(Image: Private Media)

In Everyday Dilemmas, Dr Leslie Cannold uses her ethical training to help solve your problems. Send your questions to letters@crikey.com.au with “Dear Leslie” in the subject line. She might even reply…

Dear Leslie,

I feel like my husband doesn’t want to know everything about me. Is that saying something bad about him, or me?

Worried wife, Melbourne

Hi Worried,

While I’m not quite sure what your husband doesn’t want to know about you, my 50+ years of experience with men lets me hazard a guess. Not interested in your previous relationship and sexual experiences? Emotional wounds or scars, especially in the recent past? Digestive details and women’s “issues”, including menstruation and childbirth? Or is he just not interested, curious or engaged when it comes to you, in general?

Let’s explore these in turn.

Previous relationships/sexual experiences/emotional wounds and scars?

This is more likely to be about him than you. About his protectiveness of you, and the sense of helplessness historic wounds make him feel as he can’t — by definition — step in to rescue or vindicate you. Remember, men are socialised to feel that their worth as men revolves around action, which makes feeling helpless very uncomfortable. When my man gets that itchy look, I find it helpful to remind him that I’m not expecting him to fix it. I just want him to listen.

Digestive details and women’s “issues”?

While far from universal, a thingy-ness about such details is more common than both sexes care to admit. Certainly, in my childbearing years, it was all the rage for men to be “welcomed” (read: expected) in the birthing room. Fair and reasonable? You betcha. I mean, we don’t get a choice about being there! But good for the delicate alchemy of sexual attraction? Plenty of men I know will say no, though given the un-PC nature of such an admission, they’d deny it to their wives. These same men tend to be squeamish about vomit, diarrhoea and soaked menstrual or incontinence pads, not necessarily in that order, especially in the early stages of the relationships, where the bond is new and still somewhat reliant on attraction for its operation.

Does this mean the physical facts of your existence are repellent or shameful and must remain hidden for the rest of your life? Absolutely not. The body just is — nothing shameful there — and in my experience its messy realities can be less hidden as time goes on and the bond between a couple deepens.

Just not into you?

Only you can know if your husband’s lack of interest in parts of you reflects an overall indifference. Whether, in other words, he’s just not into you. If that’s the case, you need to chalk it up to experience and get out NOW. Why? Because nothing is more undermining of self-esteem than to hang around someone like that, attempting to please but always failing.

I really hope this helps,

Leslie

Dear Leslie,

I’m a doctor in a Sydney hospital. It’s a war zone and I’m finding it very hard not to get angry at the unvaccinated patients who come in here sick and unapologetic when they could have done something to prevent this, making my life and that of my colleagues and kids easier and safer. Last week, I stopped asking patients if they are vaccinated. My colleagues get it but worry the patient’s clinical care could suffer. I can tell they think I should get my head straight, but I can’t. What is your view, please?

Fuming, NSW

Hi Fuming,

Hats off to you, my friend, and thanks for remaining on the front lines to care for the indifferent masses when you’d be well within your rights to take your bat and ball and go home. What you’re dealing with would also be doing my head in and I don’t have to tell you that there are no easy answers — just less bad ones.

You’ve gone for Door No. 1, which benefits your mental health and the care of your unvaccinated patients by removing your anger and judgment from the therapeutic relationship. But it’s not without downsides, as some Australian management guidelines for those with COVID differ if a patient is vaccinated or unvaccinated.  

Door No. 2, as you’ve explained, is an imaginary one idealised by your colleagues and that they may even be achieving but that you can’t, because of how you are wired. Like me, and all humans, though to greater and lesser extents: to think justice and fairness matters.

Not a lot of choice, really, bar you walking through Door No. 3, which gets you out of the cognitive dissonance zone by taking you off the front lines entirely, to the detriment of everyone involved, both patients and staff.

When this is finally over, healthcare workers and society have a lot of debriefing to do about how we allocated healthcare during this emergency, how that affected those doing the allocating, and how we can do a better and fairer job next time. I hope you’ll be there and your colleagues, too, as this shit ain’t easy.

For now, please accept my thanks for doing — in the very imperfect situation in which you find yourself — the best you can.

Leslie

Send your dilemmas to letters@crikey.com.au with “Dear Leslie” in the subject line and you could get a reply from Dr Cannold in this column. We reserve the right to edit letters for length and clarity.