My wife (33F) has severe contamination OCD that began during COVID in 2020 when she was pregnant with our daughter. What started as understandable fear never resolved and has progressively worsened over five years. We have lived in our new home for three years, and OCD fully controls daily life inside it.
If we go out as a family and return home together, I am not allowed inside until she showers. I regularly sit in the garage for 2 to 2.5 hours while she and our daughter shower. Showering rituals are extensive, towels are avoided, and water drips through floors and closets. Door handles and cabinet finishes are damaged from constant wiping. Our daughter has never walked freely inside the house. Excessive wiping has also destroyed multiple phones over the past few years.
Our marriage has been deeply affected. We argue frequently due to OCD-related rules and accommodations. For the past year and a half, we have slept in the living room, with me on one couch and my wife and daughter on another. Previously, entering the bedroom required 2 to 2.5 hours of showering first. Intimacy is essentially nonexistent.
We are also socially isolated. We have not had a guest in our home in over 2.5 years. In the past, when guests did visit, extensive cleaning afterward was required, leaving me physically exhausted. Groceries cannot enter the house directly and must be wiped or washed. I now do one large grocery run per month and clean everything myself while my wife goes to her mom’s house.
One of the hardest things for me to understand is that much of this does not happen at her parents’ house. When we stay with my in-laws, her symptoms are significantly reduced. Showering still occurs but lasts about 10 minutes instead of hours, with far fewer rules and much less distress. When we return home, it is like a switch flips.
. I know she is suffering. But I am emotionally drained, burned out, and starting to lose interest in life. I do not feel relaxed or safe in my own home,
TL;DR: My wife’s severe contamination OCD, triggered during the pandemic, now dictates every aspect of our lives. I spend hours waiting in the garage daily, our daughter is not allowed to walk freely in the house, and our home is being physically damaged by constant cleaning. While these behaviors vanish when we stay with in-laws, at home they are all-consuming. I am emotionally drained, our intimacy is gone.
22 comments
Do you have a therapist? Do you have someone who can help you process this deeply difficult situation?
This is above Reddit’s pay grade. We may be able to suggest the right answer in the long run, effecting the long term change will be difficult in this situation.
In the mean time, can you or you and your daughter stay somewhere else?
This is fucking bananas, and should be saved as a cautionary tale for everyone who posts here talking about how they go along with a partner’s OCD – this is where enabling it gets you.
You need to put your foot down and insist that your wife gets professional treatment now, her OCD is pushing you to the breaking point and is already interfering with your daughter’s development. Unlike you, your daughter never chose to go along with this madness.
coming from someone with my own contamination OCD – your wife needs to see a doctor, a psychiatrist, ASAP. This is severe and it will not get better without therapy and likely medication. Her anxiety is not logical but I understand that in her head it all makes sense – it’s intense attempts to control her environment to lower her anxiety and intrusive thoughts.
My OCD was never quite on this level but it was bad and controlled my life for about 2 years. The person I am now after starting meds and therapy is so much happier and my relationship with my husband is immensely better.
I am pretty worn out. I have put my foot down multiple times, have involved her parents in it too but nothing seems to help.
Its not her rough talking but more forced behaviors and we having to follow through. Now I don’t follow but I still have to spend all that money on soaps, wipes, water bill; waste time and energy
You haven’t mentioned mental health professionals, but this is beyond a mental health crisis, and this feels like a dangerous level of enabling.
Your daughter is being severely traumatized by this behaviour.
I had a cousin who’s mother was the same, and my cousin and her dad were basically full time care givers, their lives revolving around her needs 24/7, and they only got worse and worse. She was committed several times, and my uncle even admitted he regretted not taking it seriously sooner.
You’ve been enabling the normalcy of this routine for way way too long. You need to get professional support for this, it is not tenable for you nor your daughter.
Please think of your daughter – this is already likely to be very confusing for her, and she will have confusing emotions about why her father didn’t protect her…
You need to seek professional help for this, this is not something that an average person can somehow navigate.
I saw nowhere in your text any past medical intervention. You and your daughter also probably need therapy as well. But the immediate answer is her in a ocd specialist asap. There is no other long term way to fix this than a professionals help. You can’t fix her she needs to get help outside of your bubble.
I have express my deep concerns multiple times. I am soo low but my ass still got to get up every morning; go to work and so my best. And come home and see it everyday.
Now granted; if we take the OCD out; she is the best person one could ever ask as wife/parent. But; I have spent 10 years with her and 5 have been OCD. Its like we have almost forgotten living normally.
She needs to be in treatment. Nothing else you do matters if she is not admitting that this is a problem and seeking treatment for this problem.
You should be in therapy as well. And honestly so should your kid. Your kid is going to be severely affected by this—is already severely affected by this—and every day that you don’t insist your wife get into treatment is a day that your kid is actively being harmed.
Honestly, you need to get your daughter away from this and your wife needs to be in treatment, NOW.
This will damage your daughter’s social development and her ability to trust in her caregivers. I know your wife is suffering, I know it’s not malicious, but you HAVE to protect your daughter from your wife’s illness or she will wonder why you never defended and protected her all these years. How is she supposed to have a childhood exploring and learning? How is she supposed to build a proper immune system, which REQUIRES exposure to dirt???
You need to fight back, and set boundaries. If she cannot handle that, you need to separate, at least temporarily, until she is getting treatment.
Your wife needs professional help. For her sake, your sake, and especially your daughter’s sake. This kind of behavior will change her entire life.
If she won’t get the help, you ma have to make some difficult decisions. But somethibgbhasntonchsnge.
Maybe she needs to stay at her parents while she begins therapy. You and your daughter can stay at your house and provide your daughter some normalcy.
This sounds so difficult and exhausting.
The child needs to be put first here. If they continue to be around this she will develop her own traumas. I’ve seen Tiktoks of a guy who lives with his mom with this which is just as severe and he’s shattered mentally and emotionally. He lives in a different part of the house and not allowed in her space. There’s no comfort or relationship. He’s not mentally well and wants to leave and never know her once gone. Please avoid this reality in your kid
Thank you all for the comments. I really appreciate your advice.
I was soo overwhelmed lately thinking how would our lives get to normal ever. I have sweeped in tears thinking about it many times in the past few years.
You and your daughter need to move out until this is more under control.
Your CHILD is peeing in the SINK.
Hey, I’m not a doctor but I am diagnosed OCD. Treatment usually involves a couple of months of high SSRIs with regular exposure therapy administered by a psychologist. By exposure therapy, I don’t mean that she’ll be forced to physically confront her fears, but she’ll retrain her responses to triggers so that the anxiety doesn’t peak.
I have OCD and I feel a lot of empathy for your wife. But your first duty has to be to your daughter. You either need to assume 100% responsibility for your daughter’s care (meaning you do not enable ANY of your wife’s OCD behaviors) or remove her from the home until your wife gets intensive treatment. You need to act on this immediately for your child’s wellbeing.
Stop enabling her. You are not doing her any favors here. It is your job to protect your daughter from this harmful behavior. Either your wife needs to leave or you and your daughter do, but your daughter cannot live with your wife until she is better.
I have contamination OCD and I have three kids. I do not let my disorders completely hinder my family. I pick my battles. My husband simply does not let me sit in it either. If I say I don’t want to go out or things have to be a certain way. He reassures me and tells me they don’t have to be and we should go out. My husband drill sergeants my ass. My anxiety my OCD isn’t going to win. And he’s going to make sure I know that. He’s more stubborn than my OCD and I’m grateful for that. I have bipolar disorder and PTSD ontop of all that and I’m fully functioning with nothing that controls my day. Do things pause me sometimes? Yeah. But I dont let it stop me. Because once you start letting things stop you that’s when it becomes a serious issue that will only get worse. Support her but don’t enable her. Put your foot down and start exposing her to things slowly. Take her to see a therapist. Maybe she can get on medicine to help. I’m on it and it helps a lot.
Dude leave and file for custody. I feel for her but this is killing all 3 of you
you are a terrible parent just like her for not protecting your daughter from this bs!! shame on the both of yall and your daughter deserves better!
Your daughter should be your first priority. Based on what you have written here, she is being psychologically abused by your wife.
Man, when I see threads like these, it makes me very worried about the prospect of moving into a house with my long term partner with similar issues. Hours long “everything” showers and intense ritual cleanliness before eating something as simple as a burrito bowl with a spoon.
How do you even broach that, “hey, I think you need help” conversation?