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 😊

These responses are really making me laugh

You really are taking it too seriously. As a PP said when DH is ill I will take care of him. When he is wandering around the house behaving like someone auditioning for an AmDram version of Victorian Swooning Lady, it’s quite hard to keep a straight face.
We’ve been together for over 25 years and I do know the difference between ill and fit of the vapours.

this thread reminded me of this little jewel....

I remember just after the birth of my second DC, DH became ‘ill’ - i.e. had a cold.

The baby (2 weeks old at the time) also had a cold, my toddler had a cold and of course I had a cold (and had just had a C-section two weeks previous).

Only one of us got sitting around in our dressing gown on the couch sniffing loudly while the other had to look after both DC.

Have a guess who it was?

I went pretty ballistic after a few days of it tbh and we have had no man flu ever since.

Fahrenheit temperatures always sound much worse than centigrade. Especially if you get them muddled up a bit.

“ 99.3 ! Blimey mate that’s practically literally the boiling point of water!”

My DP once took himself off to bed to watch films for two days because he was constipated.

I feel like I’m missing something here. If I were properly ill with D&V then I’d certainly be asking for sympathy and care from DH and vice versa.
I wouldn’t expect so much from a friend, but would offer or expect polite token sympathy in that situation. If a friend laughed in my face when I said I’d been sick I’d think they were an utter twat.

I am never allowed to be I’ll and make DH take over household chores. When I caught Covid he had to catch it too, so I still had to do school drop offs and pick ups.

I had a cold in the run up to Christmas, 3 weeks it lasted, at one point DH sniffled and told me he had it too, but after 2 days he had to admit he was fine whilst I really wasn’t

@DeBuugs OP you are being massively unreasonable... this is clearly a serious and incurable condition. the kindest thing to do is put him out of his misery

if you can't afford a trip to Dignitas... a pillow over the head has served me nicely in the past.

Exactly this! Do you not want sympathy when you’re ill and the offer to make you a lemsip or get you a blanket (or something else to show you care). He’d probably stop going on and ‘putting on a show’ if you acknowledged that he’s feeling ill and showed a degree of sympathy. Are you not sympathetic when other people you love feel ill? Why should it be any different for your husband?

In our house it's the opposite way round, my OH gets awful migraines; no matter what he's ill with, he's always "fine," even when he's vomiting from migraines or can't stand up. He's a trooper.

I, on the other hand, am worthy of an Oscar winning performance every time. You'd think I was the first and only person ever to get ill in the history of the human race, and I do a great line in "sorry for myself" faces.

It is not easy being a mother when sick.....I have had to carry out all tasks as usual w 3 kids and a dog when ill. But if dh gets sick, he is locked up in the room all day rest. So not fair.....

Yep!! Mine does this!!
He turns everything into a competition 🤬

My husband has had treatment for a very serious illness. He went through it so bravely even whe he was so ill and I've been so proud.
However, a slight cold can see him completely incapacitated !
What's the psychology there?!

I am so glad I have a normal husband who’s been ill twice in fifteen years to my knowledge, once with Covid. Even then, he got his own drinks and meds and never made a fuss, just quietly stayed in bed occasionally sending me memes so I knew he was alive 😂

I’m laughing as I’m reading. Shall I tell my DH why am I laughing? Also, he didn’t used to have colds this bad until we had kids 🤣😂😊

Munchausen by Marriage 😂

The shuffle of sorrow!!
Dying 🤣

My OH was ill a few weeks ago. I cared for him exactly the way he cared for me when I'd been ill, which mostly ignoring him. He hated it, I could tell he felt very hard done by.

I think the ones taking it too seriously are the ones who say that someone being ill makes their "blood boil".

Men are feeble. We all know this. Please tell me you have repeatedly reminded him how painful it was birthing your DC whenever he whines about his minor ailment. Sick men give me the ick.

It’s the food test - if you can and want to eat, you are not ill in this house. If eating normally then daily life has to continue

I am a right unsympathetic bitch so DH has given up trying it on, and also am rarely ill myself.

I have the opposite, a man who could have a limb hanging off, or an axe sticking out of his head and would still be in complete denial and refuse to see a doctor. Stubborn as a mule....

My sister just had covid and now has pneumonia. Her baby is crawling now and absolutely full on. Her husband (who is great btw) is away working and she lives abroad so we can't help. She is literally crawling around on her knees after the baby. She can't even stand. Tell your husband to stop being so pathetic and grow up.

I've got a little more understanding of this behaviour when DH explained that he feels he needs to be really clear that he is not feeling well enough to do stuff because he doesn't want me to think he's just sacking off.

That was helpful as it explained why he never seemed to understand what I thought were fairly clear statements like 'I think I've got that bug the kids had' or whatever never seemed to register with him and it might be a day or two later when I say 'I haven't slept well because of this cold', he says 'Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were ill'.

I now know I literally have to say things like 'Please pick up DS, I am not feeling well enough' because if I just tell him I have a cold or don't feel great, if I am not laid up in bed he assumes I'm well. I don't tend to lay up in bed because I personally prefer to get dressed and be up and about, and have in recent memory never actually been too ill not to at least dress and move around the house.

I do have a suspicion he is no more ill than I get when he insists he can't do a thing, but I guess women are inculcated that we have to just get on with it.