I’m not sure I can forgive

[ThisYearUnderTheMistletoe]

I’m clinically vulnerable and my condition can easily get worse from a virus.
A ‘simple’ cold can take me a few weeks to recover from.
The flu or covid means a definite step back, a worsening of my condition for months and months. I got covid 18~24 months ago and still haven’t been back to my baseline. Not sure if I ever will.

DH is healthy. A bad cold for him means a day being under the weather, taking one paracetamol 😱😱 and going for a run to get better. In 25 years, Ive never seen him spend the day in bed due to an illness/fever.

A few weeks ago, he got a ‘virus’ but ‘didn’t think’ to tell me. In his own words, it was a ‘bad cold’. Instead, he proposed an outing for the day, involving a few hours in the car.
Sure enough, I caught his ‘bad cold’. He recovered in 2 days. I’m in bed too weak to get down the stairs.

im not sure I can get past the fact he put my health in danger in that way after seeing the impact catching a virus has on me.

@ginasevern im afraid that on MN, carers are ALWAYS seen as saints that are doing so much. And disabled people as awful persons impossible to live with. So that coloured my answer to you. I’m sorry I automatically jumped the gun.

It’s obvious that being a carer is hard work.
But it’s not because someone is disabled or chronically ill that they automatically need a carer. Or that, in my case DH, is automatically embracing a carer’s role…..

I lived this life for years with a child with chronic illness. I have zero sympathy absolutely zero for ops particular version of events. I actually educated myself about this rather than looking for a person to blame for any illness. That's why, for example, I know about flu transmission.

There's a huge difference between the people who come to stay with what is actually a bad cold ie coughing, streaming nose, sneezing ... and a family member in the same household who has crossed multiple time zones after being away for work for weeks and has symptoms which barely register as any different from jetlag. A headache.

Op appears to know nothing about how major respiratory viruses spread, no insight into how life is for family members, and no forgiveness. Also no willingness to take measures of her own when a family member returns to the house after contact with several thousand people. In, yes, flu season no less (even if op is not northern hemisphere, her partner just returned from there). And that's without mentioning year round covid.

I learned a long time ago that blaming other people for bringing infection to a house is largely pointless and is just a way of trying to feel in control. It's not a good look.

There is a strong whiff of martyrdom and blaming behaviours. It's sad that op has a chronic condition that makes her vulnerable. It doesn't sound like it was a very good idea for her partner to go straight back to their shared house after this exposure, if they now have to minimise exposure to viruses to this extent. That's on them both. Op is not a child and can take measures of her own to protect her health.

Blaming exposure on a car journey when she lives with the same person anyway is ridiculous. Again, absolutely zero attention paid to how these types of viruses spread. As if sitting in a car for two hours next to the same person you spent the night before sitting next to on the sofa, touching the same door handles, breathing the same air in the bedroom, possibly ... dare we imagine ... kissing ...is going to make any difference. But some people just need to blame someone for their misfortunes. And that is why I do still think she quite simply blames him for having a virus.

How could your husband avoid passing on the virus anyway?

You could have picked it up from a door handle going into the local shop.

People are giving you a really hard time, @ThisYearUnderTheMistletoe

There's a big difference between 'not understanding respiratory viruses' and wanting your partner to be considerate enough to let you know if he thinks he's got a cold.

I think most people, with or without respiratory illness, would rather their partner say 'I think I might be coming down with something', rather than just carry on regardless with close physical contact, etc, simply to give them agency in the decision on how close to be.

I'd be upset at the lack of consideration, just as you are. How much you understand about respiratory illness, what chance there is of you having picked up your illness from a doorknob etc are neither here nor there. You'd like your husband to let you know if he thinks he might have a cold. It's not hard, although some people are having enormous trouble getting their heads around it, seemingly.

There is a strong whiff of martyrdom and blaming behaviours

@PosterBoy Have you read your own posts? They whiff.

@Onedicktoanother i think you need to read my posts again. The second one in particular :)

Thanks @Watchkeys
This is true. It’s not about whether I would have caught it anyway blablabla. That was never the question.

@ThisYearUnderTheMistletoe

It's OK OP. I just wanted you to know that I am so very, very far from ableist. I've had to fight every step of the way for my son and I work in a voluntary role to heighten awareness of the multitude of issues faced by the disabled. I do hope that Mumsnet doesn't always reflect disabled people as awful and impossible to live with. If so, I think those posters probably have very fortunate lives.

@ginasevern , it’s crap isn’t it?
Thank you for what you do. Unfortunately, often, it’s the carers and family members that have to make the noise simply because the disabled/chronically ill can’t physically do it.
And the work carers do is rarely appreciated. 😢

@ThisYearUnderTheMistletoe

Thanks Mistletoe for your kind words. Take care of yourself.

These replies are deranged.

OP, I had a bad cold last week. It was brutal, headache, fatigue, throat hurting. Not much by way of outwards signs , a bit of sneezing but not much. I went to bed at 7pm for three days, very unlike me. Anyway was supposed to meet in laws for dinner, but they are vulnerable due to ongoing ill health. So I text them and said I had a bad cold, what did they think? We talked about it, like normal people. Decided to prospone.

Your DP obviously should have realised and tried his best to stay away. It can be done. As anyone who lives through COVID knows, it can be done (I can't be the only one who remembers sleeping on the sofa when DP had COVID?). He should have told you about it. And now he should be apologetic and remorseful. The comments suggesting you should live alone are ableist and divorced from the reality of living. If someone in your family is undergoing chemo, you protect their health, you don't suggest they're too fragile to live with their family! If someone has a newborn baby, it's the same. Of course he should be doing this for you always.

Do you never go out? Plenty of people who are classed as vulnerable, work, socialise, go shopping etc. Even people who were classed as extremely vulnerable have to live their lives.
You can't, unfortunately, dodge every illness and you can't be 100% sure you even got if from your husband surely?

must be awful living with your health condition and it's vulnerabilities but in the nicest way, what's he meant to do?

this
as to be fair with your health you could catch something anywhere anyway

She could indeed catch something from elsewhere, but that doesn't mean someone she lives with shouldn't bother to mention when they have symptoms and give her the chance to decide how to manage her risk. 🙄

It's not rocket science. If you live with someone vulnerable and you're not feeling well, you just say "I'm not feeling 100%, I might have picked something up - how do you want to deal with this?"

The comments suggesting you should live alone are ableist and divorced from the reality of living.

I have to say that comment mainly made me lol 😂
So did the suggestion DH shouldn’t have gone back home straight from his flight tbh.

This is not the point, as OP has stated.

He's meant to say 'I think I might be coming down with a cold, love.'

Really not understanding why people don't get this. We could all catch a cold anywhere. It's basic politeness to mention if you might have something contagious when you're living in close quarters with someone.

I don't understand why people are so mean. The least you could expect from a partner is if he is sick and knows it is to try to minimise the risk of infection knowing you are clinically vulnerable. Maybe you would have got infected anyway but that's not really the point. Why would he suggest you spend a couple of hours in a car together when he knows he's sick is beyond me too. Yes I would expect somebody in his circumstances to wear a mask on the plane and I have done so before. I'm quite shocked at people's responses and their apparent level of care and regard for others and seemingly their own spouses. I would find it difficult to forgive him too.

@supersonicginandtonic for your information, even though it has nothing to do with the thread.

I caught covid 18 months ago despite masking everywhere etc… I caught it going to see my GP.
After that I ended up bed bound. It took me months to get to the point I’ve ‘only’ been house bound. I have started to go out again in the last couple of months. It has been a very slow recovery.

So do i ever go out? Not very much (let alone going to work etc…)
I’d love nothing more than going to work (I had to pack my business, I lost a job I loved etc…). But I simply can’t.
It’s not that I don’t live my life. It’s that I have an illness with very poor quality of life that is restricting me in many ways. So in some ways, I dint have a choice anyway.

So comments like
Even people who were classed as extremely vulnerable have to live their lives.
are insensitive at the very least.
It’s not a choice.
PAnd I sure will reduce the risks of things getting worse. Because otherwise Id be barely existing, let alone living.

People make choices. And when you have a chronic illness, your choices will look very different than the ones of a healthy person. Because you know what you can loose and what’s important for you. Each of us will put a different emphasis on different things and this should be respected. Not dismissed as ‘not living’. No one should be looked down because they are making a different choice on what it means to be ‘living your life’.

Seriously, just be happy you are well and healthy. I don’t think anyone appreciates how important this is until you are ill or how bad things can get. I didn’t until 18 months ago. And appreciate everyone does what they feel is the best for themselves.

on MN, carers are ALWAYS seen as saints that are doing so much. And disabled people as awful persons impossible to live with

Absolute and utter bollocks.

Yep.

I mean, crikey, I'm not even vulnerable and my boyfriend will mention if he's got a cold or whatever when he's planning to visit, in case I don't want to run the risk of getting it and so I'm prepared for the snoring / general grossness of it all 😂I do the same for him.

@ThisYearUnderTheMistletoe how do you know I'm fit and healthy?
In your response I have a brother who is very vulnerable to diseases, a mum having chemotherapy, a niece with profound and multiple learning difficulties but they all live their lives.
My best friend lost her husband to covid, she doesn't blame anybody.
I think you are being hugely unfair to your husband.

Who is talking about blame? Because I’m not!

And I’m very happy that your family is living their life the way they want. But I’d appreciate if you could leave me live mine, my way and Wo judgement.

your OP essentially blamed your H, in advance, should you become ill with a virus after he felt unwell and didn’t do the things to try to reduce risk of passing it on that you would like.

@Loopytiles

your OP essentially blamed your H

OP wanted him to let her know he was feeling ill. He didn't. That's not 'blaming him in advance'. OP has accepted that she may have picked up her virus from another source. Which bit is confusing you? It's really not very complicated.

'I'd like my partner to tell me if he feels like he's coming down with a cold' isn't the same as 'It's my partner's fault I have a cold'.