols would have been a good idea! He is medically trained but said paracetamols which makes me think he just doesn't believe I am unwell.

Am I being unreasonable to think they could have gone some where else so we could all then do the activity another day? Spent some time in the house in case I needed help?"

Only you OP know what your wife is like the rest of the time. I don't think you were unreasonable to go out but I do think you need to understand why she might feel let down.

LakieLady · 07/10/2019 10:09

YANBU, and I used to get migraines so severe that I've been hospitalised because of them 3 times (2x because I was so dehydrated from the constant vomitting that I had to be put on a drip and once because of haematemesis).

I think the issue is more because of her not liking being left alone.

Mephisto · 07/10/2019 12:00

@NWQM

What are you on about? It was his wife who SENT her husband and child off and it was only 4.5 hours not 6!

He is medically trained but said paracetamols which makes me think he just doesn't believe I am unwell.

What do you mean ‘said paracetamols’?! She has her own doctor, she is more than capable of ensuring she has correct medication in the house.

underground76 · 07/10/2019 13:26

A lot of people seem to be missing the follow-up post where the OP said his/her wife also complains about being left alone at all, even when she doesn't have a migraine, and that this means the OP never really gets to go out unless their wife is them.

As a PP said, the migraines are really not the issue here.

EerieSilence · 07/10/2019 13:28

I suffer from migraines and I'd be kicking you out myself because A/my misery doesn't enjoy company B/why should you suffer with me?
She is very very BU.

MumW · 07/10/2019 13:42

I'm a big migraine sufferer too.
I'd be annoyed enough that my day had been messed up yet again by migraine and would have insisted you went.

In fact that happened on the last day of our holiday - I went to bed, they went to the beach.

Witchinaditch · 07/10/2019 13:43

I think you did the right thing. Migraines need quiet and 9 year olds can bring noise, so I’d be very grateful if someone tool my kids out for a fun day while I recovered.

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