My husband won't let me do bed baths

Lisa CCU RN, RN · Sep 20, 2006

I would resent a couple of things about this if I were you!
a) If you are over 21, and this man is your husband and not your parent, then he doesn't get to "let" you do anything!
b) Providing any type of nursing care is not related to sexuality. They are completely separate issues. If you were letting some guy at a bar give you a sponge bath, he could be worried. In a professional educational program, as a required learning exercise though? Puh-lease!
Perhaps he just needs some education about what nurses actually DO if he has this image of a smiling nurse giving a hot young man a bath...!

Yeah, giving a bed bath is hardly sexy, esp. when there is pee or poop involved. :uhoh21:

Jules A, MSN · Sep 20, 2006

I'm carefully observing the wording and phraseology of your post. You state that your husband won't "let you do bed baths".
Even though you're his wife, you definitely are NOT his property. He cannot tell you what to do or order you to not do tasks that are essential to your job. I'd hate to sound harsh or overly blunt, but it seems that your husband has an insecurity issue regarding the fact that you're working with other men.

Blunt? Yup, but necessary if the statement "won't let me" isn't one of those mix-ups that often happens with the written word online. If this is truly his stance I'd be concerned that it is just the tip of the iceberg and worried that his controlling behavior will escalate. This is just my opinion but there is no way my husband or any other man is going to tell me what I am permitted to do. Sadly this kind of stuff rarely gets better and most often only gets worse so addressing it early is important.

sunbeach73 · Sep 20, 2006

Wow...not sure where all you guys went to school, when I was in school they made us do everything on manakins. We had to talk to them like they were real people which was hard for alot of us to do. The issue of your husband "letting" you? If I were you I'd do it and just not mention it to him since he can't seem to see things as an adult would.

Corvette Guy · Sep 20, 2006

OMG, men are just awful, awful, awful, and this guy should be castrated. :rolleyes:

Give me a break, LOL. This husband is probably nothing more than an insecure, young, ignorant, jealous husband. He justs needs to be told the facts... its professional & nothing more & nothing less. Advising the OP via telling her how awful her husband must be for such a drastic statement is certainly not helping matters for her. She was asking for some constructive input, LOL.

SimonJester · Sep 20, 2006

Hmmm Marriage should be a partnership, a give and take relationship neither side "you cant do that…" or "… I'm an adult you cant stop me…" is good for the marriage… As a male spouse of an RN student… I can understand the initial jealous reaction… Its emotional… Telling him he is not allowed to express jealousy would be akin to telling a female they cannot cry during a sad movie… Jealousy is an emotion just like happiness, sadness, anger and so on… As guys we feel jealousy I think more so then females… Its probably left over from our caveman days…

I agree its out of line for him to forbid or prevent you from doing it… Just try to reassure him its for school and nothing inappropriate will happen… Telling him its not sexual and so forth will not help.. He is a guy… He know what every guy knows… Were sexual beings, something like every 3 seconds a sexual thought comes into our brains... everything we do is sexual… its just how our brains are programmed…

I joke with my wife… "When do I get my bed bath…"

Don’t try to invalidate his feelings by telling him he is in the wrong for feeling jealous… That will probably start a fight. Remind him that you are going to school to further the economic success of your family… That will play into his other primordial guy programming… the need to provide for economic security...

Perhaps I'm off base here but I think if you go in with the position You cant tell me what to do.. Your just going to end up fighting, and then he may resent your career path… Try to get him to see what is going on in your schooling… Encourage him to obtain an interest in it…

RunnerRN, BSN, RN · Sep 20, 2006

I'm just not seeing why it is a vital part of nursing education to practice bed baths on classmates. Does anyone else see this as weird? Bed baths are not difficult - definitely a skill that could be taught on mannequins, or even during clinicals. When I was in school, my lab partner was a boy (one of 5 in our class) and my instructor wanted everyone to disrobe down to a sports bra to do breath/heart sounds. I guess she wanted to be damn sure we were putting the steth where it was supposed to be. Anyway, I refused - I felt (as did my fiance) that is was inappropriate to get half naked with a boy I barely knew. The only other skills we did with each other were making an occupied bed, transfers (bed to chair, etc), and blood pressures.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Sep 20, 2006

I'm just not seeing why it is a vital part of nursing education to practice bed baths on classmates. Does anyone else see this as weird?

No, i don't think it's weird. Especially since, when students are at clinical, they are under their instructor's license, and most would want to see that someone is proficient at a skill instead of just assming they are.

moongirl · Sep 20, 2006

no, I have never had this problem, I am married to an adult.

If he is that controlling and freaked about bed baths, he surely isnt going to take the idea of you holding a member in your hand to do a foley, or cleaning a man after a BM in bed. this is part of everyday. body parts. If it is going to cause him trauma that he cant get over, and you are going to allow him to tell you what you can and cannot do, all will not be well for you two and you should consider a different profession. I am a third semester student and I have already lost count of the number of naked rear ends and winkies I have seen

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Sep 21, 2006

Advising the OP via telling her how awful her husband must be for such a drastic statement is certainly not helping matters for her. She was asking for some constructive input, LOL.

First, I don't see where "everyone" is telling her how "awful" he is.

And much of what is being said is quite constructive.

People often make freudian slips with how they phrase things. Maybe the word "Let" is incorrect or maybe it is correct, but for some of us that have dealt with paranoid/controlling SOs (of either gender), innocent statements often are quite revealing.

But setting the "not allowed to give a bedbath" issue aside, if the spouse is getting freaked over a mere clothed bed bath between classmates....what kind of support is the OP going to get when things get REALLY hairy...in more ways than one:

- When she has to do the infamous groin prep for a cardiac cath (find the femoral pulse and shave the hair off for a 6 inch diameter around it - actual instructions from the P&P).

- When she has to repeatedly place condom caths.

- Suppository placements/enemas on male patients.

- foley caths.

- groin checks post cath.

- holding the urinal for your patient that has broken both arms.

- proper placement of CPM machines.

- scrotal elevation, ice to the periarea, care of patient s/p orchiectomy and checking those sutures. Or for that matter, removing those sutures.

- and my personal favorite, discussing and implementing sperm collection on a male patient about to start chemo for testicular cancer with mets. Not to mention discussing concerns about future sexual functioning. And, yes, as nurses discussing such concerns is our job as nurses.

There is nothing quite like calling a patient's brother, to ask him to bring more movies/magazines, because the ones that he has aren't "working". Or having him forget to remove the tape from the VCR and sending the machine back to the education department with a tape inside.

The OP is right to worry about how her spouse may deal with this. And she also needs him to be supportive of her during school. And that will be hard pressed to come by if the SO has an ego that needs coddling, at the mere idea of a clothed practice bedbath.

She can be and should be "supportive" and his personal "cheerleader" for a time or two....but if these issues continue, there will problems ahead. Not to mention he needs to be her "cheerleader", and there is no mention of that occurring.

The gender makes no difference - if the OP were male, and the SO were female I would say the same thing (or two males/two females) . It isn't a "males are bad" issue, it is a control/trust issue without gender.

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My suggestion would involve the SO having to do about 10-20 bedbaths on NH patients, and see how impersonal it is. But that would be really difficult to arrange.

smk1, LPN · Sep 21, 2006

:yeahthat:

LET you?
Might want to work on settling this now, though, or it'll just keep going on and get worse. He needs to get over the fact (and his insecurities with himself) that there's nothing sexual about any of the procedures.
(I wouldn't have problems with this, mainly because i wouldn't tolerate my huband acting like they're my father telling me what i can and cannot do, especially when it pertains to unavoidable aspects of my career, but that's just me.)

:yeahthat: word for word. Set him straight now.

Corvette Guy · Sep 21, 2006

First, I don't see where "everyone" is telling her how "awful" he is.
And much of what is being said is quite constructive.
People often make freudian slips with how they phrase things. Maybe the word "Let" is incorrect or maybe it is correct, but for some of us that have dealt with paranoid/controlling SOs (of either gender), innocent statements often are quite revealing.
But setting the "not allowed to give a bedbath" issue aside, if the spouse is getting freaked over a mere clothed bed bath between classmates....what kind of support is the OP going to get when things get REALLY hairy...in more ways than one:
- When she has to do the infamous groin prep for a cardiac cath (find the femoral pulse and shave the hair off for a 6 inch diameter around it - actual instructions from the P&P).
- When she has to repeatedly place condom caths.
- Suppository placements/enemas on male patients.
- foley caths.
- groin checks post cath.
- holding the urinal for your patient that has broken both arms.
- proper placement of CPM machines.
- scrotal elevation, ice to the periarea, care of patient s/p orchiectomy and checking those sutures. Or for that matter, removing those sutures.
- and my personal favorite, discussing and implementing sperm collection on a male patient about to start chemo for testicular cancer with mets. Not to mention discussing concerns about future sexual functioning. And, yes, as nurses discussing such concerns is our job as nurses.
There is nothing quite like calling a patient's brother, to ask him to bring more movies/magazines, because the ones that he has aren't "working". Or having him forget to remove the tape from the VCR and sending the machine back to the education department with a tape inside.
The OP is right to worry about how her spouse may deal with this. And she also needs him to be supportive of her during school. And that will be hard pressed to come by if the SO has an ego that needs coddling, at the mere idea of a clothed practice bedbath.
She can be and should be "supportive" and his personal "cheerleader" for a time or two....but if these issues continue, there will problems ahead. Not to mention he needs to be her "cheerleader", and there is no mention of that occurring.
The gender makes no difference - if the OP were male, and the SO were female I would say the same thing (or two males/two females) . It isn't a "males are bad" issue, it is a control/trust issue without gender.
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My suggestion would involve the SO having to do about 10-20 bedbaths on NH patients, and see how impersonal it is. But that would be really difficult to arrange.

Here is another one of my previous post that I will post again...

Re: My husband won't let me do bed baths

Okay, here is maybe the problem... from a guy's perspective. He is being inappropriately jealous & insecure. He is probably thinking about your male classmates rather than whenever you will be taking care of male patients in the future.

Now, from another nurses perspective... tell him not to be insecure about a classroom assignment, period! No need to lie, bend the truth, or whatever. The sooner he gets the facts straight in his brain housing group, then the sooner his inappropriate insecurity & jealousy will pass, too. *Hopefully*

JMHO

nurse4theplanet, RN · Sep 21, 2006

I told my husband that we are doing bed baths in lab on Friday. He looked at me strange and asked me why on earth I would want to do that. I told him that it is just something you do as a nurse. He looked at me weird and I told him we would be in shorts and a tank top. He said "Your not letting some guy practice on you!" I told him that it was a medical professional think and that it was not like the male student would be turned on or something. He said that the guy could and that no guy was giving me a sponge bath. I asked, "what if I was in an accident and in the hospital and they had to give me a bath?" and he said "I would give you a bath":madface: Has any one hand any problems with this? I better not tell him that eventually we will be learning to do cathaters...on males...

Thank God we didn't have to give EACHOTHER bed baths at the beginning of nursing school (I'm soooo modest)! My husband would have reacted the same...he is just immature and jealous sometimes! HaHa. For the most part, it is in a joking manner and I keep him in check when it gets out of hand. He was uncomfortable with the idea of me catheterizing male pts at first, and I just had to present him with reality...these clients are not Brad Pitt look-a-likes, nor is there anything remotely sexual about the act, but mostly elderly and very criticall ill clients who need a caring individual to perform skills to promote their well being. :nurse: And from that point on, I decided not to indulge him in all the details of EVERY SINGLE thing I did. I still talk ALOT about what I do in clinical and at work, but just like I leave out the big medical words...I leave out details about things that he would overreact to due to lack of exposure/experience. I love my husband, but he was not meant to be a nurse so he doesn't always understand how I can do some of the things I do...and that's okay.:blushkiss