u/AnywhereLiving3404

I just recently discovered this PD and I feel like it fits my partner well as well as members of her immediate family.

in the nearly 2 decades we've been together I have done my best to be a better partner to her and live up to her standards. Including my thoughts and weighing my concerns on "big" life decisions has been an issue, and when I bring it up this falls on deaf ears or is net with "you said you were 'ok' with it"Physical intimacy has always been lacking, of course the typical advice to improve this is geared to men who don't try and generally seem pretty awful to have even as a roommate. I have thoughtfully expressed how I felt my needs were being minimized . We've tried couples therapy a number of times where I feel like the "standard advice" of 'help out more,' 'women need to feel connected emotionally,' and 'women gave responsive desire' were all dispensed. So naturally I try to better myself, meet her needs even moreso, and nothing changes.

Several heartfelt carefully worded discussions with emphasis on how I feel about things are universally met with "I'll work on these things" or "I just don't need it like you do" or "I want to be able to do this for you" but again... here we are

When I stumbled on this subreddit and the OCPD one generally a lightbulb went off. Many of the challenges others are facing i feel like she is facing and many of the challenges associated with being partnered with an OCPDer I feel like I am facing. The challenge is.... she's "nice" about her demands so when I shared it with her that I think this might be something she struggles with and I was at first very hopeful because she was receptive and made an appointment with her therapist right then.

Of course; she has her appointment, her therapist reads out of the DSM V the symptoms and together they come to the agreement "this doesn't fit" I read the same thing and I feel like it does fit. So now I'm feeling like I'm gaslighting myself into thinking maybe I'm the problem again.

I got a referral to a couples therapist from my therapist and I'm hopeful it will finally be the thing that helps, that starts to inch things in the correct direction but I don't have much hope.

I have thoughts nearly every day of "should it be this hard to be married?" and "is this really what I wanted?"

I (37M) suspect my wife (39F) is OCPD... Together 15 years give or take

She has many of the tell-tale signs

Very averse to absolutely anything she deems "clutter," very much preoccupied with the budget, things need to be "just so," she will pour herself into anything she deems "worthy" of her attention but will not be willing to practice new things she claims she wants to do but if it's outside of this ... She will say she wants to but she won't

From my perspective, I always prided myself on my ability to build or fix most anything and I would usually have a pretty good idea of how long it would take. I have run a business in one way or another since my teen years in addition to working a "normal" job and my businesses, at their worst, would break even. I always described myself as a "self-starter" but I find myself paralyzed by fear of breaking "a rule" or "spending too much"

In addition to this I have graduate degrees, as does my wife- so despite me having undiagnosed ADHD until being an adult, I managed to keep my tasks somewhat organized.

After she finished her graduate program it was "my turn" and the next move was intended to be "for me"

I had applied to several graduate programs and was in the process of interviewing when she found a post doc program she just had to do. I scrapped all of the leg work I did

My wife's quest for "no clutter" manifested itself for many years as her "organizing" everything in ways that suited her regardless of whose things they were/are. This resulted in me not knowing where anything was/is, even moreso than what my ADHD brain is capable of ... I make requests to use the different strategies, leave nonconsequential things that I'll be coming back to in a couple hours (e.g. phone charger) alone, to maybe a box she can tuck these things in.. I feel like this is a reasonable compromise but in practice I feel like I may as well have asked for the moon

We aren't rich and we do our best to maintain as little debt as possible, so I understand the preoccupation with the budget in many ways but there are some notable things in regards to this that I'll get to

Our house is pretty undersized and when we were searching for a home I brought this up and that given the state of our finances and how we manage them that it would be very unlikely we would have the money to do an addition any time soon. These concerns were ignored and as she's the manager of the budget. It was the house we purchased.

We are unable to have biologic children of our own for two major reasons. I am infertile because of cancer treatment and two, we are unable to have pentrative intercourse because she has pelvic floor dysfunction and it causes her pain. Once she realized this wasn't "normal" (after a few years of me kindly sharing materials and internet links) she tried several self-guided treatment protocols, professionally guided protocols, and one treatment that cost several thousand dollars- by the time she did this last one I was pretty resigned to her not getting this dysfunction figured out and that the investment didn't make sense (I did not share this feeling with her) but she was determined it was the thing that "would work" .... Surprise! It hasn't.

Once the novelty of our relationship subsided I feel like she approaches sexual interaction almost clinically. She will occasionally become aroused and enjoys when I go down on her. After she finishes she almost always falls asleep with promises to "help me out" in the morning. She almost always forgets that promise though. She is rarely making the experience "exciting" and I feel like she is just trying to get it over with

As a wedding gift, she had boudoir photos taken.

Naturally, she looks hot AF in them. Several years later though I have a really hard time enjoying these because she has never worn those sets for me and she literally threw all of her lingerie out, most of it still had tags- it's not like her body changed or we had a fight. She just ... Threw it all out. Which I find to be a bummer because the few times she did wear something lacey and sexy I made sure to tell her how beautiful I thought she was and how much it turned me on. I also tell her she is beautiful often outside of those times too.

Recently, a friend got married in a semi-romantic place. I packed some things I could wear that were novel and I thought would turn her on. At least she packed her "good" pj's I guess.

She is very particular about her preferences for my personal upkeep. For years I've kept my hair long enough to style despite the fact I mostly work outdoors and wear a hat because she preferred it. I don't grow a beard or a mustache because they repulse her and she "likes it much better when I remove my body hair" now ... I'm happy to do these things for my lover, but when I ask for similar favors I'm met with "maybe for special occasions" which, fair enough. If you guessed Valentines Day, Birthdays, Anniversary, or Christmas are "Special occasions" you'd be wrong. I'm pretty sure there arent any.

When one of my work vans had a major mechanical breakdown we could not make it work with our budget to replace it.... So I've been trying to scavenge parts to put it together enough to not be a yard ornament

One of the ways we try to keep costs down is that I build or repair what I can. Of course, there is a back log and we dont have a garage so i mostly am at the mercy of the mud and if I have these "projects" in the yard it makes her anxious

What I wouldn't give for a gravel pad even just so I wasn't resorting to soggy cardboard and old carpet to avoid laying in the clay while I fix all of our junk

As we are unable to have "children of our own" and she really wants to be a "mom".she ran headfirst into us being foster parents... Which is ok but even if I wanted to say no, no I couldn't

The years of these things have really done a number on my confidence and I don't even know what to do to fix it. I feel like I can only blame myself though because I feel like I kind of lost who I was in trying to meet my partners demands.

As this... Let's call it burnout, was approaching, I read self-help I got diagnosed with ADHD, started medication for that and anxiety, ive been a long-time patient of talk therapy... I felt like I tried all the things inside my control and I stumbled on this subreddit. Shared that I thought my wife might have OCPD, and here's why! Etc

She made an appointment with her therapist who read the diagnosis out of the DSM-V and they agreed together it "didn't sound like her" I read the same thing and was like .... That's you to a T

Anyway I'm at my wits end and I don't know what I'm looking for here. I don't even really want to bother posting this because it all feels unimportant and petty.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and I hope your day goes well