my partner has OCD. what can I do to make this work?
I hope that it's okay to post here. if it's not, please let me know where I can get help.
My partner has OCD. We've been together for 7 years and OCD has always been a part of her life. I knew going into the relationship that she struggled with it and while it's been hard, I love her very much and I wouldn't trade her for the world.
That said, living with her OCD is starting to get a little difficult for me to manage. Contamination OCD seems the closest fit to her type of OCD and it requires a lot of vigilance from me that is getting hard for me to sustain. Most of the stuff is minor, things like showering whenever my body touches something outside, wiping my phone with alcohol every day, washing my hands before I touch anything clean, wearing slippers in the house, etc. the hard part is her reaction when I mess up. she gets more and more upset at me when I'm not careful. last night she had an outburst when I poured water into the water filter and some of the water splashed out onto the bed. since it could have splashed off an unclean surface, she had to disinfect the area with alcohol and wash her hands. she reminded me right before to be careful and I wasn't, which is my fault. I admit I didn't handle it well and tried to downplay my mistake.
she's started treatment at my behest (she's currently taking SSRIs to manage her anxiety). It's helped with her anxiety immensely, but not so much with her OCD (at least, from what I can tell; i'm sure internally for her it's become more manageable) I don't know if she's considered ERP but she's said that flooding doesn't work for her. I can tell that she's trying her best, but I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.
her OCD isn't so limiting that she can't live her life, and her lifestyle is largely sustainable for her. it's just not for me. I want to make this work though, so what can I do?