How can I get through to him

LegacyUser

I live with my partner and our 5 month old child. While our relationship is a happy one, I have found the transition to motherhood quite overwhelming. He has supported me as best he can and I appreciate that. I was quite ill throughout my pregnancy and the year previous to falling pregnant and he was a great support to me. I will return to work this year, something I wish I really didnt have to do, and in the meantime am making sure the household is looked after to the best of my ability

Lately however, I am finding the load on my shoulders heavy. I feel lately that I am expected to 'carry' my partner too

My partner recently started to show some symptoms of a disease that his mother lives with. Understandably he was frightened. But he is now refusing to go to the doctor. He has stuck his head in the sand and will not talk about it other than to make jokes. I have asked, pleased, ignored, cajoled - nothing works. I get the same dismissive 'humour' back and I am at the end of my patience.

How can I get through to him that he needs to behave like an adult and sort himself out, go to the doctor and deal with what is happening. I know I can't make him go but I am so afraid that by this time next year I will have a sick partner and a toddler to look after and it scares me. Why can he not see how selfish he is being? When I was sick, however scary it was, I took responsibility and went to the doctor, had tests done, looked after myself and was proactive. It frustrates me that he has just decided he will not face thiIS. I dont want to nag him, I really don't - I have so much more I could do with my time and energy but its like he knows how important it is to our little family and couldnt care less

Thanks in advance

Magicmatilda

Maybe you could write your feelings in a letter. Explain your fears and hurt. Understand that most likely he is terrified too. Give him the letter to read and go out for a few hours while he reads it and assimilates it. When you come back you ask him if he would be willing to sit down and talk about this.

username123

Hi,
I am sorry to hear you are going through a hard time.

What stood out to me in your post, and what I want to try to help you address, is your partner being in denial about a possible illness.

Denial is really hard to deal with. I am well familiar with it as my father was an alcoholic and was in complete denial about it. It turns a reasonable person into someone really frustrating and hurtful.

You need to accept that you are not responsible for your partner seeing a doctor. It is his decision to make and you have to accept that. Its very very hard to stand back over a big thing like this with someone you care about, but unfortunately you cannot control another adult. If this is too difficult for you to do, or too much pain is being caused to you by watching this person lose their health (I dont know the nature of the illness, but assuming he needs looking after of some kind?), then you really need to consider detaching with love from your partner. By that I mean, tell his that whenever he decides to address the illness and goes to the doctor that you will support him and help him, but that as long as he refuses to do this, it is unacceptable to you and you cannot be in a relationship under such conditions.

In a nutshell your only choices are to accept it and get on with your own life, or walk away. Thats what it comes down to. Otherwise its your own mental health and your own stress levels that are suffering. If you are able to accept it and carry on - then thats great - but I know how hard that is, and if someones gets more and more unreasonable it may not be possible to continue that way.

Before you do anything you should tell your partner very seriously that his refusal to face up to this is causing you massive stress and you need him to deal with that. If he ignores a serious conversation like this then you have a decision to make.