The thread about people's perceptions of OCD has got me thinking about DH's incredibly annoying behaviour. He does have OCD (with checking and anxiety over really silly things) but it's not so bad that it takes over his life, iykwim.
I find the most annoying thing about living with DH is that becomes incredibly controlling because of the OCD. Actually, I'm not sure how much is him just being an arse and how much is the OCD. I think the need to control comes from the OCD, but the really annoying stuff really is him being a total arse.
He insists that I do things but then stands over me/nags or questions me relentlessly afterwards to make sure I do it his way/on his timetable. For example, he insists that I talk to tradesmen/estate agents/the council/all sorts of other people on the phone sometimes (because he's decided on his own version of a 'fair' division of labour, about which I will moan say more in a minute) but then complains that I approach it in the same way he would. Whatever I do is the wrong way. And he questions me on every aspect of the conversation; I'm almost expected to recite the whole thing back to him. I've lost count of the number of times I've said, 'if you want to know exactly what they say/it done the way you'd do it, you have to speak to them yourself'.
I get really pissed off when he decides the timetable for things too, and often respond by leaving it much longer than I would have just because I refuse to be controlled in that way. Im aware that's a bit passive aggressive, but saying 'no' never gets me anywhere as he refuses to accept that I might have other things to do.
For example, last week I was working on important stuff that I needed to concentrate on. DH was doing some work on our new house (that I didn't ask him to do, he decided it had to be done and it had to be done that day). He phoned me up and told me that I had to phone a tradesman and get him to come round. I was doing something else, so I didn't do it immediately. A little later he phoned to tell me about a problem (he had caused) and I had to go and pick him up. I still hadnt phoned the tradesman, as i wasnt going to do it until id finished my work. Then he spent hours complaining at me and going on about how he was unreasonable asking me to do something when he's doing everything else for the house, etc, etc. He just cannot and will not accept that he doesn't have any right o phone me up and tell me to drop everything and do whatever he's decided needs done at that moment. I would never phone him at work and tell him to drop everything and, say, make a hairdresser appointment for me.
And that brings me to the division of labour stuff. He has this idea of a 'fair' division of labour in his head and he sees it all as a kind of trade off. He will not do anything unless I do something as well. So, as in the previous example, he decided that he was doing work on the house so I had to do something as well. The most annoying thing is that this division of labour does not include all the household tasks, only those 'visible' to DH.
Take a typical day. I will get DS2 up and dressed and myself up and dressed. Then I have to do a nursery/school/work run, where I drop everyone else off and then come back home to do my own (FT) work (I can work at home most days). This means that I leave at the back of 8 and don't get back til after 9, whereas DH gets in to work before 9. I then have to do a work/nursery pick up in the evening (DS1 walks home from school himself), which means I have to stop work about 4.30 and don't get home until about an hour later. Because I'm at home, I do all the sick child care and lots of other household tasks. I also do all the cooking, which is very time consuming (and also comes with doing all the meal planning, the shopping and sticking to a budget that DH won't hyperventilate over). Being made to account for why our weekly shop for a family of 4 was £70 rather than £60 (when we can afford for me to spend double that every week!) drives me mad.
All DH is supposed to do is the washing up, the hoovering, putting the bins out and the washing (and then it's only because he is ridiculous about controlling how things are washed and always complains that I've washed his clothes 'wrong'). He does not always do any of this. I have to wash up at least once a week, often more, because he huffs and puffs about how tired he is (I have an autoimmune condition and fatigue is a major issue; he does not)/complains that I've used too many pans or utensils, etc. I regularly have to do the bins and the washing (even though I then face complaints about it being wrong). Nonetheless, DH will sometimes come in from doing the washing up, sit down next to me on the couch and then tell me to get him a cup of water. It seems that in his head, he has done a task ('for me') so that means I have to do something for him. When I utterly refuse, he acts all hurt and says that he just thought I could do something nice for him.
He almost never does something without expecting a balancing out in me doing something else. This wouldn't be so bad if he actually included all necessary tasks in his accounts, but all the things I do everyday don't seem to count. Not once in the last 3 years has he taken on the cooking while I've been there (no matter how bad I feel). The best he'll suggest is a take away, but then I either have to go out and pick it up or do the washing up, or both.
DH does 'cook' for himself and the kids when I'm away for work. I have to commute (nearly 2 hours each way, door to door) for work once or twice a week (but not all year round). Usually I try to make sure that I leave when everyone else does, and come home in time to make dinner (meaning a lot of time on the train for very little time in my office). One of those days I leave before 7am and don't finish work until 8.30pm and don't get home til after 11pm. This means that DH has to sort the kids out and produce a dinner, and even wash up. I have to either leave some left overs for him to reheat or buy some filled pasta and sauce that he can make himself. the horror! I have to commute because we moved to this part of the country for DH's job. I used to be able to get to work in 10 minutes but then DH got a job and I had to be the one that commutes. (there are advantages to where we live, but still, he doesn't seem to appreciate what I have to sacrifice both at work and at home to do this). In DH's mind though, he has to do all this work looking after the kids so it requires me to do more to balance it out.
The other area of control that really gets to me is our finances. I earn considerably more than DH. My wages are paid into a joint account, and this is where all the rent, bills, childacre and other everyday spending comes from. I set up a joint account like this when DH was unemployed and it was the entire household income, largely because I didn't want to be the sort of person that restricts their partner's access to money. Once DH got a job, however, he elected to have his wages paid into his sole account. He claims this is to make sure we saved as much as possible for a house deposit/renovation costs, etc. He keeps this money in a variety of savings accounts in his name only. I have absolutely no savings in my name because there's never any money left in the joint account at the end of the month for me to save. If it looks like there's too much money in the joint account, DH will transfer some to his accounts and then he'll transfer money into the joint account as and when necessary. If the joint account funds are running low, he'll transfer as little as possible into the account to make sure things are paid. He'll usually transfer a similar amount back into his account after I've been paid again.
This means I have access to very little money and always have to think before buying anything. I can't buy train tickets for work without checking first because there is rarely enough money in the account to cover it. He'll transfer money if I ask him but it's a bit humiliating having to ask. I also hate the feeling that I don't have any money. I was a single parent at university for many years and I never had any money. I had to watch every penny I spent and I still ended up with a big overdraft. As soon as I started working, I started paying off that overdraft and it was all gone before I even set up the joint account. Yet, DH uses the fact that I used to have an overdraft as an excuse for why he needs to remain in control of our money. His OCD means that he compulsively checks his online banking, and he interrogates asks me about everything I've spent money on if he doesn't recognise it. But I don't think it's really an excuse for squirrelling away all the money where I can't get it without asking.
In some ways, it doesn't matter as we're renovating a house right now so all the savings will soon be spent but I do resent not having access to money. I often don't buy things because I know there won't be any money in the joint account and then complains that I don't obsessively check the bank account or ask for some money. I don't really see why I should have to do either of these things.
Having written all that down, it sounds like our relationship is dire. It really isn't as bad as that sounds (I think this is often the problem with posts in relationships). But I guess I'm wanting to know what parts of this are due to DH's OCD (and that I should learn to tolerate better) and which parts are just him being an arse.
It's hard for me to tell because he tends to turn everything around in an argument so that I look like I'm unhinged or something. I am aware that I'm decreasingly tolerant of things DH does, and I end up very angry at him. He then makes it out that because he's calm and I'm not, then I must be the one in the wrong. For example, I find his obsessions with things being 'clean' very difficult to tolerate (not least because the dirty sod leaves used tissues all around the house that I have to clean up).
He almost never listens to me, and he's a bit deaf so he claims he doesn't hear me, so I often end up having to shout. He almost never listens to anything I say unless I shout (and he is not that deaf). It's frustrating because it feels like I either have to give in and do things his way (in which case he never notices that I have compromised) or I have to shout to have my point of view heard (and the, of course, I'm being unreasonable). So I quietly compromise about 90% of everything and then on the 10% of stuff that I think really matters I have to be really stubborn over. Then, of course, I'm unreasonable and always have to have my own way.
For example, he was clearing massive piles of junk (that he'd insisted on holding on to) out of our garage. I was just leaving him to it and not interfering in his decisions. Then he picked up a box and I asked him to just leave that one and I'd look through it later (as i was cooking at the time). But he didn't pay the slightest bit of attention and started going through the box. I hate it when he does looks through my stuff because he is always suspicious and will always find something to be annoyed/disappointed with me about in it. So I asked again and again but he just kept talking over me and ignoring me. Eventually the only way to stop him going through the box (of old paperwork that didn't affect him, but that he'd have insisted on interrogating me about) was to shout and take the box off him. However, that meant that I was clearly in the wrong and a shrieking harpy. But I really don't know what else I was supposed to do when he was so blatently ignoring me.