I view my husband as a contaminant

[Cappuccino17]

I feel terrible saying this but I think my husband is unclean. He showers etc. But I am quite fussy borderline OCD due to past traumas. This is affecting our marriage a lot. I hate him touching things including me as I don't think he washes his hands much or for long enough after visitng the loo.

We had a huge argument recently because i heard the loo flush and he was out in seconds. I had to question if he had washed his hands at all. But i noticed he does a really quick soap rub and rinse and dashes. It has made me feel so uncomfortable but when i tell him he distances himself from me and tells me I'm nitpicking. I don't like him touching things in the home and me as a result and feel on edge. It obviously affects our intimacy too he doesn't understand how much this affects our marriage now because he won't change his actions.
He chucks his clean clothes on the floor and rewears them, he also wears just underwear to bed which i hate and find unhygienic and wish he would wear shorts and lastly he walks in the bathroom barefoot and I've always worn toilet slippers from a young age and he won't listen. It all disgusts me a lot and creates so much tension between us.

Am i being unreasonable?

I am really sorry to hear you are suffering so much. It must also be very frightening to realise your family could break down and your children really suffer if you cannot get a handle on this.

life is imperfect. And dangerous. And smelly. Shit things happen. Disease is a reality. Trying to control it with hygiene won’t change that.

i come from a broken home. It’s impacted everything from my choice of partner, to my work, to my educational outcomes, my weight, mental health, everything.

If your husband needs to remove himself and your kids to get away from your contaminant mentality it will be devastating for you all. This is urgent. Please do all you can to find a positive resolution to your mental health problem and best of luck.

i am sure you, like most parents, would move mountains to do the best for your kids.

I also wanted to raise that wearing toilet slippers isn't a terrible practice

After everything you’ve read here you’re still just presenting your OCD as normal and unproblematic. I think this is what pp mean when they say you;re not taking your OCD seriously - not that it’s a joke, but that you don’t think its a problem, or you’re too scared to address it.

It is if it’s making you anxious and breaking your family apart. In the UK it is not normal to have separate slippers to go into the bathroom, coupled with extreme germaphobia it’s a practice that’s not going to help you get better. You’re trying to justify it when you should be seeking help.

Unfortunately it seems you’ve got yourself in to a position where you haven’t taken responsibility for making necessary changes, and so you’re looking to your husband to make changes to how he is to soothe your anxieties. What you should be doing is investing time and effort in to overcoming these anxieties so they don’t negatively impact your family. You need to do that by engaging in the right therapy, and finding a new therapist. If nothing changes you will likely drive your family away and make your children unwell emotionally themselves. They all deserve better and so do you.

OP, sending you so many kind thoughts and support. It is clear what a hard time you have been having.

I think from what you’ve said, and simply from the act of reaching out here, you know and are ready to think about getting some support for yourself.

From what I’ve read, everyone has focused on one aspect of your post, but I wonder, were you also reaching out from the fear of losing your love?

Would it be worth going to get some help to strength and heal the relationship with your husband?

It sounds as though he loves you very much, but has been finding this season hard. Working with someone might help to keep lines of communication open on this next stage of your journey. Do you think he’d be open to that? Would you?

For some context i have struggled with a few traumatic events in the past 2 years nothing marriage related. I've been married for 9. So I've not been like this always. My husband reminisces about the old carefree wife i once was, i wouldn't care about germs at all really! I can't remember what that feels like anymore. My memory is erased of that relaxed feeling. I miss my old self.

This is really important - you are currently in the grips of OCD and it’s replaced you. None of this is ‘preferences’; it’s the effects of the mental illness that has taken over your life.

You need to get your life - and yourself! - back.

Iv read many people have said i am difficult to live with and would have walked away by now. My husband has tried to walk out on me with the kids or talked about walking out on me many times. Understandable. But he never did it.

This is a sign that it is extremely bad. And it is obviously affecting the kids too. Your eldest’s anxiety around toilet slippers in your house is a clear sign that your mental health is negatively affecting her.

Can you afford to pay for good therapy that works for you? It is definitely worth going to the GP, being entirely honest about how bad the OCD is (your marriage and family is at risk here) and exploring all treatment options - medication and therapy.

You can feel much better than this. It’s not who you are; it’s OCD.

I’m glad if you’ve found even one helpful thing OP.

You just need to work with that thought and slowly retrain yourself. There will be lots of help if you need it; you just have to reach out.

It really will be a relief for you to move through this. Remember you are only trying to reduce germs to a manageable level ( and actually only a fairly limited variety of germs, mostly food related in the way we live now) - which millions upon millions down the centuries have figured out practices for that are suitable in this country. Follow and trust your fellow humans: you only need to do what the rest of us are doing to stay safe. This isn’t about purifying your environment completely - because you simply can’t. End of . It was a valiant attempt 🤣

The toilet slippers thing is a bit like how someone with no history of eating disorders can skip meals if they aren't feeling like eating and it's not a problem - maybe it's even helpful to them, whereas someone in recovery from an ED has to be very careful about missing meals and not let it trigger old harmful patterns of thinking and behaviour.

You are in a similar position to someone with an ED who has to make it a practice to eat 3 balanced meals and snacks and ensure they eat sufficient calories each day and stay away from things that might trigger them to harmful restriction of food.

In your case, you need to make it a practice to only follow the most lenient practices that are necessary for good hygiene. Bathroom slippers are fine for people who find it a charming Japanese quirk or whatever but they are not for someone who needs to recover from a compulsion over hygiene.

This is, I think, good advice.

It’s why all the posts saying that the OP’s husband could be ‘more hygienic’ or that it’s just preference/culture etc are not helpful. This OP is in the grips of some serious OCD that is negatively impacting her whole household and causing her husband to want to leave with the children. The situation and problem is so far away from just admiring he Japanese for bathroom slippers etc.

This is a horrible situation for the OP and her family. It doesn’t help to tell her that bathroom slippers are ‘normal’ when it’s a manifestation of harmful thought processes. It’s no better than telling a recovering alcoholic that it’s fine and normal to have the odd glass of champagne at a celebration. Or, as you say, telling a recovering anorexic that it’s totally fine and normal to skip meals sometimes. It may be for most people, but for someone who has struggled with alcoholism or anorexia the situation is completely different.

It sounds like rather than CBT not being for you, it was the method of delivery (lots of typing and notes) and the therapist (for some reason you didn't gell).

Because you mention that your OCD came about after traumas, there is also emerging strong evidence that EMDR (a NHS approved trauma therapy) is effective with OCD when there are traumas. So an EMDR therapist who also has an expert training in OCD could perhaps be where you will find most help. Unfortunately it isn't easy to find this person. Although there are actually lots in the NHS, the system is such that they try to rush people through very often and don't give you access to the experts. If you are going via the NHS you need to be assertive, they should be giving you OCD specific questionnaires to complete and not discharging you until there is significant improvement in them for instance. Privately, there are unfortunately too many who advertise on the directories that they deliver CBT and/or EMDR when they have minimal training. This page has good advice https://www.ocduk.org/overcoming-ocd/accessing-ocd-treatment/accessing-ocd-treatment-privately/finding-a-private-therapist/ and this is one of the reliable directories for EMDR therapies. https://map.emdrassociation.org.uk/

Your poor DH. You are making him feel like a monster, for eg washing the kettle after he's touched it. I'm surprised he hasn't left.
You need some help with this OP, or you will lose your family. It is also clearly making you unhappy too.

OP I really feel for you. I hope you can get more help. From what you have said it genuinely seems your husbands hand washing is absolutely fine. You don’t need to scrub and scrub your hands after using the toilet.

OP I say this in the gentlest way possible, because I know you are really suffering, but you really need to prioritise getting help. It may be that the therapist you saw before wasn't right for you. It doesn't mean the next one won't be.

Make an appointment with the GP, make a list of bullet points: how much time you spend thinking about germs, all the issues with your husband, any things you do compulsively, any other obtrusive thoughts etc

Going back to my close friend, he was initially treated with CBT and an SSRI (an antidepressant) and made no progress. His doctor added in anti-psychotic medication and he got better quite quickly. He's doing really well now. Yes this is hurtful for your DH but you are not yourself, you're unwell.

I was wondering last night in a rather frivolous way what happens if they wake up and find someone breaking into the car? does DH leap out of bed, run to the bedroom door, tear off bedroom clothes, put on lounge clothes, run to the front door, tear off house clothes, out on outdoor clothes then run after the thief? I mean, the car would be long gone, wouldn't it? and he'd have to reverse the process to get back into bed. Same with a house fire. I bet rules wouldn't apply then.

And when they change, does it have to be right down to the skin every time? Onerous isn't the word.

When you start to see everything as contaminated, it can be hard to imagine that you will ever feel differently. But you will.

It sounds like the trauma removed your sense of grounding, peace, control. And that you're afraid if you don't control everything, bad things will happen. So your brain has latched onto the idea that everything is potentially unsafe and you have to try to make it safe.

But we can't make everything safe. We can't control everything. Bad things happen, people get sick, evil exists. If you spend your whole life fighting and not appreciating what you have, then you end up losing regardless. If your whole life is war, is that even living?

Maybe if you have therapy to address the trauma, the ocd will ease. Right now maybe you're still caught in a loop of fight or flight. And that's no way to live.

Well he hasn’t left OP - and that’s because he loves you. This is hard for you too: as you say, you miss your old self as well and for all the inconvenience to DH - and there will be - there is at least as much exhaustion and anxiety for you to cope with. If you want to move on, you need help and I think the very first step will be admitting to your DH you can see the problem lies with you and ask for his support in finding you the right help.

Bathroom shoes, it is one small step from my bathroom door to the toilet. I wouldn’t be changing my shoes to take one step, it seems over the top.

Maybe your house is enormous though.

My ensuite is literally 2 steps from my bed. Do I have to put slippers on for those 2 steps and then bathroom slippers on to go in the ensuite, and do I need to change clothes at some point too? And I am the only person who uses the ensuite, does that make a difference?

This makes a lot of sense to me.

About the bathroom slippers it's individual to everyone. If you want to know how i do it, I place a pair outside the bathroom and when I'm ready to use the bathroom i just slip off my house slippers and slip on my bathroom slippers.

I have improved because before this I used to strip down to my underwear and not even wear clothes in the bathroom but I have let this habit go somehow and I do feel relieved I no longer do that.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😅😅😅😅😅😅😅🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😂😂😂😂😂😅😅🤣🤣😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆. I have ruptured internally!

This cannot be true OP!!

“ I do feel relieved I no longer do that!” 😂😂🤣🤣
I am also most relieved OP. That was ridiculous - and actually opened you up to a far more unhygienic situation if you couldn’t get your clothes off in time before the loo.

Unbelievable

Never mind. I’m glad it’s stopped. But if you find yourself regressing to that you must put on the brakes.

Can you talk us through why that made you feel bette? I’d actually feel more exposed.

Now that I’ve got over the shock of that, I realise this hard this must have been for you OP. The thought of this is just exhausting. You must have worn yourself down mentally. But if you have improved from that “ habit” you can keep improving.