Married to a OCD

[ShortSpring]

Hi everyone, I do not have OCD but married to a OCD husband for the last 6 years. We all come from foreign countries and obtained the citizenship here, so no family member in the US and no other family member support here. We have two daughter now, 3 year old and 8 months.

My husband is a very smart man and grow up in a very hard family - father is blind, mother died when him and his brother were teenager. He graduated from prominent school with a PHD degree. I fell in love with him 7 years ago, and did not notice any signs of OCD. He did not tell me anything about his metal disease before marriage. We have some very hard time to try to have baby and the life became even harder when two little ones come along. He started to show very obvious signs which become very stressful for our family. We went to the Physiatrist last year and I sat in the session together with him, and just learnt that he had OCD diagnosed when he was teenager. Then I did research and realize many unusual actions are actually OCD symptom. It was a shock to me, and I started to learn more about this condition, and tried my best to understand and support him.

But everyday my life is a constant struggle without family support. I think I am a strong/independent person, but live with someone who has not helped me with a single night of baby care, still cooking while I was having miscarriage, do most of the house work myself - cooking, washing clothes, paying bills etc. He does little such as cleaning dishes and fix broken stuff around house. I also work full time with high stress finance job. I am so tired and need more help from him, but most time he locks himself to his room - working on his own business but has not succeed for as long as I know him. If I ask him to help, he will just say that I do not give him any minute of peach and he already does more than other man. So I have a lot anger built up in me, and we have constant argument on little things in day to day life. I feel bad about screaming at him when he does not want to offer any help on things I need help. He is constantly not happy about his business, very negative about life, he hates his life and he try to hide himself because he certainly do not want to be divorced and left alone.

The divorce has been on my mind almost each single day after the first baby was born because I am so tired and do not feel appreciated and his OCD symptom is driving me crazy. Lately, he suspect there are some rats at our home, and he spent all day looking for rats at home each corner, and blocked all the garage doors using various boxes and call me multiple times crying that he may got some serious disease from cleaning up the rat's poop. - the end is a joke, the rat's poop is something falling from one of my shoes.....but his OCD on those details and constant worries in our family life is pushing to the edge.

I do think my husband is a very good man and I feel very sorry that he grow up in a very hard family - his brother also suffer more severe metal disease and chose to be single.

I just feel very frustrated, down and feel hopeless about each day life, it seems so hard for me a lot of time. I feel cannot see any light in the tunnel, I know I need to take one day at a time, I am also surprised I made so far, and try to look at our cute two young daughters. But I really am serious thinking about maybe divorce is a good solution for me, or him (so he does not feel very stressful about family life). I just not sure how the children will handle the situation, that is why I cannot make decision yet.

Could anyone here who has OCD advise me how should I cope him better and get little more help from him on family stuff or it is just better to separate? Can OCD have successful marriage? I certainly look for some tips and advise to change my life here.

Thank you all and have a good New Year!

[Abeautifulmind]

Madam join yahoo support group run by wendy Mueller. There are 5000+ members in that group and its the best support group for ocd. Off course, there are a lot of successful marriages despite partner suffering from ocd. But you need to change the mindset of your husband. He needs to change his attitude too. Things need to be sorted out. Show him posts from that group where how non- cooperation on the part of someone suffering from ocd has led to broken marriages. Tell him he cannot keep doing this and expect normalcy. But give him some time . How funny that i am 29 and suffers from ocd and i have to take the call whether i should marry or not? But it will be very hard for your husband once you leave him. And he too cannot keep behaving the way he is behaving. plz ask this question in that support group.

[Orion111 in reply to Abeautifulmind]

That is a hard decision to make. I suffer from OCD, your description of your husband sounds eerily similar to me, and my wife had been where you are. She is still with me, but I had to make a change. I resented her at first for saying she had had enough, but mostly I was mad at myself, and had a great deal of shame and guilt. She felt hopeless, but worst of all, so did I. I had no hope that things would ever get better. OCD is insidious that way. However, a better, I still don’t know if I’ll ever see normal, but a better life is possible. I had to face up to the fact that I had a problem way beyond my control. For me, that meant going to an OCD clinic for 7 weeks for counciling, classes, and intense hours long ERPs. If you don’t know, ERP stands for exposure response prevention. This is the only real treatment for OCD. Did I go to the clinic happy and eager, absolutely not. I was pissed off, embarrassed, and scared. The time there was hard, but very helpful. I not only learned that I could do the ERPs, but that they were not as bad as I expected. I learned about how poisonous constantly looking for certainty and reassurance is to someone with OCD. It is like a drug; the more you look for it or do rituals to try to feel certainty, the more you need it. But I also learned that as you do the ERPs, you learn to let go through a process called habitualization. Also learning to accept that by not responding, meaning doing a ritual, you need to accept that it is true that something bad may happen, although unlikely, but trying to prevent it actually makes things worse most of the time. Not sure I am being clear, but the point is to let go of certainty. The other key thing I learned was that in life we are governed by three major things; emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. We cannot control our emotions, we can’t control our thoughts, we can only change our behaviors. However, the magic is that when you control your behaviour, that is response prevention, the thoughts and emotions start to change as well.

That is a small glimpse of the path to recovery, and it takes work. I am slipping back at the moment, but I have a plan to start ERPs with a therapist and coach again, and I know I will gain back and go further because I know ERPs work. Your husband needs to step up and do the work, but his OCD will tell him lies - it is too expensive, it takes to much time from work, he is just looking out for his family, he cannot do the ERPs, he cannot change. These are lies, but the will feel like the truth to him, if he is anything like me and every other suffer I have met. Hopefully the therapist you are seeing can get him to see what he is doing to his family, the times he is missing with his kids, and the hurt he is causing you.

I have not tried to sugar coat what you are facing, because it is hard, but if he is willing, your lives can be better. I hope he finds a way to get there, to be willingness to do some difficult work, to find happiness for himself and you, rather than let slip what he thinks he is protecting fall through his fingers. I know he is suffering, as I know you are.

[ShortSpring in reply to Orion111]

Thank you so much for explaining to me how OCD feel, I do agree with you, I am sure he feel bad about himself just like you described to me. I cannot imagine that you will go through just like any other disease and I know it is very hard for you. I told him openly that OCD just like you have broken legs or other physical disease, it is ok as long as you openly acknowledge it and work toward it instead of blaming everything on me and the kids. I know he does love us deeply in his heart, but the action is that he is so impatient with the kids, shouting at them, complains all the time, yet does not want to talk about his OCD or take action to seek help outside.

He is from a culture that want to hide metal disease and do not want to let anyone know, so although I know many people in my community but there is only one friend who know about his OCD, and my husband does not even want to hang out with them, because he simply feel he has no OCD, he is normal and he does not want to even hang out with OCD people. The denying side of him, makes the life almost impossible to live on. I am just very tired, and want to see how I can help him to make change and make our family life a little better? I cannot imagine the rest of my life is full of darkness, unhappiness, argument, kids crying because dad shouting at them?.....

Dear OCD people here, what could be the best way to talk to you and you can realize that you will want to seek out help and make a change. What could be the possible trigger? What can I do to find that trigger to help our family?

[Orion111 in reply to ShortSpring]

I think talking with a local support group, as suggested, is a great approach. You can discuss what is happening in your marriage in greater detail than what is available in this forum, and from that people can share their thoughts. I would also suggest you talk to a local therapist for your own well being given the amount of stress and emotional distress you are under. The two of you can talk about the best path forward for you, and for your kids. They may have a solution about how to get through to your husband. It is a hard thing to do, and not actually knowing him, I am hesitant to say what you should try. Not a simple answer, I’m afraid.

[Orion111 in reply to Orion111]

Know that you are not alone. We are all pulling for you.

[ShortSpring in reply to Abeautifulmind]

I know, the issue is that with my husband, he does not admit that he has issues of OCD, he does not want to see any doctors or Therapist. He said he is doing mediation himself. All doctors and other things are not helpful are all waste of time. The only reason that he went to see the doctor last year is to get the medication - pozac, because he cannot get it and he could not sleep each night. As far as day to day life, he feel like he is normal and I am the problem. I keep working on adjusting myself, change myself, but it is still so hard and feel not possible.......I cannot make him change unless he want to, so in my shoe, what can I do?

Thank you, how do I join that group?

[Saee]

Hi dear. Please read the book "When family member has OCD" by Jon Hershfield. Hope this will help you to understand OCD and how you can help your husband. Also try medications which will help to reduce the intensity and impact of OCD. But in the long run CBT and ERP will help him.

[RUtalkingtome]

If you were debilitated with cancer or MS would you want your husband to abandon you?

OCD is a mental disease, he can't help it. You can, however, insist on him getting professional help as a condition of continuing the marriage,

I've Been married 40 years, successfully, but there are a few rough days mixed in with all the good days. I thinks things might get better as your kids get older.

Is your husband good provider financially? Could you afford some domestic help?