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I have a partner who I have to keep a close eye on if I want to minimize his chances of an early expiration. What I’m saying is that some of this man’s habits could put him in a grave sooner than planned. Not that there is, um, a plan around that, but you know what I mean. If he manages to get some of the regular health screenings men should get, it’s only because I checked his calendar, made the appointment, and dragged him into the doctor’s office.
I understand that a part of spending your life with someone is taking care of him, looking out for him, and making him a better person. But sometimes, I feel my task of just keeping this man alive goes beyond my call of duty. You wouldn’t believe some of the frightening symptoms he’d just planned on ignoring if I hadn’t forced him to go to urgent care. And you would be shocked to learn what habits I had to force him to quit, because he really didn’t know they were even bad for him. Can anyone out there relate to this? I’ve developed a newfound respect for my grandfather’s in-home nurse who has to convince the stubborn gentleman to take his medication and avoid certain foods. Keeping these willful fellows on track is no easy task.
I do get frustrated sometimes because watching out for my partner’s health (when he won’t watch out for his own) does affect our dynamic. It affects date night, social occasions, our sex life…at any given point, it can affect just about anything. It turns out the “sexy nurse” fantasy is only sexy when said nurse just wears the tiny outfit but doesn’t actually require you to get a checkup or eat better. Here are reasons that forcing your partner to live healthier sucks.
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His friends think I’m a nag
The time I need to keep my partner in check the most is when he’s with his friends. All health concerns go out the window then. Between the food and the alcohol and the staying up all night and the, eh, other recreational activities they may get into, I’m in a constant battle to keep him from winding up in the hospital. And of course that makes me look like the nagging partner who ruins all the fun.
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When he drinks, I lose all control
If I leave town for the night and leave him to his own devices, I come home and find him in terrible shape. He’s had all the beer in the world, and then ordered all the food that gives him the worst stomach issues. Once the beer starts flowing, there’s just no stopping him from making terrible food choices. It’s almost like he wants to have diarrhea for four days.
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He hides symptoms
Because he hates going to the doctor so much, my partner will sometimes hide symptoms from me. He had a terrible cough—something from the 1800s, before we had vaccinations kind of cough—and he would get out of bed, walk outside and down the stairs to cough so I wouldn’t hear him. And his plan was…what? He just hoped it would “work itself out.” That’s what he said.
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And hides vices
He hides his vices, too. He loves, for example, some tobacco dip after he’s had some beers with his friends. And I’ll just find these little tins stashed under bathroom sinks behind the cleaning products or in his sock drawer. He has a gluten and dairy allergy, and I’ll find pizza delivery boxes from his favorite place in the neighbor’s recycling bin. And I know that neighbor doesn’t order that pizza.
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Which makes me feel betrayed
When he hides these things, I feel betrayed. I understand that it’s not like he’s cheated on me or had some other grand transgression. I do, however, feel, that he is, in a way, breaking a promise. It’s the unspoken promise that we’ll take as good of care of ourselves as possible so we don’t die early and leave the other one alone.
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And makes me feel…like his mom
I also feel more like his mom than his partner when I find that he’s hiding his bad habits from me. It makes me feel that his mentality is, “Okay, my girlfriend is gone, now I get to enjoy myself” and “Okay, my girlfriend is home, fun time is over.” So basically I get villainized just for trying to keep this man in good health.
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What if I neglected myself?
Sometimes I think, hey, what if I behaved the way he did? What if I neglected my health? What if I did things that directly and negatively impacted my longevity, right in front of him? That would probably cause him a lot of stress. It sometimes occurs to me to try that experiment, just to give him a taste of his own medicine, but I don’t want to neglect my health.
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He takes my responsibility for granted
I realize that I’ve enabled this dynamic. My partner probably, deep down, knows he can neglect his health because I’ll pick up the slack. By being so nurturing, I almost enable him to be so lax. And he certainly knows he never has to worry about my health because I take care of that, too. Really, he takes my responsibility for granted.
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Special occasions are ruined
Often, special occasions like trips or holiday parties can be ruined because my partner neglected his health. He didn’t pack his inhaler, and the air quality is poor on the trip, so we have to turn around, even though I told him to pack his inhaler. He eats the thing he’s not supposed to, even though I told him not to, and is in the bathroom the rest of the night.
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But if I’m annoyed, then I’m the monster
Of course, in the eyes of everyone around us, if I’m showing frustration while my partner is clearly in physical pain, I’m the jerk. So I put what I’m doing aside to take care of him. But nobody there really understands that this happens a lot and I begged him not to do the thing that we both knew would have consequences.
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I’m constantly worried
I’m worried, a lot. It’s not fun to be worried a lot. In a small way, I’m always thinking about my partner’s health. If he travels, I want to check up on him and his habits regularly. I have a lot of other things to worry about in life, and don’t need another one. He says, “So then don’t worry about me!” Oh yeah, sure, like that’s going to happen.
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