To have no sympathy anymore?

[reachedtheendofmytether]

OH is ill. OH is ALWAYS ill.

He has one chronic issue that leaves him laid up that can be managed with medication fairly well. But he doesn't manage it so that keeps him out of action for a few nights a week.

When his usual illness is ok, there's always something. A cold, a bad stomach, toothache. The list is endless. He doesn't look after himself at all and I refuse to do it for him. He's a grown man and I'm not his mother.

I've given up asking how he is now because I'm sick of hearing how ill he is. I can't hide my eye rolls well any more.

May be worth mentioning that I have 2 small children who make far less fuss when they're not well.

I couldn't cope with this. I prefer my partners stoic and strong.

Adult activity is the last thing on my mind, it's making him quite unattractive to me. Of course at bedtime he is well up for it and I'm the bad guy

I hope you point out every time how hypocritical this is? Or, conversely, that every time he moans you ask whether he expects to have recovered miraculously by bedtime?

Oh god, life is too short to live like this. Forgot all the other stuff even, a grown man who doesn’t eat vegetables would close my fanny right up. How did you bring yourself to procreate with this manbaby?

I think I am a bit like this that one day a month when my endo flares up and that kicks off my rheumatoid arthritis. I literally cannot stop myself from saying 'The pain is really bad, the pain is really bad'. It is like a mantra my brain goes to and I do it without thinking. But when I get like that I get out of DP and the DC's way, get a bath and take the big gun pain medications. I don't want to inflict my crazy, miserable self on anyone else. I don't think YABU at all OP if your DH is at it all the time. It isn't fair on family life and as a parent, he should know this.

There is probably an element of justification in the way you feel, and probably a lack of understanding and empathy with it.

Chronic conditions are almost all inevitably very hard to live with. You talk about crisis vs non crisis, medication vs no medication. It's not like that. Chronic illnesses leave you with anxiety, fear of the crisis. Most people with chronic illnesses suffer from poor sleep quality, either because of the pain itself, or the effect of anxiety. Most also leaves you exhausted. All this leads to a level of depression and everything that comes with it.

It's not like getting the flu, feeling crap for a bit, but ultimately, unconsciously knowing it's just a matter of time before it will get better. When your chronic illness leaves you in massive pain, you become paranoid about pain, so yes, a tooth ache that is just a short term inconvenience for most is a all focusing, destressing and scary event for those with chronic illness.

Sadly, it's very hard to grasp all this unless you've gone through it. Your OH needs support, psychologically, to learn to live with it better. He might think he does, but deep down, it's clear that he doesn't.

How sympathetic is he when you get ill? Does he do all the childcare so you can recover? If not, stop doing all his childcare for him.

I would treat him the same way he treats you.

It is either pure laziness and an excuse to drop out of his responsibilities for a while, a luxury you do not have so no wonder your empathy is waning.

Or he has a serious chronic illness that is hard to manage and even if he is crap at managing it (as many people are) It is a drain but more deserving of your compassion. Get some childcare, cleaning help and make a life for yourself outside of the home so get regular breaks from the bleating. I say this has someone with a chronic disease and it is not easy, but you learn to cope.

Or he has a mental health condition, and that may need exploring. Why does he keep becoming ill, what is going on with him.

Ultimately if it is ruining your life, you are free always to walk away.

I would recommend a pain clinic referral too, the extra support, help and plans to manage life made all the difference to me.

If I can just outline what we did to 'manage' it might help:

We cut our social lives back to the things we most wanted to do/seeing people closest to us. We also balance that with plenty of rest.

We got extra cleaning help and childcare when the children were younger, the pressure eased considerably on all of us. Yes it is a financial commitment but it will pay off in so many ways.

I decided rather than talk about my pain I would speak to a counsellor once a week, and then I could literally moan to my hearts content about how shit it is. It meant I was not offloading on the people around me.

We simplified our lives so that we can easily cope with the commitments that are most important to us.

Use hot water, massage, presses and have them ready to go when things are tough. Or whatever your dh needs to ease the pain. We have a plan of what to do when things are bad

Take some time out, as much as you need. You do not need to be nursing him. Get the kids involved they can shuttle things around too, keep him company etc.

Make a life that has some joy op, that is for you. You do not need to suffer as well. Learn some one line answers. I am sorry you are having a difficult day dh, I hope you feel better later and be gone and try and enjoy your friends, hobbies and days out that are not overshadowed by dh's illness. I always ensured my dh goes out and has time away when things are difficult for me. I actually don't want to impact his life in any way, and do what I can to minimise so my dc are happy.

Oh I hear you OP. My OH is exactly the same. And not just about illnesses, which he also doesn't manage very well, but about every single thing in life. He's definitely glass half empty. It's draining

Living with a chronic illness is difficult for both the person and their partner. While the partner may not have the illness and pain they often take on more of the responsibility and become a carer by default. And as OP has said it can be incredibly lonely if your DP is regularly not available either emotionally or physically.

Remember this man is not taking his medication which would manage his condition, therefore his actions are directly impacting on OP, and that is disrespectful and undermining her and all of the extra effort she gives. To listen to someone constantly complaining, about anything, is draining, even if you do start out with empathy. Then to expect to have sex with this person who is so negative is just another insult.

I totally get how you feel @reachedtheendofmytether it chips away at you and no matter how much empathy or sympathy you offer it’s a miserable life living with someone who doesn’t help themselves and constantly moans about the consequences.

I’d want to have a very serious chat with him, emphasising that his condition is not getting you down but the way he fails to manage it, which results in more illness, less time to be a father and husband, is seriously affecting you and the way you feel about him.

My EH was always taking time off work. A cold would stretch for weeks. A mysterious bad back. Neither of which would stop him drinking every night. He only worked term times anyway and some years he would literally work for about half the year. I found it deeply disappointing and my decreasing amount of respect for him was damaging the relationship although I didn't realise this at the time. I think there's an underlying, and probably misplaced, sense of disappointment that I wanted him to be strong and positive, a rather gendered approach but deeply ingrained in me nonetheless. His behaviour helped kill the marriage.

It must be so frustrating I can not stand people who complain about life then do nothing to change it.

I have a chronic pain illness and it is so difficult to manage because it has no trigger but I take my meds religiously, take all the advice from gp and physio and pay for private treatment I struggle to afford so I can function as normally as possible.

From your post it seem to be that your left to deal with everything because he refused to be responsible. I would be pissed off too. Why do you stay with someone who refused to parent, uses his illness as an excuse to check out of life and guilts you for sex? what does he bring to your life.

DP is like this sometimes - he has digestive issues because his diet is shit and he doesn't drink any water (he literally has 2 cups of tea a day and that's it).

So when he's doubled over in agony with constipation and phoning in sick to work thinking he's dying, all I do is put a bottle of water next to him and walk away.

FWIW he's had investigations and the doctors agree with me.

It’s tricky.

I have a chronic health condition that makes me more susceptible to picking up other bugs like colds. But I deal with flare ups as best I can by medicating.

When we all had covid DH had it worse and retired to bed for a week while I took care of DC 24/7 despite my raging fever and horrible symptoms. I took him cups of tea and monitored his sats etc. I had to take a lot of meds to function but when you’re part of a family you have to help each other out.

DH gets irritated if I moan too much about my condition or when it stops family days out (a bad flare up can put me in bed for 24 hours). But I still book things and try to select days out that don’t involve long walks or sitting on hard ground.

When I had HG in pregnancy DH found it very hard as I couldn’t help much at all and feeling nauseous 24/7 makes anyone grumpy.

Rather than rolling your eyes, why not tell him how you feel when he behaves like this? Communicate directly about your feelings, it's your only best chance of being understood or seeing things change

@LizzieSiddal

I’d want to have a very serious chat with him, emphasising that his condition is not getting you down but the way he fails to manage it, which results in more illness, less time to be a father and husband, is seriously affecting you and the way you feel about him.

I think you really need to do this, OP.

@LizzieSiddal

I’d want to have a very serious chat with him, emphasising that his condition is not getting you down but the way he fails to manage it, which results in more illness, less time to be a father and husband, is seriously affecting you and the way you feel about him.

Exactly this

The reality here is that if someone has a serious illness or a disability it isn’t just about them, no matter how much they are the ones who are struggling.

If you have a chronic illness/disability then everyone around you has to be a part of that, and there come times when they will also be negatively affected by it. And if that person doesn’t help themselves, why should those around them bend over backwards to be there for them.

If someone posted on here asking whether people would date someone with a chronic illness a large majority would say no. So it’s not unrealistic to understand that a person who already lives with someone with that chronic illness is going to find that hard as well sometimes.

I am in heart failure and when I was at my worst I couldn’t leave the house. Sometimes walking upstairs would mean I’d overdone it and I would spend the next 15 minutes trying not to throw up, and wishing that this would just get on and kill me since it was likely to end up doing that anyway so could we just get there now please. I never considered taking steps to end it myself, but I was perfectly ok with the idea that nature might like to take its course now thank you. . And this meant that my DP/DS had to go to the shops/run downstairs to fetch my anti emetics/water etc and sometimes we had to get a takeaway because I was too ill to cook. Or DS had to get up on his own because I was to ill to get out of bed.

I am in a much better place now, and while part of that is because of interventions, another part is because of the meds I take, and the impact they have. If I stopped taking my meds I would slip straight back into fast AF (atrial fibrillation,) my stats would be all over the place, and the breathlessness and exhaustion would return, and worse, when I reach that point (and I have been told that there will come a time when I will reach that point, regardless of the meds) I am ineligible for any other treatments other than a transplant.

So if I suddenly stopped taking my meds then it would be perfectly understandable if my family started to roll their eyes when I complained that I was breathless/feeling sick, and expected them to take over because I was no longer capable.

If he’s refusing to take his meds etc then clearly he’s not actually taking his condition seriously enough, and I would be telling him that he is seeming to be deeply unattractive and really needs to do something about managing his health because you’re not going to compensate for it given that he doesn’t either.

YaNBU.
He sounds like a right twat.
Does he wear the dressing gown of doom?

If he’s well enough for sex he’s well enough to be a functioning adult in the household. And if he isn’t taking his medication for a chronic condition of course he’ll feel unwell. Much like if you eat too many sweets you’ll have a bad tummy. At a certain point you need to take responsibility for your health as far as you can, you can’t expect sympathy when you aren’t even trying to help yourself.

@LizzieSiddal

I’d want to have a very serious chat with him, emphasising that his condition is not getting you down but the way he fails to manage it, which results in more illness, less time to be a father and husband, is seriously affecting you and the way you feel about him.

This

It doesn’t even sound as though you like him anymore so you should probably leave

LizzieSiddal:

I’d want to have a very serious chat with him, emphasising that his condition is not getting you down but the way he fails to manage it, which results in more illness, less time to be a father and husband, is seriously affecting you and the way you feel about him.

This^^^

Only thing I would say is while there's no one to step up to cover me, one of my problems is the cumulative affects of my conditions creates failure to manage it well and it's a vicious circle.

What I actually need is some help with how to use technology, patient transport systems etc so i didn't run out of medication, lose six hours to have a 30 min appointment, (the right) food delivered ect.
If I had a husband/wife/partner nd they were able, I'd hope they'd be prepared to help set up those things (hugely time consuming for me) and teach me how to use them and help me update changing systems, so I had the tools to manage better.

He may of course be more than capable of doing all that stuff himself, but check the condition isn't impacting it. The rest of it sounds like selfishness, male entitlement etc and definitely not sexy!