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@mommacandy You came to right place to vent as we all understand how it feels to be diagnosed with cancer, the surgery, the treatments. While I am certainly grateful for the wonderful care I received from my cancer care team I did not want to hear about anyone else's woes or their whining while I was being treated or recovering. It's very possible that your husband doesn't view his whining as complaints. Maybe he believes he's just sharing? You know better than me but when you are the rock and the fixer for everyone else sometimes they just can't get it that you are the one who needs support. I call this "pulling out the cancer card". As in "I can't do that because I'm nauseated from my chemotherapy" or "I don't have the energy to get up and do that because, you know, I have cancer".
I had a conversation with a friend today who was diagnosed with bile duct cancer (cholangiocarcinoma) the same year I was was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. He said he would have been dead had he not had the expert care he received and ultimately a liver transplant. He said he rarely talks about any of this because other than his wife who would he talk to? The listener can express their compassion and empathy but the experience of cancer diagnosis, surgeries, treatments and in his case a transplant is outside the experience of many others. So, we have to ask for what we need and sometimes we have to do that more than once. Or say "no" when we can't do something.
Maybe I'm just blathering on here but I hope that your husband will get it that you are not used to being a person who "rests and does nothing" however for now that is what you need to do.
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@mommacandy
Gynosaur weighing in to express my own annoyance with partners whose "sympathetic pregnancy, cancer, chemo, etc, symptoms" seem to overshadow the actual patient's symptoms and suffering. What a way to express support! We can (only gently) joke about this at our house when I am healthy (and therefore my partner is at peak health and sense of humor!). I once offered to ask my surgeon if he had time available in his schedule to squeeze my husband in for a radical hysterectomy before he got to me, since my husband's symptoms seemed worse than mine. (He complained of exhaustion and low back pain when I had been in labor for 20 hours, too...as if I was lounging on the couch, watching re-runs and eating bonbons!). I don't recommend irony as a rule, but found, in that case, that a "pointed remark" was all that I could manage (and did get a message across, although some repair was called for afterward).
I have read that couples develop unconscious, unspoken contracts, such as, "I help you feel good about yourself by letting you take care of me," or, "having physical pain or injury is the only acceptable reason for asking for care," or, "you reach outward for support and I get all of mine from you, so you can't be sick," or, "we don't talk about ______." It is times like these when those contracts become more apparent and MIGHT be ripe for conscious, explicit re-negotiation. It seems to me that my cancer has "provided opportunities" for me to learn how to ask (in direct ways and until I am heard) and to compassionately and generously (to myself) allow myself to receive from others. My husband (and our relationship) has grown a lot in the context of my cancer diagnosis, surgery and ongoing recovery/surveillance.
I truly hope your husband gets himself together (maybe he needs to seek emotional support for himself from others for a minute or two...) and becomes able to support you in all the ways you deserve! This is a pattern that does not help you and you deserve warm, kind, responsive help from as many around you as possible, starting with him!
Wishing you through this...