If they refuse help, leave. Leaving was the single best decision I have ever made in my life. So thankful we never had children.

I'm so sad that others have to go through what i do. Most of the time i can cope with her "rules", not eating at home, doing anything at home or touching anything at home; pretty much not having a home life. I find comfort in a job that i love. But often times this isn't enough especially with the verbal abuse and accusation of intentionally doing things to set off her OCD. She has been in OCD specific therapy at a reputable OCD center in Los Angeles. She's found way to try and handle her anxiety but my quality of life really hasn't improved. We keep thinking that if we have kids, all of this will go away. I would never want to expose a child to the environment we live in, i don't think it would be fair. For those of you who have posted in years before, my question is: Did you get out??? I been on the verge many time, but often stay because of guilt and "how will she take care of herself"? What do I do???? I'm only 34 have a great job and want to LIVE!!! But i can't seem to do it with her. My happiness just seems to be temporary. things can be good for a few days but then there's a blow up often me being the blame some how. Thanks for listening...

Right now I feels so depressed I cant go on. I will, but it feels like I can't. He had one of his outbursts the other day, screaming about the garbage bag not being in right and a sock in the laundry sink. Yelling at me like a disobedient child. In front of the kids! What am I supposed to do? You can't argue with them when theyre like that. Oh god what kind of example am I setting for my girls? I have never been so close to leaving. There is no way out is there? Staying you live a life ruled by mental illness. Leaving robs the kids of the Dad they love full time and makes me a failure at the marriage and I lose the good parts of him.

I'm also new here and I am relieved to know that I am not the only one who is dealing with a spouse with OCD.
I have been with my husband for 13 years and my husband has OCD. We had sex maybe 5 times since we got married due to the fact that he is very afraid of having children (he worked with autistic children and a genetic disease runs in his family that he could have as well). I honestly don't mind not having children as I am not too keen about having them either but I do mind not having any kind of sexual intercourse ever or even touching ever. He always insists that we should only touch each other’s genitals and nothing else because for him everything else is dirty. Even the sheets on the bed aren’t good enough for him to have sex on. He insists that we should change the sheets before anything and if we do have sex then we should only have it at certain times. Since I am not taking the contraceptive pills because I have liver problems and it wouldn’t be a good idea however I would like to start. He says that he never had sex with women who weren’t on the pill and that is the biggest issue here but I think that there’s more to it than just that. He found out that his father had Huntington’s disease when he was 30 years old and since then he rarely had any type of intercourse with anyone. Also, he worked for a long time with autistic children and that didn’t help his love for children either. He is really anxious about making sure that he doesn’t father any children. I can understand him in some way as I do not wish to have children either but this sexless marriage and all the issues that are present in our sex life are really bothering me. It’s been 13 years and we had intercourse maybe 5 times all together. I can’t even touch him while we are having sex (or whatever it is called that we do) because even if I wash my hands if I touch as much as my leg or anything on my body he says that it isn’t good enough and either makes me go and wash my hands again or tells me not to touch him. I gave up a long time ago trying to touch him at all because of this.
I am really suffering because I do love him and I do feel that he is my soul mate, someone who would be hard to replace in my life however this is killing me inside every day, little by little. I just cannot imagine dealing with this for the rest of my life.

My husband cannot admit that he has a problem. He washes his hands so often they are completely dry and cracked. He can't even speak to me or worse blames me if the kitchen and floors aren't spotless when he gets home. If something is out of place to him he can't stand it. He wouldn't even ejaculate when we had sex for the first 4 years. Who can bring themselves to even control that?? Worse, he made me feel like it was all my fault. If I was just a better cleaner, more thorough and attentive to detail, cleaner, thinner, etc. he would be happy. He's a jackass to me most of the time. I only get to see the man I married once in a blue moon, like the Easter Bunny or Santa. I don't want our baby to turn out like him and to see this dysfunctional marriage. You can't help a person that doesn't even think they have a problem. We've been to marriage counselling and he puts up such a great image that the counsellors end up not confronting him. He's so slick at hiding his weirdness from everyone but me. He thinks he's god's gift to humanity, to husbandhood, to friendship, to the office. He thinks he wrote the book on how to do everything. Took me a long time to realize all of this. Of course when we were dating he was Don Juan, but that just hid all his real struggles.

Well, I am new to the site and I'm nervous about posting. However, I am at a point where I am desperate to find others that can understand what I may be going through. My wife of 10 years has OCD to germs and has the family turned upside down with her OCD. I have tried numerous times over the past several years to get her to seek help with her OCD; however, it has been unsuccessful. We are currently seeing a marriage counselor but he can only help so far. He even gave her the name of a therapist and she went to her but then found multiple reasons not to go back. Examples of her OCD range from hand washing multiple times within minutes of other hand washing; believing clothes or bed sheets are contaminated, so she will bag them up in trash bags and not touch them for months or even years and she won't throw them away; if something she believes has been contaminated with germs, then everything that item has touched is now contaminated; and the list just continues. I feel as though I am trapped. I would move out but we have two little girls and the thought of leaving is what I struggle with. Well thanks for listening and any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.

Hi, I just joined this group and I am glad I did because I was hopeless but reading other people stories helps.
My wife has OCD and I feel trapped . I`ve never felt so lonely in my whole life. I left everything for her: my family, my country, my job and my friends. Here I am living like I am the one with OCD as she is constantly asking me to clean, organize, shower etc etc . I can`t even open the door and go out without her permission as she has to check that the door is closed and locked. Of course , before I touch anything in the house, I have to wash my hands. Lately she even became verbally abusive if I don`t do "my" cleaning/organizing tasks.
She went to an OCD center for 2 months and when she came back she was fine but it lasted only 3 weeks. She regressed so quickly...! She doesn`t want to look for a therapist here because she claims " she knows what she has to do (exposures )" then I ask myself mhy she doesn`t do it! Sometimes she is so depressed that she sleeps for days and her OCD becomes even worse.
Yesterday I spent some time staring people from the window and thinking how it would feel like to have an ordinary life. I love her but I don`t want to live like this for the rest of my life. I am only 31!
I haven`t told anyone in Italy that she has OCD because they would think I am crazy moving all the way here to live like this.
I believe she`s the most selfish person I know. I understand she has OCD and I would never leave her only because of this but I would like her to seek treatment.
Clearly we don`t have sex because she doesn`t want to dirt the bed sheets but I actually feel relieved as I cannot be sexually driven by someone who can only talk about OCD things.

Anyone in L.A? It would be nice to speak to somebody that can fully understand.

Luisa

Luisa, I wrote on hear about 2 years ago and I was looking for my old post. It was hard to find because i couldn't tell which was mine. <y story is so similar to most of yours that it scares me. Really it does. It's been 9 years of marriage now and nothing has changes, only my ability to handle her abuse. If you're in LA, so am I and there is the OCD center of Los Angeles, which we tried but it is only work if your spouse works. At this point, i have three options: continue living this life that isn't much of a life, jump off a cliff, or finally do it and get a divorce. at this point the a costly divorce would simply be money well spent!

First off, I think so many of you are amazing and strong! It's always nice to read that you're not alone in your struggles...
Do any of you have spouses who struggle with sexually base OCD-unwanted intrusive thoughts and fears?

I'm so glad I found this group. My husband has OCD. He refuses to get help because "it's expensive", or because he thinks he isn't really that bad. I am starting to lose it. I've been married to my husband for 4 years, we have two children together. I didn't know he had ocd before we got married. I just thought he was very particular. I was the one to figure out he was ocd. He spends 2 hours in the morning and evening using the bathroom and showering afterwards. He goes through a bar of soap a day, His entire body is dried out. When someone in the house is sick, he quarantines himself. He won't touch the kids at all when they are sick, I feel like a single mother. Because of his rituals he only gets about 5 minutes a day with his kids. We have no intimacy in our relationship. He can't touch me in fear of being contaminated. We hardly have sex. he will constantly talk himself out of it because he doesn't want to get dirty. And honestly is hard to be interested when I'm trying to work around his ocd issues dieing sex. It's nice to know I'm not crazy for feeling so lonely and tired from it all. I just want a normal life but I know that will never happen

Hi everyone, I am new to this group and I am so thankful I found all of you. As I am reading all of your posts it is exactly what I am going through with my husband. I am at a point where I don't know whether or not this is something I can handle the rest of my life. It's exhausting and draining. With the verbal abuse if I don't get something "right" to the apologizing and things going back to normal this crazy cycle has created so much distance between us. I too feel like I need to walk on egg shells and I am fearful I don't get something right I will be blamed or yelled at. We are at a point in our marriage where we are thinking about children but I can only imagine how that will add complexity to everything we are already dealing with. I need to decide soon whether to stay or go. Help!

Wow, so many of these stories sound so much like my life with the exception that it's my teenage daughter with the disorder. I feel just like all of you. Exhausted. Past the end of my rope but yet so so sad for her and not willing to give up. How would I anyway? Honestly, I'm shocked by all of you for staying in your relationships for so long and can't imagine having the wherewithal to stay if I had a choice to leave. But this is my kid. My husband, her father, passed away so it's just the two of us. I've had very severe medical problems the last few years which triggered her OCD but unfortunately has only served to make me much worse, of course the opposite of what she wants, and only makes her worse. A viscous cycle. Sometimes I start to lose all my faith and wonder how so many bad things can happen to us, especially such a sweet beautiful soul like my daughter's. Although I hate all of you are going through this, it does help to know we are not alone.

We have a therapist who comes to our place once a week since Medicaid doesn't cover decent inpatient care, and because she's deveststed by the thought of hospitalization anyway. The therapist helps a little but it seems like there are always reasons making her OCD worse at a speed faster than the therapist is able to help. I'm really scared for both of us. I can't work yet and I feel like as long as I have the constant stress of her OCD and following all of her constant rules in an effort to keep the so called peace and ward off her panicked state, I may never get back to work again. How can I get better in this environment? Regardless, I have no choice. I love her more than anything in the world and would die for her to live a normal OCD free life. Why do these awful things happen to such wonderful people? Outside of the insanely controlling nature of OCD, this kid is seriously the best person I've ever known could even exist. She's a strict vegan, sensing the pain and suffering of animals so intensely she can't imagine contributing. She has such a pure heart and yet has no friends, can't leave her room and hasn't for almost 2 years. Her hands are a permanent chapped red color and her face is so pale. Her muscles have waisted so she barely has the strength to shower. It's so devastating to see. Losing her father to mental illness was the hardest thing in the world to go through and now I'm terrified I'm going to lose her as well.

Munchkin828, as a husband of a woman with OCD and a father of two young boys who are also affected by her OCD, I can only advise you to not to expose your future child to your husband's OCD. If he cannot get well, please do yourself, and your child, a favor and move on.

I am at my wit's end like others who've posted to this forum. My wife's condition developed when our son got a blood condition called ITP, whereby the body attacks it's own platelets when fighting an infection, making the child susceptible to uncontrolled internal bleeding if bruised. It started gradually, but over time, everything needed to be wiped, and areas of the house were off limits. If you think it's confusing for an adult to live like this not knowing what parts of the house are off limits or what toy can't be touched because its dirty, imagine how hard it is on a child. If I don't comply, she starts to scream. I didn't grow up like this and I want a calm environment for my kids, so I complied. Big mistake. Over the last couple of years, my own reality has become distorted. I have accepted reactions that would be obviously abusive to outsiders, as normal. Now I've woken up. I'm like the frog in warm water that suddenly finds it boiling. I don't deserve this and neither do my kids.

I reached out to my wife's parents for help, but they turned against me. I was hoping they would understand I wanted to help her, but they took offense at me telling them about what they also had noticed as odd. They blindly defend and support their daughter to the detriment of their beautiful and innocent grandsons.

She's started to get therapy, but she denegrates me in the sessions the whole time. She won't consider medication. I don't know if this will ever end.

I need to divorce, but I'm afraid of the affect on the kids. Not in the traditional sense, as I must do it to protect them. I'm worried about how we could possibly share custody of the kids. I'm going to fight for them. I don't want any of it rubbing off on them. I'm not going to subject them to her rules any longer if I am successful in gaining custody. What I'm afraid of is what could happen when they have to go back and live under her rules.

Does anyone have a similar experience? Any advise? Have you been successful with custody?

This is the toughest thing of my life. I just don’t know how I’m going to make it. I love him so much and try so hard, but it keeps getting worse and it has become so verbally abusive. But he doesn’t think that I my needs are all that relavent because I don’t have OCD.

Thank you so much to everyone for sharing. Even though we are all across the globe, I finally feel no longer alone.
My wife has terrible OCD; as bad or worse than many stories everyone shares.

My question - does anyone have a positive story where their spouse’s OCD became under control and things returned to normal?