My partner doesn’t understand my OCD and it’s causing arguments

[Toymice]

I developed OCD as a child, it was very mild and it still is really, it does affect my life slightly but it isn’t debilitating. I go through phases where it’s worse, usually when I’m stressed.

some of the things that I do are turning all of the switches off (apart from the fridge). He assures me that nothing will happen if they are left on and there won’t be a fire because the fuse will blow instead. But I tell him it’s not really about a fire. I just HAVE to do it. I have been stood in a doorway for 10 minutes battling with myself, trying to fight to urge to leave the plug switch alone. But I always end up going back to it and turning it off. He gets annoyed and says what’s the difference between that switch and the one that’s keeping the fridge plugged in?! I told him I know it doesn’t make sense but I genuinely can’t help the urge. I won’t be able to stop thinking about it, I won’t be able to concentrate on anything else, I will have intense feelings of anxiety and not be able to sleep if I don’t do it.

At night, I spend a long time doing a kind of ritual. If I don’t do it, I have a feeling of guilt and failing people and it will cause them to die. Rationally I know you can’t make someone die by not doing random things in your house. But I absolutely have to do it and I can’t explain it. I have a voice in my head that is like “if you don’t do this, that means deep down you want your mum to die and you don’t care about her”. Again, he gets angry with me and tells me to just go to sleep, he can’t wrap his head around how I can be so illogical. I have tried explaining but I don’t have the words because it’s just a feeling and there is no logic behind it.

It takes me quite a long time to leave the house because no matter how much I check something is in place, I will always think something is wrong. I will check all the switches, make sure my cats aren’t stuck somewhere and they have access to things etc. yet I will continually check every room of the house over and over again and not believe my own eyes. I will look at the tap and say out loud “I am looking at the tap. It is not turned on. The plug is out and the tap is off” same with the doors “the door is open, I am looking right at it and can see it’s open” but it’s never enough. I will still re check just in case I accidentally closed it and didn’t realise. I will take pictures of everything for reassurance.

My boyfriend can’t really cope with this anymore, it is driving him crazy. Once I am out of the house it’s fine. I don’t have any need to do anything when I’m out of the house. The problems arise when I need to leave or when I need to sleep. So throughout the day, if I’m just at home or out and about, I’m fine. But it is now causing tension and arguments between us because he gets annoyed and exasperated with me and then I get angry at him for not understanding when I have explained I’m not doing any of it on purpose countless times!

Is there any hope for us really? I love him so much, we have been together 8 years and got engaged last year. But I have been recently diagnosed with a heart condition which has made me very stressed and overwhelmed and my OCD is a little worse than usual lately. I know I must be difficult to live with, I can appreciate that. But I also feel very misunderstood and alone. Although, I can’t expect him to understand something so confusing and illogical. I am 32 by the way and partner is 28.

@Happiestathome
Glad it's helping for you and your son - and agree, CBT is fabulous therapy.

I could write this post myself. Some of your rituals are very similar to mine. The difference is my partner is understanding and patient.

Like you i don't particually find it impacts my life day to day. My partner knows the rituals. He just waits for them to be complete. He does question them sometimes when a new one comes in. But generally hasnt cared. He pointed out it is ocd. He also highlighted its worse since i had my dc. But i think when you have OCD there is a part of you that doesn't want to address it because doing so stops the rituals and therefore will make the bad thing happen you do the rituals to avoid. It's totally ridiculous. But i know for me that's part of it.

Ultimately though if it bothers him, you can understand why. You have a choice. Seek support and treatment, or don't and see where it goes with him. Either way you need a calm discussion with him on why you do it and how it feels, get him to understand its not a choice. This will also help if you seek treatment.

He might feel obliged to stay with you because of your conditions. Who wants to be the asshole who leaves a sick person?

OCD is treatable. You need a psychologist experienced with it and it's usually a combination of CBT and exposure response prevention. This could change your life for the better and your doctor should have referred you.

Hi OP

You aren’t being unreasonable because you can’t help having this condition.

However it is affecting your partner and you need to seek therapy for it.

I was able to access CBT very quickly after self referring through the NHS. It’s been really helpful.

I was actually motivated to self refer after reading a thread on here about a woman who
had to be the last to order in restaurants/ cafes in order to make sure what she ordered fitted with everyone else’s order. It made me realise how limiting and also controlling my OCD is.

He is staying with you because he loves you but that doesn't mean he is able to stop feeling upset and angry about your OCD, any more than you are able to stop your OCD.

My exh was really inpatient with some of my OCD rituals and behaviours and I often thought he was deliberately sabotaging me.

Silly things like he wouldn’t book plane seats to save money. One of my OCDs is having to have an aisle seat, as I need to know I can always get out of the row readily. Now it will
always be my preference to have an aisle seat, but at least now having had CBT I could board a plane in an emergency where it was too late to choose, and wouldn’t be unable to sit in another type of seat.

Often when people receive a diagnosis for a mental health or neurodivergent condition, there can be a tendency to think ‘this is just who I am, I cannot control nor be held accountable for my behaviours, because this is a diagnosed condition’. That’s very rarely true, and isn’t helpful for the diagnosed person or the people around them. So yes, seek therapy.

That said, he shouldn’t be shouting at you. If he can’t cope with being kept awake, being made late getting places and so on, he should be ending the relationship. If you don’t feel supported, you should end the relationship.

I have OCD and I'd actually be furious if my DH shouted and swore at me about it.
Your DP sounds more irritated than concerned tbh, but I've noticed people on here are particularly unsympathetic about OCD, and think it's a lot more treatable than it is.

Sound like his patience and tolerance has come to an end. If you want this relationship to continue you need to seek help. Its not a question of whether
he understands it or not. But it's obvious he is finding it too stressful to live with.

This is a lot that you have going on right now and I’m really sorry you’re having to deal with all this.
It does sound like a vicious circle - you are (understandably) worried about your recent health news and it’s making your OCD flare up. He is frustrated with how OCD makes you act and is not handling this well (shouting etc.). None of this is pleasant for either of you and it must be difficult for you both.

I think communication is key here. Can you sit down together calmly and talk about this?
From your point of view that your health at the moment is causing your OCD to be more severe and him shouting isn’t helpful.
From his perspective that he may be concerned about your health, but is not dealing with this in a supportive way.

What can you both do to mitigate this (if you want to?). Other posters have talked about how therapy has helped them and that sounds like a good idea.
If he is frustrated by the rituals you need to carry out for now, can he step away and give you both space?
I think if you can explain that you would like to try therapy, but you will need support and not shouting, that may help. Ultimately, you need to work together or decide to call it quits.
I hope, either way, that your surgery goes well and that relieved your stress.

Hi OP, I developed OCD around 7 years ago, I was very unwell by the time I got professional help. I had ERP with medication, and a course of CBT around a year later. I’m so much better than I was and have been able to come off the medication.

In your shoes, I would reach out to your local nhs mental health service and ask for support. It’s not a magic pill, you have to work at the therapy and resist the compulsions which feels impossible, but it’s bit by bit. It would significantly improve your quality of life if you can commit to working on your OCD.

I’ll always have OCD, and it flares up when I’m stressed, but I’m so much better than I was.

Edited to add that my DP has mostly been
amazing, he’s picked up a lot of the things I stopped being able to do around the house. The checking and reassurance seeking annoys him sometimes, but he also knows it flares when I’m stressed or tired and is usually ok. I do think it must be difficult to live with someone with OCD.

I used to do the same as you. Honestly, therapy was freeing!
Unlike your partner, my husband is very understanding and supportive.

I’m just posting because I’m the partner in this scenario, my DH had similar issues.
for me there was an element of me just eventually losing my patience and after a few years it drove me mental having to witness the rituals, whereas initially I had the patience to be more understanding.
3 things that compelled me to post given my experience that I urge you to listen to:
a) the longer you continue those rituals the harder it is to break them and the more they will escalate. Don’t dismiss it as harmless
b) I’m shocked that the GP medicated you with no therapy. I feel that borders on negligent tbh. CBT is incredibly successful in treating OCD but you must engage fully with it
c) don’t dismiss how detrimental years of this is on your partner. I have significant anxiety issues now and I believe that part of that was caused by dealing with my partners rituals and the stress of his ocd.
you can get better, please try x

I could have written this as it's very very similar to how my OCD shows itself and I've had it through childhood. At points, it was absolutely debilitating (hours of checks every night etc) but I've improved it and improved it. Although I would say now it's very mild, but others in my family would probably say otherwise. I'm aware that what's 'manageable' to me might not be to others. I've never sought treatment, I don't know why! And I'm now in my 40s. My DH has always really struggled to understand it but over the years. He's seen me at my worst and been with me for two decades. I know actually use my OCD as a 'tell' of if I'm getting stressed or over tired that I see it coming out more and I recognise it.

What I would say regarding your story is that neither of you are wrong. It must be so so hard on partners. My DH became a challenge to my OCD as your partner is. He started to question, push back, challenge my own brain with it. If I'm honest, as uncomfortable as it was, eventually that helped me. It was a kind of therapy and supported me to push through it. Reassuring me that it was going to be ok and understanding how hard I would find it when pushing through it.

You both can get through this.

Indeed so. I too have lived this as the partner.

Regardless of your OCD, he shouldn’t be shouting at you and slamming cupboards. That is unacceptable behaviour from him.

I think you should be looking at it from another view. Do you want to be with someone who shouts at you like that? It seems your focus is on what he wants, not what you want.

I haven't read all the replies, but I am speaking as someone who had a parent who suffered from anxiety and OCD, and it is an incredibly hard thing to deal with, for all sorts of reasons - more so if you love that person, as it then adds an additional layer of complication - not wanting to leave, not wanting to upset or abandon them, wanting them to get better, and at the same time being frustrated beyond belief with them, and having to deal with the impact they are having on both your life, and their own, which was equally upsetting to watch, if not more.

I am not in you or your partners shoes so your experience may be different, but I can share some of my honest experience and observations in case that helps you understand or reflect. I'm sure I'm not explaining as eloquently as I could, but I'll try my best

• My mum would often minimise her actions. It was always "I just need to do xyz then I'll be fine" - but xyz was often increasingly unreasonable or extreme.
• That put me in a position of having to walk the fine line between supporting and enabling. At the end of the day, I was figuring things out as I went along too, and sometimes felt that "holding the line" was the only way to stop the behaviour escalating even further - but that inevitably resulted in an argument.
• During the thick of things, she would be prone to extreme and unreasonable rage, usually directed at me either as the person "stopping" her, or even just as the person closest to her who she could take her frustration out on. She would be completely unable to recognise or reflect on that behaviour afterwards and in her more rational moments, just swept it under the rug.
• There was also a regular narrative pointing to the fact that her mental state was as the result of a diagnosed illness, and therefore had to be accepted, allowed, ignored, with no personal responsibility. The flip side of that narrative was that my feelings or reactions were always pitched as unreasonable as I had no "excuse". Just because a person doesn't have a diagnosed mental illness, doesn't mean they are never going to experience anger, or anxiety themselves, and it doesn't mean that they are always going to have superhuman levels of insight or self control. It always felt like a one way street where I was constantly the one giving way

I would end by saying that my mum's mental health conditions ended up ruining large chunks of both our lives, so regardless of your partner, I would urge you to seek help - and if what your doctor is currently offering isn't working, seek more x

It seems pretty extreme and debilitating for you both to live like this in my opinion. I wouldn’t like to live like that (either of you). . It’s not “very mild”. It’s affecting both of your lives. I think you need to get some help. If you’ve got additional health problems, it could get even worse with additional stress as you say. I hope you get some help and things improve with both the OCD and your health.

My hubby just takes ages to get ready to go out / get ready on a morning etc. Not OCD but just not being very organised and taking his time doing stuff. It drives me mad waiting for him.

The issue is OP that you can’t make him do anything and nor can we. Perhaps he should leave, but for whatever reasons of his own feels he can’t. Perhaps this doesn’t bother him that much. You only control you - and if his behaviour is such that it’s making your life harder and he won’t change then you can absolutely leave. But you cannot control what he does, and what he ‘should’ do is irrelevant.

I had a different mental health condition, my ex was like this. I got to the point of just crying on the floor like if I'm so mad just leave already!

Eventually I decided I was never going to get well in that relationship. I left him, met my now husband, who supported me through therapy/hospital. I've now been in recovery for over a decade.

2 things can be true, 1) you need more professional support and 2) your fiancee will continue to undermine your progress.

It isn’t mild.

OP you seem more focused on who should leave than getting some more/better treatment. I think an honest chat where you say that you understand that things are getting a little out of control so your plan is to do XYZ to try to get a bit better would go a long way. Good luck!

I think he’s the problem. He’s making it all worse as he’s yelling at you. I have mental health problems ptsd agoraphobia and so on all made a lot worse by stress and people yelling.

Exactly

I've read it gets worse when people enable you and buy into it.

Try and get help