SO Sick or Hurt, what do you do?

[2Rocky]

So how do you deal with it when your SO is sick or hurt and away from you?

Some thoughts:

Communication is not fun when the other person just unloads upon you about how they hurt or don't feel well
As the other person you want to be empathetic, but you don't want to be pulled into their pity party.
What are some productive ways to help them deal with what you hope is a temporary situation without rewarding "downer" behavior?
What would be some warning signs that this behavior is being manipulative?



Alternately, as the hurt or sick one, it is nice to know someone cares.
How do I minimize their worry, and stress over a situation that the other person can't remedy?

Modified to add:

Do you have each other's emergency contact information? Someone who will notify you if something happens to your SO?

[differentcountries]

We used to be polite or stoic. Now, when life sucks, we just throw on a brickload of crying faces over social media and then the other person says Poor you...sounds hard... wish I was with you.

And then, like an air kiss from mummy to a kid, everything feels a million times better.

Because we can fix our lives. We just want someone to care a little bit.

Sometimes, on really shitty days, I describe in detail how I would give him a hug, or kiss, or pour him tea or massage him or whatever I would do in person. Or I tell him something I would probably not actually do, like kick people in the nuts if they hurt him lol. Or he tells me My poor sweet...wish I could take your pain away. And I tell him he already did.

[snow]

I know what helped my husband when we were LD was to see me on camera, but that's something very specific to my man. I know that even now when he feels sick, he wants me to be near him, not talk to him or reassure him he will feel better, just be close. So this was something that I would do.

If he did unload on me because he felt bad, I simply let him. People need to vent and just getting things out of your system helps. If I could relate it to a similar situation, I would tell him how I dealt with it, but mostly, just being empathetic and reassuring that their feelings are valid is what is needed - most likely they don't need a solution that you can't really provide from a distance, but knowing that you care is what counts.

When I was sick, I wanted him to be sympathetic with me and tell me I would feel better soon. I hate being sick, I always feel like I am a bother to everyone around me if I am sick, so it helped me when he told me to lay down and to let him know when I was awake again, give him an update on how I felt. He would send me to bed and just knowing that it was a valid feeling to be sick helped a lot.

Again, this is very person specific.

You need to ask your SO what they need when they are sick. Some people want to be pampered, some just need to know you are there. I can't provide a recipe that will work for everyone!

[Rezie]

I guess it depends a lot on what is hurt and what is sick. If it’s something like a flu or a twisted ankle then I have no sympathy. That’s mainly because in those type of situations I don’t need attention and I can’t take the overbearing need for empathy seriously. I’ work in a hospital so my empathy is reserved for my patients and to those who have serious problems. My boyfriend recently had back problems. I know it sucks and I know it’s a big deal to him but I try to offers solutions instead of going with the pity party. I’ve worked on getting a bit better since he requires the “poor you” treatment. But I won’t go with it too far other than “I know it sucks, hope it gets better soon”.

When I’m sick my boyfriend keeps asking how I’m doing all the time and it is very annoying. I try to accept that it’s his way of caring but I can tell him that I will let him know if anything changes. This is a situation where it’s needed to respect other persons needs.

If the hurt or not feeling well is due to a car accident or a serious illness then obviously I would be different and way more supportive. I’m lucky to never experience this situation so I don’t know how it would be in reality.

When other one is having a crappy day and crappy mood then I usually say that I’m here if you want to talk but I won’t be there getting the same mood. Because of the distance we can both suffer our crappy days individually. If the crappy day is a prolonged crappyness then I usually say how it makes me feel. This usually helps them understand their own behavior. I’m fairly selfish in general and especially in these circumstances. I’m one of those who is set to survive on my own and sometimes I forget that others might want the person around to share the pain.

As for the emergency contact. I guess if something happens to me my dad would call my boyfriend about it. and I would like to think my boyfriends dad would let me know.

[erwin1973]

Mmm...

Everyone has other needs, of course. I, for myself, want my lady to vent her problems to me. May be I cannot help her, but I can listen. And only listen can be a big help already. If you can't be there for each other in LDR in bad times, you can't be there for each other in CR in bad times, either. So that leaves the question - for me, then - what the need is of a relationship is you can't support each other in difficult times? Of course that is only my opinion.

When my lady is ill, I always show my sympathy. Aske her how she feels, if she took anything to kill the pain, and advice her to go sleep early (in stead of chatting with me long, because sleep helps, in my opinion). I myself have a bad back, it's worn out, and I am in constant pain. Usually, when I can walk up straight, I tell my lady that I am okay. Only when the pain is killing me, I tell her so. She worries a lot about my back, but since I have no money for a physiotherapist, what can I do... Not much, in my opinion. Any way, I don't tend to be needing for sympathy, but I know she worries. And she shows. Every day she asks me at least once how my back is.

Since we live to far away for a visit if anything is really going on, we can actually do nothingmore then that. My lady has no information about someone else, so if I end up in a hospital, so be it, and I can't let her know. I have the phonenumber of her father, so if something really happens, there is a communication possible. Although he doesn't speak English...

But yes, we communicate and when she is feeling sad - and not because I say something wrong - then she vents it. And me too. Better do that, in my opinion. But again, that is only my opinion.

[autumn1790]

I'm probably the naive youngster here, but to me staying distant and not rewarding "downer behavior" is what you do to a dog, not your SO. I can feel when my SO is upset, so I'm affected whether or not he vents to me. I prefer that he would let it out and possibly let me help than hold it in and stay gloomy. The only time I don't let others' moods affect me is when it is manipulative--and the way I know it is manipulative is if it's in reaction to something reasonable I did or plan to do. Otherwise, I'll listen, sympathize, and proverbially kick them in the butt eventually to move on if the mood is ridiculously prolonged. But, that's just me.

[Moon]

I'm probably the naive youngster here, but to me staying distant and not rewarding "downer behavior" is what you do to a dog, not your SO. I can feel when my SO is upset, so I'm affected whether or not he vents to me. I prefer that he would let it out and possibly let me help than hold it in and stay gloomy. The only time I don't let others' moods affect me is when it is manipulative--and the way I know it is manipulative is if it's in reaction to something reasonable I did or plan to do. Otherwise, I'll listen, sympathize, and proverbially kick them in the butt eventually to move on if the mood is ridiculously prolonged. But, that's just me.

You're not, because I feel the same and I'm definitely not a naive youngster I was somewhat offended by the wording also, it felt like he was referencing a young child from a position of dominance. I'm sure it wasn't meant to sound that way, but to me it did, so I was ignoring the post, but didn't want you to think you were the only one who felt that way.

[autumn1790]

You're not, because I feel the same and I'm definitely not a naive youngster I was somewhat offended by the wording also, it felt like he was referencing a young child from a position of dominance. I'm sure it wasn't meant to sound that way, but to me it did, so I was ignoring the post, but didn't want you to think you were the only one who felt that way.

Thanks!

[QueenReginaMills]

my SO used to think he was helping me by trying to distract me from things like problems at work. What really works better for me is to let me talk about it once, get it out of my system, and once I've said it, THEN I can be distracted by something unrelated. If you try and force a distraction on me before I've got it out of my system, it doesn't work for me because it will still be playing on my mind. But I can't get angry with him, because he really did think he was helping by distracting me and was doing it with the best of intentions. But we've talked about this, and I've said that just listening to me helps me, that that's what works rather than going straight to distraction, and we got through it. And no, autumn1790, you're not being a naive youngster, I agree with you, and I didn't really like the wording of downer behaviour. And if something is bothering him, I would rather know about it than have him bottle it up and then I find out about it later.

[Rezie]

I guess it comes down to terminology. I had a clear image of what downer behaviour means to me. In my work environment there are a lot of negative people who suck the joy out of everything. I take this as being owner behaviour. Obviosuly it's not related to sickness or health but my partner has a tendency to be overly dramatic and if there is any type of stress situation he gets very negative and when it prolongs it's very annoying and I don't want to feed that. If it's a bad day or something is seriously wrong then I'm happy to listen. I'm not sure how OP meant it but i took it this way. It's always interensting how people interprete words or tones in forums


Not related to sickness but my partnr is a fixer. Sometimes when I complainI just want him to say "that sucks" instead of offering solutions. Sometimes it's even gosspi and he just asks "why Jen didn't do it like this? You should tell her to do that" etc. now I tell him before starting a story that I don't want solutions. I just want him to say "that sucks". He is slowly learning

[kittyxuchiha11]

Not related to sickness but my partnr is a fixer. Sometimes when I complainI just want him to say "that sucks" instead of offering solutions. Sometimes it's even gosspi and he just asks "why Jen didn't do it like this? You should tell her to do that" etc. now I tell him before starting a story that I don't want solutions. I just want him to say "that sucks". He is slowly learning

This is so interesting to me because I didn't even really realise i was someone who likes to fix situations until recently. Whenever my SO gets annoyed and rants at me I try to pick apart everything and think of a solution, I do that with everyone in my life really I just want to try help. But my SO isn't like that at all and will just say something like that sucks or oh no, and it drives me insane. to me that just comes across as you're not really listening and not caring, I never thought of it as someone just giving a reaction but not wanting to give advice and stuff. Never really thought about it that way before

[autumn1790]

I absolutely hate it when I rant and my SO immediately jumps into solutions...at least validate what I said before jumping to the next step, is how I feel. Maybe because that's how I handle when people rant to me...I tell them I agree it sucks, and after they feel better and are thinking more logically, I might give--who am I kidding. I will give my two cents' worth about possible next steps. But if someone just jumps to solutions it feels like to me that they don't really care how it affects me emotionally. Hope that makes sense..