AIBU to avoid DP who’s been ill in hospital

[Horachied]

Fully aware here that I may be flamed, and I can understand why but I’m trying to understand whether I’m being reasonable, or being a bit harsh.

DP and I have been together a year and a half. We don’t live together. Last week, I visited my family in my home town and came to stay for the week. I have a new family member that’s been born and I was excited to come back here for a few days to get to know the new baby. I see my family once every 3 months normally, and miss them a lot so really value the time I have with them.

whilst I’ve been in my home town, DP contracted a bacterial infection. This then worsened and he ended up having to spend 2 nights in hospital due to complications from it. I have been in home town throughout this, but spoken with him a lot on the phone and his mum has been by his side the whole time.

im now returning to where I live tomorrow, and DP has asked that I come stay with him for the week to ‘look after him’.

now I’m probably being awful, but I’m really reluctant to. Google tells me that his infection is highly contagious, and I’m meant to be going ok holiday in 10 days. If I catch this infection, I would likely have to cancel my holiday which I really don’t want to do.

He also does tend to have man flu, and is very dramatic whenever he gets any illness. He told me that he likes to be ‘babied’ when he gets ill, which I simply refuse to do because he’s a grown man. So part of me also feels like he doesn’t need to be taken care of and should get on with it for a few days by himself.

AIBU and really horrible?

He's not your partner is he, he's your boyfriend.

Yeah that’s fair

Yes, this.

He likes to be babied when ill. Plenty of women love to baby their partners, but that’s just not you and that’s also fine. I think it speaks volumes about long term compatibility though. It’s fine when you maintain separate lives, living apart as boyfriend and girlfriend, but partners need to have greater compatibility than this. Make sure you’re on the same page about where you’re relationship is going.

@Horachied
"He really has been babied by his mum though so he thinks that I’m being very harsh and cold when I don’t treat him the same way."

I have to say this is a bad sign 😕 if you did have kids together I guarantee this would feel 10x worse and you'll probably want to kill him.

He has been hospitalized. People are acting like he has a cold.

I'm happy to baby my partner if he's super sick. You're not though and I don't think this relationship is going to work.

You have different expectations.

Omg, use the baby as an excuse to stay away. Let’s be honest, after the comment to the chaplain, I would have been wanting to smother him with a pillow myself… You could even be honest (when he’s better - MUCH later) and let him know just how unattractive that shit is. One day you might have ACTUAL children.

But he isnt super sick, he has been treated and is recovering well if he can do 6 flights of stairs without help AND go for a walk. Also, when he does have a cold, he takes 2 days off work!

So with someone who is like that when tthey are ill with something that the rest of us get on with, I am afraid that they wont get taken seriously when it is something worse.

Crying wolf springs to mind.

ETA you say "he has been hospitalised, people are acting like he has a cold" so why then, when he has a cold, does he act like he has been hospitalised?!

I’m going to offer a slightly different opinion. I would say after dating 1.5 years if you don’t want to go and see him to check he’s ok in person after coming out of hospital, then you aren’t that into him. After 1.5 years with my now DH we were living together and he looked after me after surgery no questions asked.

If this was reversed people would want you as a women to be looked after

But no he is just as capable as you would be

Agreed. This woman should leave this man because it's not fair on him to be with a weak woman. Instead, he needs to find a stronger woman who is caring and compassionate.

YANBU.
Check on him regularly and offer to drop things off..
If you do need to go in to help him open the windows, wear an FFP2 or FFP3 mask, gloves or hand sanitizer, change clothes when you get home. Don't stay any longer than necessary.
Hope he's ok 🤞

@User3456 If you do need to go in to help him open the windows, wear an FFP2 or FFP3 mask, gloves or hand sanitizer, change clothes when you get home. Don't stay any longer than necessary.

He has bacterial colitis. Unless this is a new form of bacteria that I'm not familiar with that has evolved wings, I seriously doubt they are going to magically fly into OP's lungs.

On the basis of not wanting to jeopardise my holiday I would say no. I have no problem helping out when people are unwell but he does have other help available.

I chose YANBU only because you don’t live together, so I think that’s such a big ask for you to drop work and everything important and live there for the week.

You are being ridiculously unreasonable if you don’t at least go round there everyday, offer that emotional support and help him out with a load of washing at least.
The poor lad was in hospital, he is proper sick.
As someone who has unfortunately been hospitalised a decent amount due to endometriosis. It’s nice to have help and someone to hold your hand occasionally and say “It’s gonna be okay”
And I’m far from someone who likes to be ‘babied’

I think it's a lot to ASK of someone, I would probably hope/expect my partner to help me out if I was in his position (unless I knew for sure they ran the risk of infection in which case I'd actively encourage them to stay away.) But I wouldn't just outright ask someone to move in for a week and be my carer, that's forcing someone's hand, I'd only want that if they offered and it was their own free choice. Him asking you to do it seems really off-putting and needy to me, although I do admit, like I said before, I think a partner would offer a fairly significant amount of support to their partner in this situation. You are right to be cautious if you think you could be infected, that's totally reasonable, but you not wanting to throw caution to the wind and run to take care of him maybe does say something about your relationship dynamic. I should say that whilst I wouldn't ask, I also wouldn't have needed to be asked myself, I would have offered to help out if it was my partner I really loved. My SIL and baby niece just had horrendous sickness bug and I offered to have the baby or go over and help, virtual guarantee I'd get it, I didn't care, they were struggling, she said absolutely not based on really not wanting me to get ill, we were both concerned about each other, it sounds like you are both concerned about yourselves, which is fine but maybe something to consider for future if this dynamic doesn't shift.

Some of the comments on here are absolutely awful, saying he should suck it up and that he's asking too much, that he's been babied by his mother, he's literally been in hospital ok it may not be the most sensible thing to ask for but do none of you have any sympathy?!

If I had just come out of hospital and all my partner wanted to do was send a gift basket before they went on holiday I'd suggest it would be best to call off the relationship. Think that's probably the best thing that could happen to Op and their partner.

@raincloudsandholidays Empathy and compassion are "strong" person characteristics. The majority of people are weak, which is why most people have no empathy for sick people.

In what context did he say he wants to be babied when ill and what specifically does he mean?

Because if you were left to it, it could be that he is just expecting normal levels of concern, and the actual issue is you expect abnormal levels of self-sufficiency.

You’re here mocking him on Mumsnet. Rightly or wrongly.

You’re only 18 months in.

He’s not for you.

(did he actually SAY he likes to be babied or is that your slant on it?)

The chaplain thing is hilarious.

I think this is a good time to reset some expectations. You don't want to find yourself married, with children and a husband who expects complete rest and pampering every time he has a cold.

Does he show a similar level of concern when you are sick? In my experience these things tend to go one way.

I think you're hitting the right balance. Visit, bring soup. Listen for an hour. Tell him he looks better every day. But don't get drawn into acting like he's an invalid.

You can set your boundaries and gently show him you're not going to indulge the idea he needs a carer when he doesn't.

If he's climbing stairs etc then he can fetch his own tea etc.

This. I notice every time it seems to be slightly more sympathetic there is another little comment like asking the chaplain to pray for him, just so we all really know that he is an unreasonable man baby.

I think the relationship has run its course tbh.

Exactly this

@outdamnedspots In this case Erik Bloodaxe is a cat and doesn't have a wife and I'm not a man so don't go down that route.
Every single sneering reply to the Ops post was made by a woman. The men in my life are all extremely caring so to answer your question, no I don't believe only woman are caring.

He's giving you a very clear heads up what life will be like with him

Ignore that at your own risk. 🤷

Your quick Google search was wrong. What are the chances ?! If he has infectious colitis then he should get over this episode ok hopefully. Ulcerative colitis (and crohns disease) are autoimmune inflammatory bowel diseases which are not infectious. Colitis just means inflammation of the bowel which could be for a number of reasons.