Drama queen husband after I’ve had an operation

[IbelongtoChrestomanciCastle]

I’m a regular poster but have name changed for this thread. It is outing.

My bloody husband is driving me mad, shamming being in pain whilst I’m a few days post op. Why is he doing it? I can only think that it’s because he can’t bear not to be the person who is the most ill, and wants to claw back some of the invalid limelight.

I had a hysterectomy on Tuesday. The cut you open type, not the laparoscopy type. I got home yesterday. I am the stoic type. He’s the ‘dressing gown of doom’ man flu sort. We have no children (for which I am thankful at the moment!). I’m 51.

My husband broke his arm and three ribs seven weeks ago, after falling from his bike. A clean break, no complications, although he spent two nights in hospital. When that accident happened I rushed to his side etc., dropped everything, took time off work, visited him every day, looked after him really well, including waking in the middle of the night to help him out of bed and into the bathroom and to dispense his drugs. Couldn’t have done more for him. He’s been driving again for two weeks and has been much better.

Hysterectomy was scheduled at short notice. As soon as I had a date, my husband appeared to have a relapse. We went to an event, that he drove to, a few days before I was admitted. During the evening, he kept saying, “it’s dangerous for me to be here in case anyone bumps into me” and “we need to go home now because I’m still so unwell”.

He started making new “ooh, ooh, ah!” noises when getting out of bed or rising from a chair. To show how IN PAIN he was. I ignored it, I had enough to think about.

Since I’ve been home he’s been a nightmare. The “ooh ooh ah!” noises are a permanent fixture. When I woke this morning, he was already awake, sitting up and reading. I asked him to help me to sit upright (with his good arm!) and the PERFORMANCE. As well as the “ooh ooh ah!”, we had gurning as he slowly levered himself off the bed, sighing. He hasn’t been doing that for at least four weeks, but now he’s doing it again. Then he tottered slowly around the bed to gingerly expend an arm. Twat.

He is driving me barmy. I’m in pain but I’m making myself do the short walks etc recommended by the hospital and I’m putting a brave face on, as we women do. He must know that he is being an arse…or does he?

Am I being unfair or is he acting like a teenage drama queen?

“It’s not like he’s getting any sympathy for it” - really? He’s had seven weeks of unlimited sympathy and he’s not ceding his spot as the sympathy recipient without a fight.

He’s been putting regular updates on Facebook since the day after his accident, harvesting sympathy delightedly. I’m not on Facebook so I don’t know what he wrote but I was on the receiving end of updates from him, several times a day, when he received a concerned enquiry from eg somebody he’d been at university with in 1985 and hadn’t spoken to since. He was quite disappointed when his updates started to yield diminishing returns but I let him get on with it on the grounds that it seemed to be making him feel better.

There is no ‘pain tolerance competition’, as you put it. His wife, me, is still less than a week out from an open hysterectomy. The wife who has been running around after him, dispensing sympathy, for seven weeks. It’s his turn to step up now. I’m not asking for his sympathy but for practical help. Even if he is still in pain, he needs to suck it up and not put on a performance every time his wife asks for help, which isn’t often.

Maybe he’s been in pain the last few weeks but not made a fuss.

If only you knew how funny this is. There is no way that my husband would knowingly avoid making a fuss about his own ailments.

No, what’s happened is, he was getting better, well enough to drive and do chores, but engineered a relapse just in time to :

• extend his period of invalidity.
• make sure that everyone knows that he’s still very unwell, despite all evidence to the contrary.
• make his wife feel bad for asking for help after being discharged (“ooh ooh ah! How can you ask me to help you when I’m still so very, very ill”?)
• try to get a replacement domestic carer - my friend, who moved in to help me shower and dress etc. - so that he didn’t have to do more than what he perceives to be his fair share of housework.

He is not getting any sympathy from you now. His grunting and groaning isn't getting him sympathy from you. Your sympathy ended when your pain started. It's as if one's own pain is greater than anyone else's...
Yet you can't seem to understand that maybe he can't switch his off and "suck it up" either. You're both in pain. He is helping you. Sure, he's not doing it with smile, and he's not doing it as efficiently as he might have done without broken ribs, but it's not like he's fucked off and left you to it.

I think you should say exactly this to him There is no ‘pain tolerance competition’, as you put it. His wife, me, is still less than a week out from an open hysterectomy. The wife who has been running around after him, dispensing sympathy, for seven weeks. It’s his turn to step up now. I’m not asking for his sympathy but for practical help. Even if he is still in pain, he needs to suck it up and not put on a performance every time his wife asks for help, which isn’t often
No holds barred!

How can you actually bear him.

Unbelievably unattractive.

As for what your future looks like, grim doesn't come near it.

Get well and have a think.

Do you really want to be nursing THAT.

are you the husband?

We had a right day of it yesterday. My friend and I went out for a short walk. Before we left I asked my husband to take out the bin bag and replace it, because there were three days’ worth of dinners, including fish pie, in there. The times I’ve told him that fish remnants need to be out of the house on the same day! I usually end up doing it myself, but can’t at the moment because I can’t lift full big bags. He sulked and huffed.

On the way back we noticed new and obvious purple stains on the hall carpet. On closer inspection, he’d walked through fallen elderberries from the tree growing near the bins and had trodden them in. Usually I’d just get the Vanish out but I asked him, nicely, to deal with it. At first he tried to blame the cleaners who had visited last Wednesday (!!) then grudgingly and sulkily agreed to do it. My friend said, “I’ll do it”, but I said, “no, you’re doing enough and you’re not here to be a domestic servant”. He then called me from the kitchen because he ‘couldn’t find the Vanish mousse’. It was at the front of the cleaning cupboard.

Later, a friend we hadn’t seen in a while texted to ask whether husband and I would be in that evening because she wanted to drop in to see how we both where. I told him that X would be calling in at 8pm to see us. He suddenly decided that he was exhausted from all the work he’d been doing and his injuries and had to go to bed immediately, and told me and my friend to give X his regards and apologies. Couldn’t cope with someone else being asked about their ailments, and being relegated to the supporting invalid role, rather than the lead.

Still bloody attention seeking, but in a different way! He HAD to show X that despite his accident having been seven weeks ago, he was in a much, much worse state than his newly operated on wife.

He sounds like an unbearable lazy arse BUT i broke one rib in February and it stopped giving me daily aches and pains about two / three weeks ago.

I am, yes. Damn. How did you figure it out?

I'd have murdered him in cold blood by now what a woose.

He’s a selfish narcissist and I would divorce him

It’s funny how everyone attempting to defend his behaviour has themselves broken ribs. Are you all part of the Broken Ribs Brotherhood? All determined that nobody should ever underestimate your pain and suffering?

I’ve broken ribs on three separate occasions. Skiing, at a pole dancing class (many years ago, I’m 51 now) and falling during a run. Nobody has ever asked me to join the Broken Ribs Brotherhood. I feel quite cheated. Having experienced it, though, and I broke four ribs when skiing, I know that seven weeks after the accident there is NO WAY that I’d be trying to outdo a spouse who had just had major abdominal surgery, and no way that I’d be shamming a relapse in order to reclaim what I saw as my rightful position as the house invalid!

This is just so cringey, I can hardly even bear to read it.

He sounds utterly pathetic.

But thank you for my usual MN-induced DH-appreciation reminder.

@PlainJaneSuperBrain99 definitely not a generation thing!
My dad is 72 and has always done all the washing, cooking, cleaning etc
My Nan had dementia and he did all the caring. Then my mum, and he was at the care home constantly doing stuff, talking to her, getting her clothes washed, everything. The only thing he couldn't face was being there when she died (I was cross but went instead)

she wanted to drop in to see how we both where

apologies for this typo. The shame of it!

My other half is exactly the same. He gets pissed off when I’m ill and the effect that has on him (having to take time off work to sort the kids etc) but makes a huge deal about his own illnesses. His mum was a doctor and he had a relationship with her that revolved around his ailments. I wonder whether he has cast himself in the patient in life.

Wow OP at the level of hostility towards your DH! You are extremely angry, he doesn’t want to help. I think it’s time to consider a divorce as neither of you are getting what you want.

I think you should start mimicking his 'ooh ooh aah' noises, so he realises how stupid he sounds.

Oh ffs this would drive me mad op.
Thank goodness for your lovely friend.
Bloody men. Yeah yeah, l know namalt but if l even mention to dh l have got a headache, he immediately shuts me down by saying he has too....and of course it is always much worse than mine.
Wish you a speedy recovery x

Oh God another dressing gown of doom
man! Can you start being very dramatic about your pain levels? Give him a taste of his own medicine!

Sounds very irritating. My oh is quite unsympathetic. I can’t walk on one foot due to something wrong with my heel and god forbid he should rub it for me to give me some relief.
sounds like you have a lovely friend staying with you- thank goodness!

I would actually just divorce him. He sounds like an utter fucking wanker. What's the point of having a life partner if they never do their share? What's the point of a man who can't step up when his wife is in need? It's pathetic and shameful and honestly I have no idea why anyone would stand for it.

If you stay with your husband, don't get cancer, don't get old, don't get dementia. Good luck.

I'm not sure what the point of your marriage is tbh. You don't like him and he isn't nice to you. Marriage is actually supposed to be nice, fun, supportive - not a miserable slugging out of who is worse off or who is being the nastiest.

I have no idea why you are still with him.

No, wow at you, telling strangers to divorce and insulting someone who has just had major surgery. Time you closed the laptop, I think!