YOUR partner has a minor illness and you’re suffering the ill-effects of having to look after the sneezy f**ker. This is how you’ll survive it:
Minimise the illness
Show your red-eyed boyfriend your empathy for his suffering by adopting a positive mindset to the point of gaslighting. Phrases like ‘You seem fine to me,’ and ‘Yeah, you’ll be able to work no problem’ really highlight how little sympathy you have for his medical theatrics and encourage him to shut up about it.
Administer pharmaceuticals
When she wheezingly requests it – and she will, half the reason she’s faking illness is to get you running around after her – get paracetamol, cough sweets, cough syrup, dump them on the bed and confirm that as far as you’re concerned, you’ve cured it. Even a GP couldn’t do more. Take those, get better, done.
Provide a bespoke medical facility
Recognising that, as caregiver, it would cripple the household if you came down with your husband’s illness is a handy way of shuttling him off to the spare room. Turn it into a makeshift quarantine facility and provide the PPE basics of pills, porn and energy drinks. Then refuse to enter for his own good.
Share the burden
Having a snot-filled sausage of melancholy as a partner isn’t something to be endured alone. Invite friends and family round to absorb the radiant misery from the safe distance of downstairs, where your partner is strictly forbidden to go. Enjoy the drinks and fun that they’d surely want you to if they weren’t overflowing with phlegm.
Challenge preconceptions
Invite your girlfriend to look at her cold not as an excuse to do f**k all but as a challenge to overcome. Explain that she can sit and whinge or, like a Paralympian, refuse to be held back by a mere rhinovirus and become an inspiration to others. Suggest she start now by going doing the big shop while you watch telly.
Do one
If you’re at the end of your tether, take time for self-care. Whether this means going to the cinema, going to the pub or simply hooking up with a side-piece, you’re justified in putting yourself first as you’ve been smart enough not to get a cold. Text regularly asking ‘u well yet?’ and you can’t be accused of being uncaring.
