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 😊

This, literally this.
I’m a man and when I’m ill it’s no different to anyone else - DW looks after me, and when she’s ill I look after her.

There’s no need for dramatics or one-upping each other, but then this is MN 😅

My DH has the dressing gown of doom and the sorrowful shuffle down to a tee. Me and the DC are heartless and we just laugh at him. I might boil the kettle for a lemsip but that's about the extent of my sympathy. He was mollycoddled by his mother when he was ill as a child, and he expects me to continue the charade.

Man here, I've been to the doctor 4 times and only had 2 sick days off in my whole working life (30years)
As a single dad I don't have anyone to do the shuffle of sorrow in front of now.
I'm thinking of offering my body for medical research to assist other males with their terrible affliction to male disease.
There has to be a cure out there in some undiscovered plant in the Amazon jungle.
.

Christ, you poor thing. I’d be sending up a bowl of hot arsenic.

Well that’s wrong in itself and in these cases needs spelling out - if you want sympathy and extra care when you’re ill then you need to show me the same when I’m ill. But surely that’s just basic communication in a relationship and goes without saying.

I cannot believe how many women just allow their husbands to not do night waking with their OWN children that they CHOSE to have. Stop being martyrs and tell them to see to their child’s needs? I literally don’t get it.

As soon as women (mothers) mention they're not feeling too good and might be coming down with something, you can almost see the look of panic on some men's faces. "Oh shit, I'm going to cop for looking after the kids all day."
So they get their ducks in a row pretty damn quick and develop their own fake symptoms which are of course much worse than ours.

The Shuffle of Sorrow and Munchausens by Marriage are fantastic, definitely adding them to the Dressing Gown of Doom!

If I ever came home from work saying, "The kids at school have all had colds and I've got a really sore throat" then my XH would do this thing where he'd kind of clear his throat in an attempt to see if he had a sore throat, too. It used to drive me mad.

My exh said the same thing to me many years ago when he had to have an Angioplasty procedure, and I quote: 'It was so painful, you couldn't have stood the level of pain'.

I don't doubt it was painful and unpleasant, but worse than giving birth 3 times? Not to mention several other nasty gyne operations I've had over the years. Somehow doubt it.

Acknowledge his illness you heartless viper. Send him to bed with tea. Give him ten minutes to feel smug.

Then send the children to doctor him better while you pop out for essentials (wine and a nice meal for tonight). Make sure he doesn’t have any mind. Wine is very bad for you when you’re ill, as is rich food.

My opinion is that there are not going to be any winners from this lack of communication. Everyone's experience of being ill is subjective, there's no point in having competitive suffering, the only loser is your relationship.
Just stick together, give each other what you each need, and have a better relationship.

PS as requested I'm a man.

Interestingly research has shown that even with the same actual illness, some people don't even notice being ill, others get really ill, some get terrible after effects of lack of concentration and feeling awful, and some people end up in hospital. And that's just from COVID. So even if you have the same bug you'll not be able to compare symptoms directly.

But why do you shuffle if you have a headache/cold/cough does it affect your legs?
If people are genuinely ill why aren’t they tucked up in bed?
Funnily enough DH is never to ill to sit on the settee with the remote control in his hand.

It's not about that, @johnd2. It's the drama created by some people that's so irritating, especially if the other partner has exactly the same thing. Look at the woman whose husband lay on the couch after she'd had a caesarean.

The shuffle of sorrow, the dressing gown of doom, unfortunately I am familiar with both. The moment my husband even suspects he has a cold he starts asking about honey & lemon & looking tragic.

He will spend a whole weekend shuffling round drinking honey & lemon before Monday arrives and he goes back to work looking normal again and drinking tea 🙄

My ex used to ask me to bring him a cold compress when he had a headache- as in, he’d wake me up for this errand. Pretty frequently. I always felt like I was in some kind of Florence nightingale re-enactment. Major turn off and as you can imagine, this was the tip of the iceberg.

I'm loving the responses where people are taking this oh so seriously!
Maybe the sickness some people have is lack-of-humour-itis.

Munchausen's by Marriage - this is it!!

My DH has been ill for 2 weeks, he took to his death/sick bed for 2 full days. When I came with it and carried on because you know.... kids/life. He declared he was so relieved that I did not get it as bad as him in his simpering voice.

To be fair, he is normally hands on and useful but when sick he is insufferable!

Man here! ( Because you asked )

Surely the night wakings and the sickness are two different issues.

Acknowledge that he's ill and offer him some sympathy, because surely that's what you do when someone you love is under the weather.

And then have a separate conversation about him taking on his share of the load with the kids. They will settle for him if you force the issue, because eventually they'll be bloody knackered. And if he's not willing to pull his weight, then you've got bigger issues than whether you should offer him sympathy when he's ill.

Tried and tested solution
First sign of Deathly Dressing Gown Disorder is send them to bed...
And forget about him.
Obviously you claim you were being considerate not disturbing him.

When DH gets a slight sniffle:

DH; 'I feel terrible. I think I've got a fever.'
Me: 'Have you taken your temperature and taken paracetemol'
DH (weakly): 'No'
Me: 'Do not speak to me again until you have done both those things.'

Every. Single. Time.

@AnnaMagnani

how sure are you that 'he' is indeed male?

if you're sure I'm afraid to say you have a faulty one. But I'd put up with it if I were you.

err Does he have a single, brother??

he'll be there shuffling and wincing in his oodie shroud

Oodie shroud 😂😂

DH went for blood tests 5 days ago. He’s done nothing but moan about it ever since “I’m sure the needle went through my arm, it hurt so much”, and so on. Not so much as a bruise on his arm. When he started on about it again this morning I said “I know what blood tests are like, I go every 2-3 month for them” to which he’s replied “yes, but that’s normal for you, I NEVER have to go for blood tests so it’s worse for me” 🙄
mine day I’ll roll my eyes so damn hard they fall right out my head!

When my husband is feeling unwell or has an ache, instead of just telling me about it, he huffs loudly so that I will ask him what's wrong. Now I ignore it. Then he will say 'OW' out loud. It really is pathetic 🤣