To find it hard to be sympathetic when DH is ill

[Purplemoon16]

Am I the only person that struggles to muster up any sympathy for their DH when they’re ill? If there’s a bug going about DH ALWAYS seems to catch it worse than anyone else. When I had bad morning sickness in all three of my pregnancies times it coincided with him having a prolonged cough. He doesn’t seem to have much resilience or willingness to just crack on.

It’s come to a head now as Im 30 weeks pregnant and have been catching cold after cold after cold lately, probably at least six colds in the last two months. But I’ve not really had a choice but to get up with our DCs, go to work full time, etc. By contrast DH caught a cold last week, I started off trying my best as he did look poorly but it’s been more than 7 days now of me giving him lie ins every day and he’s still got the dressing gown of doom on and my patience is really wearing thin! He refuses to see a doctor or take a day off work of course.

It always leads to arguments that I’m not being sympathetic enough or that he’s not allowed to be ill but really I find it so difficult to find any empathy when I also have a cold, woke up with the DCs at 5am and he shuffles downstairs at 8.

AIBU?

YANBU. If he's well enough to go to work he's hardly at deaths door and should be helping you more with the kids.

Nice that he can choose whether he's well enough to parent versus if he's well enough to work. What a guy.

I'd say it's glaringly obvious to see why you're struggling to sympathise
Why the double standard?

I did make a comment on Sunday that I also had been poorly but didn’t get to lay on the sofa all day, but it didn’t go down well at all.

Yes it’s very lucky for him that he can decide to push through at work and then abandon parenting responsibilities.

Mine drives me nuts when he is ill.. the first couple times in our relationship he went on so much I thought he must be dying .. it’s pathetic.
It’s because they don’t have periods … if they did they would learn that they have to carry on.

This has made me chuckle because I've had the very same argument with my DH today. We both have an unusually debilitating cold so (since I also feel awful) I'm not doubting in the slightest that he's ill, but the way he hams it up veers between comical and infuriating. He won't talk about anything other than his symptoms and how dreadful they are, and goes around the house groaning and having a coughing spasm whenever I'm near.

I wonder if there's a biological reason men cope less well with being ill? Maybe in their caveman days they could no longer chase gazelles so risked dying of starvation? Whereas women are used to dealing with low-level pain for much or their lives (or indeed high-level pain when you look at childbirth) and they learn that playing the gallery for sympathy is ultimately pointless! Just my theory but you have my sympathy....

Oh my Christ I could have written this myself. It does my head in.

@Vick99 i don’t know the cause of it but it does my head in. I’ve just had to come upstairs because DH is next to me on the sofa deliberately breathing heavily through his mouth to prove just how blocked up his nose is. Will he take a lemsip? Of course not!

I have one of these too. Totally over the top drama for a common cold. Luckily the kids (teens) think he’s ludicrous too so we all just laugh about how ridiculous he’s being.

YANBU except for "He refuses to see a doctor". Why would he do that for having a cold?

Exactly, why would you do that for a cold?! Because according to my DH, this can’t be described as ‘just’ a cold. It has to be a mega illness that just so happens to mimic a cold in its symptoms.

I don’t think he needs to see a doctor for a cold at all but when he’s complaining about having a fever for over a week, or feeling more ill than ever before, I think if he’s that bad he must need one. Of course he doesn’t because he’s not actually that ill.

Bloody hell what a bucket load of resentment there is on this thread for men you are supposed to love.

If my husband had this level of contempt for me I would be quite upset.

Luckily I don't have a man to give no sympathy to but my dc do complain that I'm not very sympathetic...I have zero sympathy for anyone who is unwell and doesn't do everything they can to feel better, ie medication, hot bath, cold shower, early night.

Men are definitely less resilient than women, and I'm sure I read somewhere that they actually do feel more pain than women, obviously do not repeat that in a man's earshot!

Do you don the dressing gown of doom and expect to be pandered to when you're ill while everyone else has to get on with it?

OP next time he gets a sniffle, tell him to do the poorly cough with the sticky out tongue. It seemed to cure my husband when he tried the shuffly slippers and clinging to door frame thing.

If I was you I’d spend a couple of days in bed and tell him he has to step up

What do men like this actually say in response to a factual statement about you being ill yourself but not having any choice (because he wasn’t nursing you or creating space for you to have a lie-in or a nap)? When you point out their selfishness and hypocrisy, what do they say? I’d be so shamefaced if my OH had to say this to me!

in my experience it usually involved a lecture about how ungrateful i was, how hard he worked, how i clearly didn't care and had zero consideration for how ill he was, how bad he felt, and how much he sacrificed for the family.

Reason No #367 why he's now my ex husband,

I knew an older couple and the wife said she allowed her husband one day to feel sorry for himself and then he had to get on with things. Another man l knew had a doctor for his wife. If he had a cold she would say: “pull yourself together, man!”

ln your circumstances, the next time he has a cold, he is allowed to wear the Dressing Gown of Doom for one day only before pulling himself together and getting on with things.

This isn’t really relevant-and OF COURSE I don’t mean people with chronic illnesses and disabilities and other health issues. And obviously being pregnant is a different ball game-but people do seem to be ill a lot. When people say they are ill-what do they mean? Is having a cold being ill? I think I’d have to have proper flu to call myself actually ill. And the same goes for DP…

You sound pissed off but also like youre making light of it. This is a man who is happy to let his pregnant wife pick up the slack for minor illnesses, and who accuses her of being unsympathetic when she asks for some help.

Tell him on Friday you're so ill that you're going to your parents / a friend / stay in bed all weekend. That he has driven you to it by refusing to help once in all the past few weeks you've been not well. And that's why you keep catching stuff because you're so run down. And then relax

I don't blame you! Bloody annoying! Of course you feel like that!!

You have to be a man to have read the original post and reply this. Of course it’s purely natural to feel resentment when you’re pregnant, dealing with DC, working and feeling ill and your other half is doing naff all to help despite probably having the same illness. You’d be insane to be okay with this. You can love someone and also be annoyed by their behaviour at times.

Sympathies OP, my DH is the same.

And don’t get me started with the noises he makes.. groaning, coughing fits, then yelling because the coughing hurts his back…
It drives me mad.

I am unsympathetic when DH is ill. He becomes a lump incapable of doing anything, even basic communication. While I carry on regardless of how unwell I am. I do comment on this but he's one of those men who just ignore it & carry on rather than address it.

What really peeves me is he won't stay in bed. He comes out, lies on the couch and breathes heavily with his mouth open, like a death rattle, all day. Then snores. I've got to listen to it, keep noise down & can't even sit down for a bit to watch tv or read a book because he is so loud, or wakes up and needs something.