the same thoughts are running through my head at this very instant!!! sometimes i just want to give up and get out, but what would i do? we have five kids, a great life, good friends.... he wants me to understand his disorder and change my ways and improve on my negatives to make him more "comfortable" or else life is hell. i do my best to not have 'CLUTTER' or 'piles', but honestly it is sometimes hard to keep up with all the paperwork from mail, school, doctors...... i am equally in despair, let me know if you want to talk..... i sure could!

I have two wifes, the one I married and the one who has OCD. I don't want to start over, but My wife wants me to leave. I have two jobs, busting my as 7 days a week and my wife is worried if I lysol the door. She makes me take 5 to 6 showers a day when she is having a bad OCD Day.
I'm here for you guys

Hang in there.

HELP!!! I just want to scream. My husband has OCD and I fear that this is how I will always have to live. I am at the point where it is not worth fighting with him, I just take 3 showers daily, wash my hands after touching anything, and don't cook. There are so many rules to follow. I'm so tired. I love him, but OCD is ruling both our lives and our marriage. My husband won't have sex with me in our home because this is "our clean space". HELP SOMEONE!

I am shocked that all of you spouses/partners are going through all this anxiety. I thought I was the only one. Thank you for sharing the pain. Clean yourself, rules, no sex, no touching, no life...
What are you guys doing? I am at my wits end too. I feel like I have become an obnoxious person because I would ridicule her and when that didn"t work I just accepted the ocd and gave up. I know when I give her an ultimatum she gives in a little bit and then we talk and she claims she needs to take baby steps. I have told her that the baby steps are not good enough anymore (it has been about 10 years). I was lucky that I found a job that requires me to live away during the week. It has helped my sanity, but at the cost of not seeing my children. Anyhow thanks for listening!

I thought I was the only one! My husband is a great guy but his OCD prevents him from doing any housework, having sex more than once in a blue moon, & to top it off there is compulsive spending too! We also can't take any kind of vacation because he's anxious about the bathrooms in any where but expensive hotels. I feel ready to cry. Anyone offer any encouragement?? It would be much apprecieated. Keep smiling.

Wow, I just stumbled by this group by chance and I am glad I have! I have been married for almost 10 years, and it took 6 until my husband finally went to the doctor and found out he had OCD. It is mainly OCPD but still has some OCD issues. Anyway, he started taking medicine, but went off whenever he thought it wasn't useful, or whatever. I have lived this many years, never feeling good enough, being the homemaker and mother of his children, but never living up to "his" standards. It has turned me into a ver indesisive person out of aniexty from his reactions. over the last 4 years he has even gone as far to doubt his love for me, apparently something due to his OCD, but it has caused me soo much pain. Not only could I never do anything right, I had given him soo much and he wasnt even sure he loved me. He has tried to pursue 3 other relationships while we have been married, and still has not taken his OCD serious, not even realizing what it has done to me, and our 3 children. We have seperated this last month, and I am soo burnt out. One of the things I really struggle with is the thought that if this somehow works out, it will always be about him, we will have to try to overcome this OCD for the rest of our lives. Even if he "owns" it, it will still be a struggle for me. I dont know if I can live like that anymore.

I definitely feel your pain. My husband has so much OCD and anxiety and it's ruining my life. I try to be supportive and anticipate how he is going to react but the reality of every situation is that I wind up walking on eggshells around him at all times. I constantly feel like I want to go back in time and erase what happened earlier in the day so he won't react like he does. I do everything in our house including take care of our 20 month old son and it's running me down. Every time something bothers him he takes it out on me.

I'm brand-new to this site, and it is refreshing to read. My husband of 1 year and 4 months has OCD, but had not been verbally abusive until 6 months ago. He ruminates about our relationship and threateans to leave over innocuous things I may say about a TV program or if he sees my cat's fur on his clothes or about "my personality". He insists "it's not all my OCD", but has no explanation for his angry outbursts, which happen about every couple of weeks, other than saying that something I said "provoked him". His perception during his OCD spikes is distorted and he catastrophizes over the smallest annoyance that someone without OCD would laugh off or ignore. I know this is not him, per se, but his disorder, but our fragile new marriage is already feeling vaguely hopeless, especially since he keeps threatening divorce (!). He blames me for lack of more frequent sex, rather than the medicine he takes, which dampens his libido. Fortunately, he has a decent psychiatrist and a competent therapist who specializes in OCD and anxiety disorders. I married for a lifelong commitment. But, I never foresaw this developing in a million years. I did not see this anger while we were dating, and we went to therapy together before we married to make sure issues were addressed. Can anyone relate to my story?

I honestly thought I was the only one out there! Thank God I found you guys. My husband has severe OCD and we have two small kids. I am at the end of my rope. We are married almost 10 years and I am exhausted! I know exactly how all of you feel. Have any of you read a book by Roy C.? It's called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder A survival Guide for Family and Friends. I am reading it now and I'm honestly scared. My husband is on meds, has a behaviorial therapist and just joined OCA (obsessive compulsive annonymous). Since joining the group, he has been working on issues that i was never involved in. frustrating for me. For the first time ever he seems motivated to make changes. I have made a decision to stick with him through this and see where it goes. IF he does not continue with the group and make progress I will leave. I cannot take the constant insane demands of this disease and I will NOT let it ruin my family! Hang in there everyone!!! Look within and follow your hearts. Please, Please keep in touch!

I am so grateful to have found this group. I have been married to my husband for 11 years and known him for 14. He is finally dealing with the fact that he has OCD and so many things are finally making sense. I am overwhelmed and scared and angry. We have three small children and I am burned out and wondering how we are going to make it through this. He has confided some of his obsessive thoughts and they scare/disgust me!! Hoping to find some support online.

I just found this site. Maybe writing about this will help. My wife has OCD. We have been married for 14 years and I learned of her condition a few months before we were married. Before that she had hid it. I thought this was something she would "grow" out of but over the years it has just gotten worse. Neither my family or hers has been to our house in several years even though they live close by. I do all the cooking, cleaning, bills, etc. She is on medication but sometimes I wonder if it really does any good, it seems like it just makes her tired. There are time I think about leaving but that doesn't seem right. Somedays (actually most days) she does things that you don't know whether to laugh or cry. Well, I guess I usually end up crying.

I'm grateful to have found this site as well. My husband has been dealing with his OCD for around 8 years and we've been married for 16. It is overwhelming and makes me very angry as well. Along with the OCD he deals with depression and anxiety. Several times I've watched him and my son working and get in yelling matches about some petty thing. This turns into crying, name calling and a big anxious mess. If I get involved at all, it looks like I take sides and I make things worse. I feel stuck in the middle, like I'm not being a supportive wife, or a good mother. So, creates anxiety for me and the rest of the family. I'm working on not feeling responsible for my husband and others' relationships, not dwelling on what I can't fix - like a bad mood, being a parent - I tend to let my kids get away with everything in some attempt to fixing the bad stuff. Its hard, and I'm still learning.

Now I'm not a spouse of someone with OCD, however, I myself have OCD. I was just reading through these post and I can't imagine how hard it must be for you all. I am so thankful for my boyfriend to be by my side, the only difference between my relationship, as compared to all of yours is it seems your husbands and/or wives have pretty severe OCD. I have a pretty good understanding and can control it. My OCD is thought-based with no compulsive behavior and can act up for a week or two straight and then not bother me for several months. If any of you need someone to talk to, need a better understanding, someone to vent to, reassurance, etc... I'm always here. I wish you all the best and god bless you all, stay strong!

My husband's main obsession is trash. He spends hours going through the trash. He doesn't just empty the trash back piece by piece, he takes each piece and rips it to shreds before he can actually throw it in the waste recepticle. It has gotten a lot worse recently, and our garbage is starting to pile up because he can't get it all done in time for garbage day. We made a compromise that even though he has this obsession or cumpulsion, he will be finished with all the garbage by garbage day. And if it wasn't finished, I told him I would throw it in the recepticle after he went to work on garbage day. I found out later that he wasn't finishing the garbage in time, so he would hide the bags so I wouldn't throw them away. Now we have piles of garbage on our porch and in our garage. It has become a really big deal, and a definite source of tension for both of us. On top of that, I'm 6 months pregnant, and I know my hormones are causing me to be even more upset about the whole thing. But the big "D" word keeps popping up in my head. I keep telling myself it's because I'm pregnant. I don't want to be so upset about my husband's OCD, and I don't really know how to deal with it, or support him. He's not on any medication, and doesn't go to therapy. He hasn't even been officially diagnosed with OCD. But it's obvious. I want to talk to him about therapy or something, but I don't want it to turn into another argument, or me nagging.

I've been looking for a group like this for quite some time. It's frustrating to be going through this as an "outsider" with OCD, but not able to find someone to talk to and get support for my feelings as well. The person with OCD is not the only person who has challenges and battles to face. My biggest struggle is when I have wash my hands or wipe something with a lysol wipe when I normally would not do so. My question is, is this being an enabler to the person and really making things worse? Why do I have to perform a ritual to placate that person?

My wife has apparently had symptoms of OCD since Jr. High, but was just told she was a perfectionist. It got the the compulsive stage when she had 2 misscarriages. She hid it at first, but then it took over. I would fight constantly with her about not having sex, then after 3 years, I gave up the fight. It was after 4 years, that we began a sex life again, because she wanted another child. I was told that we could continue, but once she became pregnant, the sexlife was over....I'm afraid it's over for good. Time will tell. I'm frustrated, becasuse I have a high sex drive and constantly want it, and the waiting makes it worse. So there's this frustration which compounds how I feel in my mind, and all the rituals that I "have" to do in the house. Just out of curiousity, how do those of you who have mentioned a lack of sexual activity cope?

Does anyone know if we are to enable them with the ritual status or not? On a side note, we've been watching the OCD project and Obsessed on TV. I have seen some glimmers of hope as she watches these shows and sees people with similar issues. The funny thing is, I have told her some of these things over the years, but as she watches the shows and gets the same advice it seems to click with her. Go figure! :-)

Thanks for letting me rant....it's nice to have a place to do so.