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Am I doing the right thing..


Guest nytoffee

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Guest nytoffee

Hi all

I've posted here in the past about my wife with contamination OCD

Things just keep getting worse and worse

I've read as much as I possibly can on OCD, I've tried withdrawing participation from rituals, such as having to wait up for her to get home from work with the door key and a fresh packet of baby wipes so she doesn't have to handle the door coming home from work (she finds work distressing as she works with elderly incontinent patients)

That earns me hours of aggressive responses along the lines of..

'I never knew I married such a cruel, heartless, unsupportive bas**d, I wouldn't have gone near you if I'd known what you were like'

'What you are doing is mental abuse, it's the same as domestic violence, you are torturing me on purpose, I'm going to report you for it'

She's recently started accusing me of random bizarre things done on purpose such as sneaking chicken into a salad (she's vegetarian) or setting the shower to stone cold before she gets in. Both utter nonsense

Any advice or help on how to deal with this would be much appreciated! Am I right to stop supporting all rituals?

Thank you very much

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Guest Sisyphus

Always dangerous drawing conclusions from one side of a story but if what you've said is true then you poor b#gger!

From your wife's point of view, I cant totally understand the panic/anger if someone tries to get between you and your compulsions. It's just the way it feels at the time, regardless of the logic that it's false messages and you're better off ignoring it, if you've got a bad one, then no matter where you are, you just want to shut the world out and put that fire out by doing whatever you normally do to achieve that. I mean it really feels like a fire's been started in the room or something.

So an untreated OCD sufferer is highly likely to respond that way if you obstruct their rituals.

However, from your point of view, you've probably read something that's said that helping with rituals is enabling the OCD sufferer and making OCD worse, and that you have to stop enabling and she has to stop doing compulsions to get better. So you're doing the right thing in that sense, and getting reprimanded for it to the bargain.

Has she undertaken CBT, are you coming at this thing from a therapy point of view now? If so she needs to be trying herself, whenever she can(that's important I think), to resist the compulsions, and to understand that your role is not to enable. There needs to be some appreciation there. Have you discussed that?

Otherwise, if there's no therapy element, then I'm not surprised she's reacting that way. I wouldn't advise trying to stop her until she's undertaken some form of therapy like CBT and has bought into getting better. That way you'll be fighting on the same side rather than against eachother. Forgive me if I'm wildly off the mark with any of that - I haven't seen your other posts yet.

Cheers,

David.

Edited by Sisyphus
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Guest nytoffee

Hi David

Many thanks for your reply

We had one meeting with an OCD pyschiatrist last December, he confirmed the diagnosis and explained how the process would work

He also told us a book to buy ( 2 copies so she could have her own clean copy) and that if we were to have another meeting, she would have to call him and book it, .i.e the desire to beat OCD had to come from her

So we're now heading towards May and she's not shown any great enthusiasm for the book or doing that unfortunately :(

She won't see her GP for 2 reasons.

1. She doesn't want it on her medical notes as she feels that if she ever takes our son (6) to the GP in the future, they will look at her case notes and dismiss as a neurotic mother with a messed up head

2. She works in a health care setting where she sees all our local GP's on a daily basis as they visit the patients she cares for

Yes, all the reading I've done says not to participate so I've tried to follow that although to be honest with the way things are at the moment, even I did participate, everything is a flash point. Even accidently brushing against her hair can start a blazing row in which I get called heartless, dirty scumbag and so on

It's being called a mental abuser that is the most upsetting thing. I know it's the condition making her like this but I'm not sure I can stay much longer if things don't change. On top of this, my father has cancer and is suffering badly at the moment with headaches so I'm already pretty low even before she starts raging.

Always dangerous drawing conclusions from one side of a story but if what you've said is true then you poor b#gger!
From your wife's point of view, I cant totally understand the panic/anger if someone tries to get between you and your compulsions. It's just the way it feels at the time, regardless of the logic that it's false messages and you're better off ignoring it, if you've got a bad one, then no matter where you are, you just want to shut the world out and put that fire out by doing whatever you normally do to achieve that. I mean it really feels like a fire's been started in the room or something.
So an untreated OCD sufferer is highly likely to respond that way if you obstruct their rituals.
However, from your point of view, you've probably read something that's said that helping with rituals is enabling the OCD sufferer and making OCD worse, and that you have to stop enabling and she has to stop doing compulsions to get better. So you're doing the right thing in that sense, and getting reprimanded for it to the bargain.
Has she undertaken CBT, are you coming at this thing from a therapy point of view now? If so she needs to be trying herself, whenever she can(that's important I think), to resist the compulsions, and to understand that your role is not to enable. There needs to be some appreciation there. Have you discussed that?
Otherwise, if there's no therapy element, then I'm not surprised she's reacting that way. I wouldn't advise trying to stop her until she's undertaken some form of therapy like CBT and has bought into getting better. That way you'll be fighting on the same side rather than against eachother. Forgive me if I'm wildly off the mark with any of that - I haven't seen your other posts yet.
Cheers,
David.

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Guest Sisyphus

Yep like I said you poor b#gger. And I mean that.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I do sympathise with her because I know how this thing is and my OCD made it very difficult for me to sit down and read a book about it or start therapy, so maybe it's the same but worse for her. But at the end of the day, when you're in a relationship , there's got to be some gameplan, some recognition and buy in to trying to get better. So if she's not doing her part I think you're justified in feeling frustrated. If there's mitigating circumstances like her OCD is somehow stopping her reading that book or starting therapy then she really needs to have that conversation with you.

Not participating and not explaining why and just getting angry at everything is unreasonable by anyone's standards. Maybe you need a serious chat, maybe with independent arbitration even?

I'm so sorry to hear about your father. Bloody cancer everywhere now it seems. I hate it.

Funnily enough I kind of understand her fear of divulging it to the GP. Despite how attitudes are supposed to be towards things like this, it doesn't always play out that way. So if she thought it might impact adversely on her career, I can understand that fear. But if that's a barrier to getting treatment, I'm afraid she's going to have to grit her teeth and break through it and take the risk.

I've said a lot of stuff there that could be harsh because I don't know the full context or the people involved but you do, so hopefully you'll know what to take from that and what not to.

Cheers,

David.

Edited by Sisyphus
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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest eve.bisrat

sisiphus already made all valid points, if a spouse is refusing any treatment for a condition, the other spouse has every right to be frustrated...

regardless of OCD, if you don't love this person, don't stay with her...but if you do, have a little humor about it, she is not trying to make your life difficult, she is suffering debilitating condition...if it's that hard for you to share her life and its down side, maybe she is not the one for you and you are not the one for her...

coz i love my husband's pure O...i don't love that he has it, coz it pains him a lot, but i never met him without it, it's one little bit of how he is...yes, we are changing it, but for now, i cannot imagine hating his OCD, it's just a disease, my husband is not his disease, he is so much more, but it's his disease and therefore, i find it interesting, fascinating and kind of cool for a messed up debilitating psychological condition...

what im trying to say is, it's not hard for me to be with my husband, i love it, i don't ever wish, if only he was less OCD, i wish for him to be happy, i concentrate on that, and for me, to be happy...and OCD or not, to make sure he knows im on his side, in his corner and not going anywhere...

you are, on the other hand, as with one leg out the door already....

that is legit, don't stay unless you want to, we all need to know who we can count on, and we are better off without people that we cannot count on...

im not putting any blame on you! i completely understand and would leave my husband if he was an unreasonable man refusing treatment, im simply saying, whether she brought it on herself or not, she is better off divorced than with a resentful, unhappy, frustrated husband who finds her hard to live with...

may the force be with you, young luke, and with your wife...

again, i don't mean to sound insensitive, but it think if you were sure you wanted that woman, the leaving would be off the table...but also, my husband never refused treatment...i really cannot compare it to your situation...

i dunno, i don't think i helped, have i?

im sorry, i try. :flowers:

Edited by eve.bisrat
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Guest eve.bisrat

maybe we were 'lucky' we hurt each other a lot, in 3 very bad days, and both realized we need to get help...silver lining...

maybe your wife doesn't see how much she is hurting you, coz it seems to her little things, not big deals...

try shifting focus from her onto you and telling her, im hurting, you are hurting me...if you can't seek out therapy for yourself, do it for me...

i am lucky, my Abdul is a very reasonable man...he is OCD about his therapy and treatment...

sorry, um little OCD humor... :original:

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