Living with a partner with Health anxiety...HELP

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Hi all. I have been with my husband for 10 years now and throughout the whole relationship he has had health anxiety, sometimes things are good but the majority things are so hard. The constant self diagnosis and always thinking every little ache or pain is terminal is really taking its toll. I am becoming resentful that nothing is ever about me and always about him. We have a child and I take her out of the situation/give him a break when he is bad but I rarely get anything in return. When there are times to be celebrated there is always a dampener put on it because of how ill he thinks he is. I love my husband more than anything but I am struggling with this now and its resulting in constant arguments because he doesn't see my point of view because everything has to be about him. Does anyone live with a partner that suffers with health anxiety and can give me hints and tips on how to cope with it, pleaseeeeee

You can book an appointment to talk to the GP without him.

Obviously, the GP can't disclose any medical details, but what you say will be noted.

This sounds so calculated and controlled, that it sounds like he's 'adapted' his HA into an abusive control system.

It's a way of life for him and requires more than 6-12 sessions of CBT to get over it.

If I were you, my patience would have run out years ago.

He's telling you plainly that your feelings and the future feelings of your kids, don't matter to him.
You know you can't live with this. I think this is dawning on you.

I have heath anxiety and cannot tell you how debilitating it is. The grief of believing you won’t make your 30th birthday and will never have the chance to marry or have kids.
I suspect mine in part stems from years of being ignored regarding stomach symptoms that eventually transpired to be Crohn’s disease after emergency surgery to treat a perforated bowel. For years I had been told I have IBS.
I find for me my health anxiety is inactive if nothing is going on, but when there are symptoms I catastrophise. For example 2 years ago I was bleeding after sex and bleeding between periods and I know I have HPV so my mind instantly went to cervical cancer. I was so devastated I couldn’t function. Yet my smear test came back normal and a few months of contraception righted it. I would never have believed that at the time.
I’m currently suffering from a tingling leg and fully believe I have MS. But that’s because I got optic neuritis 12 years ago, which can be a precursor. It never ends. It can make you feel suicidal.
Sertraline helped me before years ago and I am thinking of going back on it.

I have spoken to his doctor alone before, as you know he couldn't talk to me about my husband just listen to me..he signed me off instantly as could see how stressful it was for me, that was a year ago. I will book another with him but I am going to go to this appt with him so he can really see how bad it is as I feel like they currently feed his ha as they are relatively new doctors.
It is dawning on me that me and my dd can not soend our lives living liking this for too much longer 😥

My DH is a terrible hypochondriac. He sees our GP at least once a month with a new ailment and we can't watch any medical programmes at home as he's then convinced he's got something else . Last year it all came to a head when he got these stomach pains and was convinced he had stomach cancer. GP referred him and he had so many tests/hospital appointments it was ridiculous. Turns out he's got a hiatus hernia . He doesn't take his medication properly, so he's constantly moaning on about it and I just blew up. We now have a strict policy where he can talk to the GP but he's not allowed to talk about it to me or our adult DD's. He gets absolutely zero attention from it (whether it's good or bad attention) and it's really made a world of difference.

I think you really need to think if you want to live the rest of your life like this. It sounds far more like control tbh given it doesn't affect his work life............

Thanks span all sounds very similar. So basically I need to treat him like a toddler. I would defo describe him as a hypochondriac

Hi OP, how’s it going? I read your posts because I am totally in the same boat with my partner.

I have the exact same problem. It is very draining mentally. There are ways to cope with a person who has health anxiety. The corona virus is not helping it’s making things so much worse. Constantly someone being ill and never feels ok does make you feel like you are not important that’s because the only person they care about is themselves, unfortunately. I am still in the relationship with this person on some many occasions I have considered leaving. All of sudden one day it will just click and you will leave that’s what I can see happening

Health Anxiety is a wonderful tool for controlling their partner. It can be just as abusive as many another form of control. He is ruling your life with this issue. It is just as bad an any other form of abuse.