AIBU to think I shouldn't be kicked out of my home and forced into a hotel for the night

[Herbatnikdip]

35M here.

I have put a number of posts on mumsnet asking for some more objective clarity on some the disagreements between myself and my wife.

Today is a more minor one than previously. These kind of debates have in some ways defined our three year marriage.

My wife (38F and successful high achieving professional) is not letting me into the private spaces of our home or touching my kids because earlier today I tried to fix her bike without gloves.

I got a small amount of grease on my hands. I have washed it off and clipped my nails, see pictures attached.

Currently my wife is insisting that I stay in a hotel tonight and that I cant spend time with or touch my children (daughter 21 months or daughter 7 months) because she is worried about the risk of contamination from the grease harming them. Also we had plans to make some Ikea furniture which needs to be postponed for the same reason. No amount of washing/ cleaning will convince her that I am safe.She thinks she is an educated professional who googled grease which is harmful if ingested or swallowed by children.

Am I being unreasonable thinking that its unreasonable that I should be kicked out of my home and not allowed to see my children because of this?

Get a grip and stop being equally over the top as the posters wife is.. some people's advice on here is absolutely pathetic .

She is mentally unwell. Have you read the previous post? She needs serious help. She isn’t capable of looking after children if she is how she acts and responds to daily normal activities. She is abusing them all.

Your wife is unstable. She needs a psychiatrist.

You need to ring social services. They need to be involved.

Stay home with your children ring the crisis line and say you want help need support today and want your wife taken away or you will take things further with social services your wife needs to accept whats going on with her.. but you don't leave your children she goes and gets support or its over x

I wouldn't be arsed with this nonsense. Your wife's mental health is not your responsibility, your children's wellbeing is. I'd be doing everything that I could to get me and my children away from this woman. Life is too short to saddle yourself with this.

This with bells on

I'd contact social services. Goodness knows what processes she goes through before touching her own children, and how much they're prevented from exploring their own environment. This is absolutely terrifying.

Presumably there's a paper trail of all the mental health involvement there's been so there's a sheaf of evidence about her behaviour. Your children are being damaged every day.

The fact that you call today's events relatively minor, is worrying in itself.

She is extremely unwell and needs help.

If she’s unwilling to get help voluntarily, you might have to go down the route of involuntary psychiatric treatment, inpatient care.

You can reach out to Police, Social Services or a crisis team if you have one. She will hate you for it at the start, but in the long term you’d be doing her and your children a favour, once she’s well, she’ll understand that.

Id recommend you get therapy yourself and your children to help understand her condition.

If you want to go that route, call the police immediately and tell them she’s having a mental health crisis, is putting your children at risk of emotional harm and potentially physical harm (For example if one of your children gets dirt on them, how would she react)

OP, come on now. You know you’re not being unreasonable. Your wife is abusive to you and your children, and it sounds like she has been for years.

If she is hiding how bad she is from professionals, she’s completely self-aware - she may be mentally unwell, but she is clearly “with it” enough to know that telling the truth about her behaviour would be seen as the illness it is. So I don’t buy that she thinks it’s normal - she knows it isn’t, or she wouldn’t hide it.

You need to report her abuse, and escape with your poor children. She is actively harming them, and none of you deserve that. Maybe then, when you’ve reported her and she stops getting her own way, she will start to engage with treatment.

Does she acknowledge she has OCD at all or has she lost all insight?

She cannot order you to a hotel or assault uou in front of the children. She's clearly very mentally unwell. You need to calmly say to her that you are not going to a hotel and if she assaults you you will call the police.

I think you need to get in touch with her GP or a community mental health team ASAP to say she's lost insight and is assaulting you in front of the kids. I'm sure she'll feel horribly betrayed and scared but you and the kids do not deserve this and she needs help.

OCD is often very treatable.

What do you hope to get out of this post. You start with some pictures of your hands but wait until the second post to outline her MH issues. Your AIBU is about you rather than about what you can do.

Your choice is to support her, or to leave her. It’s that simple.

I think this is the sort of googling op's wife has done.

My two friends I described are both the same. Always quoting "advice" that involves large amounts of substance abuse, and using that as a reason to avoid any risk of traces of the substance. This could be anything from Teflon on cooking pans or mercury in tuna fish or E coli in raw salad.

Is there another family member that could stay with her overnight? You need to get urgently professional advice about a way forward/treatment. If she refuses to comply with with treatment then unfortunately she will become a risk to her children and risk losing custody of them

She is very unwell. I suggest that you ring 111, press button 2 for MH help and explain what has been going on all this time. You should be given advice about what to do next.

Thanks all for the fairly impressive eruption of posts. The acknowledgement how unreasonable this is balm to my soul. Sometimes I wonder if Im mad because we live in a little bubble. We are quite isolated and that is half the problem. We lack the normalising influence of sharing our lives with others. Many friends and family have been pushed away. Her parents are some help but live in a different country, and tend to side with their daughter perhaps a bit too much.

It's been a long battle, the truth my wife is getting better and is now starting to see a psychiatrist. There is acknowledgement there is a problem here, which hasn't been the case for a long while. On the back of this evening she is allowing me to write a letter to her psychiatrist which Im very grateful for.

To those who say Im being brainwashed by her- maybe to some degree- who wouldn't after all this time, but similarly we all need to make compromises and I have also been educated on some things that I didn't know about. We have had to negotiate to survive together. Alex also makes compromises for me (occasionally, not what I want, not enough) but she is an extremely devoted mother. I disagree with many of the manifestations of her anxiety, but I don't doubt her absolute commitment to our kids. I firmly believe that DW is on a better trajectory and that her care for our kids (and my presence to try and take sting out of some of her extreme elements) is the best shot they have, at least for now.

I am not a never never divorce guy, but I did mean my vows when I said them, including in sickness and health.

Are the children ever allowed to get dirty?

Sounds like post natal depression, extreme OCD can be a major symptom. Try to convince her to make an appointment at your family practice ASAP.

She wont be sectioned for something like this for goodness sake!

And if he refuses to go and she starts to scream the place down and then calls the police, the police will probably simply believe her and remove him from the property

If she started a thread on here, no doubt the truth would be mangled and posters would be egging her on to call the police and report that he is abusive.

Ask her to Google how contaminated a hotel remote control is and see if she still wants you to stay in one tonight!
In all seriousness though, she is bat-shit crazy and needs professional help with her mental health. I would be concerned about this level of irrational thinking and how well she is coping at the moment?

OP you may not want to go to the police or social services but at the very least you need to make sure some professional knows what's going on regarding her attacking you so you have some evidence if she makes false accusations against you.

It sounds like there is a lot of evidence around her mental state but you need to log the abuse.

Maybe a GP or solicitor. Or counsellor (if you see one).

Do not go to a hotel. Your wife needs help, serious help. She could be suffering from post natal psychosis, a serious mental health condition brought on by disregulated hormones post childbirth. Go home and phone NHS 111 and say you think your wife has post natal psychosis. Who knows what other mad decisions she is making the safety of the children is paramount. Another option is to phone your local duty social worker , there should be someone at the end of the phone 24/7 for safeguarding issues which this is. Mother's can make mad decisions in this state.

Perhaps you can convince her by telling her that in the US where I now live, there is a trial going on of a woman (a well regarded labor and delivery nurse) who went from postnatal depression to postnatal psychosis, killed her three children (the youngest was 8 months old), slit her own wrists and jumped out the 2nd story window to kill herself. She is now paralyzed from the sternum down and is on trial because no matter how she tried to convince people, doctors she was mentally ill all they did was prescribe meds. She was on 13 meds at the time of the murders.

Are you the wife?

Sorry, you need to keep a diary. Everything recorded, photo's too.
Sounds like your children and yourself are not safe in this relationship. I would seek some professional help and guidance about your marriage and custody of the children. They shouldn't be witnessing what they are witnessing and you shouldn't be treated this way. If your wife flat refuses to get help then you may not have an option other than to leave with your children.