DH gravely ill - I have no sympathy

[DeBuugs]

This is half light hearted and half a vent.

We have two young children who still wake up a lot at night. DH never does any of the nights - he got himself into a nice little position where the kids only want me. I really feel the lack of sleep creeping on me and has been for a while.

DH has been sick with cold for quite a while now. He walks around all huffing, looking like he is about to faint and when he talks to me talks supper quiet and his speech breaks up - you know where I’m going with this. Like someone acting for their boss when calling in sick 🤣.

I gave him no sympathy since he announced he had a cold (I was sick then myself) and I think we have a stand off here and he will be sulking acting like he is about to die until I acknowledge his extremely bad cold. I have no intention to do so.

If any men comment on here please say that you are a man if you don’t mind. Interested to hear male comments 😊

My husband has a cold (man flu) I sympathise with him that he feels a bit ropey but it's the regular 5 minute updates on his symptoms that drive me insane!!! I'm 63-I know the symptoms of a cold-" by now and if he stopped talking it might just help his sore throat!

Not really. However shuffling around the house doing the whingy voice is pretty pathetic. Go to bed if you're that Ill. Save the performance.

Luckily we look after each other if incapacitated. There is no shuffling around in slippers doing the little cough here because we're not little kids who need mummy to stroke our brows.

Sad, funny but sadly true. Every time I am ill my DH is also ill. 2 years ago I tripped over and broke 2 toes. It was very painful. A couple of days later DH told me he thought he had gout in his toes.

On a slightly different note, when my DS was a baby I had a terrible stomach bug/food poisoning. Really, really awful, the worst I have ever felt in my whole life. I was out of commission for a few days with it and DH was truly brilliant….however, after I had recovered DH told me that he had been suffering from the same thing, the whole time I had been, and had just ‘got on with it’ as he is just not ‘as much of a drama’ as me.

Now at that point we lived in a house with one bathroom and I was pretty much camped in it. DH obviously came in and out but I do think I would have noticed if he was suffering the same as me.

On further questioning he had ‘felt a bit nauseous’ which in his head had equated to being just as ill as me, who had to end up getting anti sickness meds from the GP as I couldn’t stop throwing up.

My favourite is 'I'm just not feeling 100%'

Mother of god welcome to my every day since 2022

Yes! I'm rarely ill but h does this whenever I am ill, and it's bloody annoying.

Many years ago my (now ex) husband lay on the kitchen floor as his headache was so bad 🤪

I stepped over him and went to bed (it was bed time!)

He was absolutely fine after some paracetamol 🙄

Yep, that's my ex too - apparently work can't cope without him either.

My partner was ill just before Christmas, I asked if he was bathing our daughter and his reply was I’m too poorly to do that. Fast forward a month to when both my daughter (10 months) and I had the exact same illness and went about our days as normal.

Granted we've all needed antibiotics and my partner and I needed steroids. But the childcare didn’t stop for me.

If anyone is ill in the house or in the immediate family within the day, DH will be “feeling a little off”… it’s a running joke now.

My friend's boyfriend slipped in the ice and we suspected a broken ankle. Got him into a car then she stopped at the house for 5 minutes to take her essential meds and have a pee before the 20 min drive to a & e.
By the time she'd got back out to the car, he'd dialed 999. There would be an ambulance with him in 6 hours.

She made him call back and cancel, apologise for wasting their time and then she drove him to hospital.

Yes, it was broken, badly. Yes, he was in pain. I genuinely think he thought they'd send the air ambulance, as that would be the only faster route to hospital than the car he was already sitting in!!

Oh god

does he describe- in great detail - just how snotty and phlegmy he is?

My dh says " I'm going to take some tablets in a minute. " Why do I need to know, just take them, and why wait a minute fgs!!

Bit like my other half recently. He broke 1 bone in his hand. Had it manipulated back in place with copious amounts of gas and air. Felt very sorry for himself. There he is forgetting I broke my forearm, both bones snapped in half and ripped through the muscle. This was in Greece - Not a single painkiller in sight when they manipulated my bones back into place though 🙄 lol bless him

My DH is the same with the cough. He can't ever just have a bit of a cough and chest infection, it has to be DOUBLE PNEUMONIA. Last time he started I bought a pulse oximiter (they were in the middle at Lidl) and he was astounded that his 02 and pulse were not only totally normal but better than mine.

It's the commentary 'ugh, oh god, argh, uh' after every nose blow or sneeze. I always ask if he's taken something and the answer is always no. I'm sorry you don't get to shuffle off to bed without even having a bloody lemsip!

He recently had a vasectomy and good lord he spent a full week mincing about, wincing and groaning, apparently on the verge of vomiting. 2 months after he had a pain in his testicles and had to take to bed for 2 days.

Both cats had theirs done in Friday....barely a meow out of either of them.

DH never just catches a cold, it's always "I think I've got your cold" as if I go round inhaling random snotty kids just to get some germs to pass on.
He went for a prostate exam last week (2 friends have had cancer diagnosis and have been advocating very strongly to all the men they know to get it done). He was bricking it, and I had no idea what it could be like. So I pointed out that at least he had an actual GP appointment in an actual GP surgery unlike having to go for a mammogram in a portakabin in the Asda car park. I didn't get to finish describing my last smear before he conceded that perhaps he'd cope after all.

Oh and they start young. Few years ago DS tried to get a day off school, writhing about in his bed because he'd caught his sisters sore tummy. Hopefully the short shrift he got from me and the biology lesson on period cramps will bring its rewards for my future DIL.

'The shuffle of sorrow.'

Beyond brilliant.

My ex took a day off work, having caught what I'd had the night before. Like me, he was lying on the settee looking greyish, while clutching a hot water bottle to his stomach.

How he'd not only managed to "catch" period pains, but had also had them so badly he needed to phone in sick, I'll never know.

My DH has "the sigh" when he's ill. All normal life stops, god for it he should go to work or take part in any family life at all. For days on end! Just get on with it mate, we don't need a performance! 😡

This has been such a funny thread with some sick gags
Thank you everyone

I don’t get the mopping men when they are sick I just get on with things, I’m sympathetic and spoil and help my wife when she is ill which seems like most of the time, I’ll send her up to bed whilst looking after the kids

Oh good grief, when I see the pyjama tartan trousers of terror on my partner I know that we’re in for a good few days of the “ sick voice “ 🫣

Years ago, but it still makes me smile, DH came back from a GP appointment and announced in a shocked, wavery voice that he had to go “under the surgeon’s knife”. He’d been given an appointment to have a sebaceous zit removed by the practice nurse.