Fran wrote What I should do is print it off and give it to H. I'm not sure if I will. If I mention anything like this to him he tends to get annoyed with me as if I am pointing things like this out to him to deliberately hurt him
Well no, I will, heart disease is a serious business we have young kids, he can't just go on forever with his head in the sand. He almost certainly has some underlying heart disease I can't imagine he would not.
This is a toughie. My late husband had diabetes for over 30 years. When I met him, his kidneys were already failing. He went on dialysis a year after we married and had a kidney transplant nine months later. It wasn't until after the transplant that he fully took responsibility for his own health. I spent the first year of our marriage nagging him... and back then I didn't know enough about diabetes to even know WHAT to say when I was nagging. I just had the sense that he should be doing SOMETHING different.
I think you should print out whatever packs the most punch... and just give it to him with that list of risk factors (which is pretty impressive in a bad way) and say something like, "This is too important for me to let your annoyance get in the way."
Then one strategy would be not to say anything more for at least a couple of months or something. Don't start micromanaging him or anything. Don't comment on what he's smoking or drinking. The reason you can't do that is because then the fight becomes between YOU and him and not between him and the issue. YOU become the issue, and he will use that as a distraction. You have to assume that he's intelligent enough to see the risk factors and act responsibly. I would bring it up every now and then-- every couple of months or so with no nagging in the meantime.
The trouble is, even if he goes to the doctor and gets a diagnosis of heart disease, he has to make major lifestyle changes. He may blame you for making him face the truth about what he is doing to himself. IOW getting him to the doctor is just the beginning of the journey.
OTOH, I have a very close friend whose husband died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma a month before my husband. He had some strange lesions on his face for years, and he would never go to the doctor. Then he had strange flu-like symptoms and some swelling in his neck. He still put off going, and she didn't push him to go. He was eventually diagnosed in February 2000 with NHL and died four months later in June. To this day she heaps recriminations on her own head for not nagging him to go to the doctor sooner. She feels he might be alive today if she had. NHL is pretty deadly, so that may not be true... but it may.
It's hard to know what to do in a sitch like yours. I'm not sure what the climate is between you two these days.
My bf had quad bypass three years ago next month. He stopped drinking, but he still smokes. I don't say anything about it. But during the few months after the surgery when he had quit smoking, his erectile function was very good. I guess it wasn't that important to him, or he didn't see (as I clearly saw) that there was any connection... or the smoking habit was just too strong. He tends to go from one crisis to another and smoking is a way of soothing himself.
Sorry... not much help.
Fran, are you going to alanon yet? What are you waiting for?
I'm going to nag YOU until you do. (Maybe that will give you some insight into how to get your husband to the doctor. )
)