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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Think my dp has munchausen can’t take it anymore!

284 replies

Ginger89 · 17/08/2020 03:40

At first I thought he was a hyperchondriac but he doesn’t have anxiety or worry over illness he just complains atleast 5 times a day minimum of some ailment. Been together nearly 4 years and it’s got to the point that the thought of spending the rest of my life with him depresses me. I don’t know what to do anymore has anyone ever expierienced this? I know there is worse problems in the world right now but it’s so unbearable sometimes I stay out all day or try and stay over at friends houses because I can’t be arsed coming home to listen to how sick he feels or watch him lie there with a hot water bottle but then if his friends ring him he will spring right up to the pub! Not that bloody sick. It’s not just me either his friends know him to complain constantly of a headache, stomach pains just fucking anything really.

OP posts:
WhereYouLeftIt · 19/08/2020 15:04

"Can I ask how you would all feel if you abused someone like this then discovered you had encouraged someone with a serious health condition to ignore their symptoms?"

OP posted " It was me however who encouraged him to arrange the blood test 2 years ago that he never bothered going to. "
This is hardly 'encouraging him to ignore his symptoms'.

YNK · 19/08/2020 15:07

I'm addressing that to everyone here who has followed the OP's lead. Calling him names is abusive ie sick note
Serious question btw.
It happened to me and I have a brain injury as a result.

SeaEagleFeather · 19/08/2020 15:34

I'm sorry that happened to you YNK but did you engage in getting treatment?

Also, and I mean this gently, for every person who is real with this sort of complaining, there are a LOT more who are doing it for reassurance, negative-habit, wanting someone to look after him. The OP is starting to dread living with him and ends up going out so that she can avoid him. That's no way to live.

All she can do is make the best judgement call at the time, and "get treatment or I can't live with this any more" seems entirely reasonable.

SoulofanAggron · 19/08/2020 15:49

Serious question btw. It happened to me and I have a brain injury as a result.

@YNK As a result of what? Someone saying you were malingering? That doesn't cause a brain injury. If you're implying it has....well, it sounds like you're saying you have a medical condition you don't have...

Unless you have a brain injury but you think it's down to someone saying words to you when it fact it's due to some other cause, which can actually cause it.

SoulofanAggron · 19/08/2020 15:51

Thinking about it, my step mum is like this. She does it to make everything revolve around her. My uncle did say 'one day she'll cry wolf once too often.'

SoulofanAggron · 19/08/2020 15:53

Can I ask how you would all feel if you abused someone like this then discovered you had encouraged someone with a serious health condition to ignore their symptoms?

Ah ok I get what you mean now. As PP's said, this is the opposite of what OP has done- she's done all she can to try and get her partner to seek help.

YNK · 19/08/2020 16:16

@SoulofanAggron

Serious question btw. It happened to me and I have a brain injury as a result.

@YNK As a result of what? Someone saying you were malingering? That doesn't cause a brain injury. If you're implying it has....well, it sounds like you're saying you have a medical condition you don't have...

Unless you have a brain injury but you think it's down to someone saying words to you when it fact it's due to some other cause, which can actually cause it.

My doctors initially referred me to neuro's to look for 'MS or some other autoimmune condition' and the only person I confided in was my DH. Suddenly my doctors were all asking me why I thought i had MS. of course i suspected my Dh had interfered in my medical care but when i got my records at the time, the correspondance (very insulting) and diary entries were withheld from me - I later got it all via solicitors and I was absolutely correct and my gp records show they were talking to my DH alone. They claimed I 'read medical books and had consulted the MS society' when in reality I couldn't read due to the symptoms I listed for them, and my reasons for involving them was to help my DH since he had become extremely abusive toward me and I was concerned about his MH (we split up subsequently due to dv). I have had an appology from the GP via a fomal complaint. My TBI lesions are fairly typical in shape and location for my medical condition although it was many years later before the MRI was done. I have absolute proof of everything I have told you so it's rather nasty of you to suggest otherwise.
YNK · 19/08/2020 16:33

I tried to get answers for 2y from many doctors without success and now I see they were referring me to neuros but forwarding the original correspondance every time for 30y. I gave up because it was soul destroying but over the years I did go back periodically as my symptoms were very alarming - this is recorded as 'often appears with symptoms of a neurological flavour' and they didn't do the simple blood test that would have revealed my condition for 30y. It was only after my solicitors requested my records for an accident (I had many serious falls) that they contacted me unexpectedly to have the diagnostic test.
It took 5y of treatment for me to regain my mobility and a nurse insisted that I was referred for the MRI and further investigations because my symptoms are unfortunately obvious.

YNK · 19/08/2020 16:35

Oh, and my ex is still telling people I'm the fantasist so I carry my headway ID at all times.
You need proof of TBI before you can get one of those.

YNK · 19/08/2020 16:41

It was very traumatic to see these records, since I had continued to have faith that someone would eventually recognise my symptoms and help me. As my condition deteriorated one gp recorded that I was a strange uncommunicative 'creature' (bastards!)
The reality was that my doctors had colluded in domestic abuse and concealed it from me.
I'm very confronational with them now but of course, they attribute that to my TBI.

YNK · 19/08/2020 16:44

@SoulofanAggron

Can I ask how you would all feel if you abused someone like this then discovered you had encouraged someone with a serious health condition to ignore their symptoms?

Ah ok I get what you mean now. As PP's said, this is the opposite of what OP has done- she's done all she can to try and get her partner to seek help.

No she hasn't, she 'put up' with him for a year under sufferance and told him to go to the doctor. It's very clear from her description of him that she is drumming up support for her assertion that he's malingering. It would be far more beneficial for him to know how disrespectful she is and for them to part company.
Roussette · 19/08/2020 16:48

I don't understand.

He will not go to the Doctor. What is she supposed to do?

YNK · 19/08/2020 17:13

Err, I'm very assertive which is why I continued to see doctors periodically but i can tell you it wasn't easy to be faced with a dismissive attitude when my symptoms were so debilitating. I had no choice but to insist my DH accompany me on occassion for support, but instead of speaking up he went totally mute during appointments.
I suggested earlier that she help her DP to make a journal of symptoms in the hope some pattern emerges - even a psychosomatic illness requires criteria for diagnosis (I used to be a nurse with a degree in psychology).
It was very helpful that I did this and my symptom list is in my records showing a classic picture of the condition I was unexpectedly diagnosed with 30y later. I'm fairly sure this is why I was eventually called in for tests.
Even just asking him how he would like to be supported would be a good start.

toothfairy73 · 19/08/2020 19:18

@YNK I spent 10 years being told I was a hypercondriac. Test after test all came back clear. My best friend cut me out of her life. It turned out I had complex ptsd which has had an impact on me physically. I know OP you have said there is no trauma that you know of. I just know how hard it was not to be believed. OP have you talked to him about how you feel? Honestly? Told him how difficult you find it? Told him you need him to be proactive and go to the drs ?

Bunnybaubles · 19/08/2020 20:12

My dp is exactly like this!!

SeaEagleFeather · 19/08/2020 22:41

YNK your experience is horrendous and was clearly partially due to 1) ignorance at the time 2) your not-so-DH

But the OP's situation has only a superficial resemblence to yours.

YNK · 20/08/2020 01:39

@SeaEagleFeather

YNK your experience is horrendous and was clearly partially due to 1) ignorance at the time 2) your not-so-DH

But the OP's situation has only a superficial resemblence to yours.

The striking similarity of multisystemic symptoms being treated contemptuously is played out many times a day in the very large support groups I belong to. Although my brain injury is an extreme conclusion almost all new members describe a very similar pattern of families and doctors dismissing their suffering often leading to family breakdown and isolation. You can see from the comments here how the suggestion of health anxiety or malingering generates anger, aggression and contempt or outright ridicule toward someone who is genuinely suffering. Even if a diagnosis of psychosomatic illness is appropriate (and very often it is not) the patient is still genuinely ill and being demonised and stigmatised for that is backward thinking and counterproductive. I was treated as if I was a bad person and a liar when I was the only honest person involved - sadly I am not unusual in that respect. I know this happens far more often than it should and the cruelty and inhumanity that people are subjected to is horrific just because they reach out for help from those who are meant to care. I can see far more than a superficial resemblance and I'm sorry if I haven't been able to help others to see it too.
Maggie90 · 20/08/2020 02:02

It doesn’t sound like there is nothing wrong with him, it sounds as though he may be suffering with health anxiety.

Sufferers tend to be hyper aware of normal bodily sensations and then fixate on them.

This actually causes real discomfort for them.

Original poster
Ginger89 · 20/08/2020 06:55

@YNK
Just because your partner didn’t believe you this is not the same. You went to several doctors. You sought out the help my dp simply will not go the the gp, it’s not a case of me just not believing him, if he actually went to the gp I’d be every bit of support a partner is supposed to be, I certainly wouldn’t do what your partner did & have words with doctors without your consent I wasn’t aware gp’s were even allowed to do such things. As for me being disrespectful get a grip hardly disrespectful trying to understand why he will not seek help for such illnesses. People throw the word abusive about far too often aswell calling him a sick note hardly constitutes as abuse. I am financially independant the house is mine. My response about being fond was simply that a response of someone else using that word. I love him dearly otherwise I wouldn’t be on a forum asking for advice on how to deal with this. I certainly wouldn’t of stayed with him for this long if I didn’t or wasn’t in love with him. He just simple will not go to the gp, I don’t always dismiss his symptoms neither I encourage him that he needs to see someone & he just won’t that is not the same as your story. Not one iota

OP posts:
Original poster
Ginger89 · 20/08/2020 07:01

And when you say I havn’t done all I can do...I’m his partner not his parent I can only suggest going the doctors or encouraging tests to be carried out of which he has done neither what else is it I’m supposed to do for a fully grown man?

OP posts:
Porridgeoat · 20/08/2020 07:15

I recon this has been going on much longer then 4 years. I wonder if it’s a childhood learnt behaviour?

Porridgeoat · 20/08/2020 07:21

He probably needs to see a GP either way. For depression and counselling or to have blood tests to check everything is Ok.

Sit him down and tell him you love him but you can’t carry on as this is making you so unhappy. He needs an ultimatum. He needs to go to the GP for blood test and get counselling and talk to his GP about his feelings if there is nothing found.

Fightthebear · 20/08/2020 07:27

He may be malingering, he may not.

You still don’t have to stay with him if you’re miserable.

Porridgeoat · 20/08/2020 07:28

Give him a date. He must move out on the 16th of September if he hasn’t seen the GP about his health and started counselling. Draw a line in the sand. Tell him you want him to stay but there is no way you can continue as you are.

Roussette · 20/08/2020 07:44

I wonder if it’s a childhood learnt behaviour?

We've covered this! His DM mollycoddles him so yes definitely.

I honestly don't think it helps to compare cases. It's different YNK because your DH treated you differently, and you went to a Doctor more than once.
This man refuses to go. The OP has been kind, she has gently suggested, she has cajoled him, she has been firm. But he refuses to go. And at the same time of a bout of 'illness' miraculously recovers enough to go to the pub.

My DH is really not like this but with the paper cut/plaster scenario Except he does make a bit of a fuss when he gets a twinge or an ache. I sympathise for a day or two but then say... you have been saying this for days, you need to go to the Dr. He either doesn't say another word, or he makes an appointment.
I don't know what I'd do if he just carried on moaning about something.

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