u/Absoni2011

I need to get this out somewhere because I have no family nearby and her parents look the other way every time I bring it up.

My wife is a SAHM to our 5-year-old. She has Contamination OCD. About a year ago she started therapy and I was hopeful. Around session 8 or 10, the therapist suggested I come in too — pretty standard for this stuff, since I'm the one living with the accommodations. She ended therapy that week. Hasn't been back.

Since then, life is this:

• The whole family follows her handwashing rules. I'll shower upstairs, walk downstairs, and have to wash my hands again. Everyone does, all day.
• We go through about two boxes of wipes a day and a full refill bottle of hand soap a day. I keep a mental tally and it eats at me.
• Our dishwasher panel has been busted for 3 months. I can't fix it because bringing tools into the house sets off the OCD, and weekends are off-limits — she considers weekends her recovery from doing childcare M–F, so projects aren't allowed then either.
• We pay for 2 days/week of preschool. For the last 6 months she's sent our daughter one day a week, consistently — the school day "wipes her out" the next day. We're paying for a day that doesn't happen.
• She hasn't used a towel in 6 years. She walks dripping from the shower into her closet and stands there. The carpet in that closet is gone. Every handle in there is busted. Cabinets around the house are warping from being constantly wiped down wet.
• I only get to do laundry in the mornings before I leave for work. Not any other time.
• We don't sleep in our bedroom. Haven't for a long time. We sleep on couches. I pay the mortgage on a three-bedroom house and sleep on a couch in it. Intimacy is gone. Has been gone.
• On days she does school pickup, it takes her hours to shower afterward. I sit in the garage and drink beers because the garage is the one room in my own house where I'm not breaking a rule.

I work full-time. I'm the sole income. When I push back on any of it, the line I get is "don't argue, I want peace." And I keep telling her — if peace means I comply with things that don't make sense, that's not peace, that's me disappearing.

I love her. Some days I don't know if I do anymore, I can't tell which it is. I'm exhausted in a way I didn't know was possible. Some of the thoughts I've been having scare me. I haven't done anything, I won't, but the fact that my brain is going to those places at all is the reason I'm finally writing this down.

I know "get her into therapy" is the obvious answer. I tried. She walked the second the therapist asked me to join. I don't know what the move is when the person won't get treated and the disorder is running the household.

Has anyone been on the other side of this? Spouse with untreated OCD, family accommodation so deep you couldn't see out of it — how did you get through, or get out, or get them back into treatment?

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I genuinely do not know anymore if my reactions are normal caregiver burnout or if living with severe contamination OCD for years is starting to break me mentally.

My wife developed severe contamination OCD during COVID while pregnant with our daughter. It has now been five years. Daily life became centered around rituals, showering, avoidance, and accommodations. I adapted to it for years thinking things would eventually improve, but they mostly became more extreme over time.

We finally started ERP therapy a few months ago. There were around 10-12 sessions total, and once I became involved directly in ERP/accommodation work, we only made it through about 3 sessions before it became too overwhelming for her. ERP basically stopped about a month ago, and since then things have emotionally hit me hard.

I have noticed myself changing over the years:
- becoming more irritable and short-tempered
- emotionally numb and exhausted
- venting constantly
- feeling hopeless because nothing I tried seemed to help
- losing patience and empathy at times
- mentally checking out
- leaning toward daily drinking just to shut my brain off at night

The part that messes with me is that I know she is suffering too. I do not think she is choosing this. But at the same time, I feel like I have spent five years slowly adjusting my entire life around OCD, and now I do not even recognize myself emotionally anymore.

I feel guilty even typing this because she is the one with OCD, not me. But I honestly do not know anymore what is a “normal” reaction to years of stress, accommodations, arguments, isolation, lack of intimacy, and feeling trapped by someone else’s anxiety.

For spouses or caregivers of people with severe OCD:
Did you notice yourself emotionally changing over time?
Did you become angry, numb, resentful, depressed, or dependent on unhealthy coping habits?
How did you know when you were burned out versus becoming mentally unhealthy yourself?

I think I spent years focusing entirely on her condition and ignored what it was doing to me mentally.

What really bothers me the most is I am living two completely different lives inside house vs outside house.
Still go to work, do my best at job, mingle with colleagues, losing interest in coming back home to the lifeless living. But its like I can’t be mad because I still have chores and list of things to do as a normal living person.

There are so many wrong things I have do; list is outrageously long. Plus not having any family member of mine in states, closest friends being 6 hours away, not even sure If I can sit down and talk it out with someone about how I feel deep inside.