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 feel so sorry for him having to live in this atmosphere, he needs to get out of there fast, for his mental health.

🤣🤣🤣Yes I can see that too.

In normal western culture we don't use toilet slippers or worry about inside or outside clothes. Laundry bills must be huge.

I’m afraid if this is true it’s borderline rude.

Do you have a bucket of disinfectant at the door for them to dip their feet in? Come to think of it, why not a kind of human car wash/ visitor steriliser in your entrance hall: they could strip off, walk through it on entry to be disinfected, then reclad in sterilised clothing.

There is nothing lovelier than jumping into a bed of freshly laundered linen after a shower and hair wash and putting on clean pjs. But we can’t expect to spend our whole life in that state of relative sanitisation all the time. Otherwise our epitaph will be : “ She kept clean.” There just isn’t time to live a full life as well.

You need to go back to the doctor, otherwise you face a very lonely life.

What are 'toilet slippers'? Do you only wear then inches bathroom? Have never come across that if so.

FWIW the only thing that would bother me is the handwashing. But then I sleep naked, so my standards are very different to yours.

With the exception of the post loo hand wash nothing you state is a real risk

so I think you have to take a step back and realise that these are intrusive thoughts 💭

its a mental blip at your end rather than him actually doing anything wrong

is treat this as a mental health condition personally , rather than saying he’s wrong and has to adhere to your specific ways

You have OCD and those rules are completely unreasonable. I’m amazed your husband goes along with it.

@Jerusalemaa I'm genuinely shocked that you would provide house clothes and beach sandals for your guest. Whilst I would always offer to remove my shoes to protect the carpets when I visit someone, there is no way I would consider wearing anyone else's shoes no matter how thoroughly they had been washed, let alone their clothes. How on earth do you cope when someone farts when they are sitting on your sofa?

I think another problem I have observed with ocd type issues round cleanliness is that there is often an underlying assumption that it comes with a sort of superior position: if basic cleanliness is good, uber cleanliness must be uber good, which doesn’t necessarily follow. Often the clean freak feels their road is the high road so it is for the partner to up their game to the same lofty standards, rather than recognising they are in fact dragging their partner down into their altered reality.

There was recently a thread about daily loofahing and you could see the Holier Than Thou attitude coming through strongly from those who believed in the most rigorous routines.

I do actually know someone who asks people not to fart on their leather sofa.

OP seems to have succeeded in convincing people her H doesn't wash his hands at all. He does (and with soap!), she just doesn't consider that he scrubs for long enough. And, honestly, the mental image of her listening at the door timing the scrubbing is enough to show that this is a mental health issue.

How do you function out in the world? You must find it unbearable to shake hands with a new aquaintence or hug a friend? Eat in restaurants?

Your dh is doing.nothing wrong except leaving his.clothes on the floor! You need to seek help for your mental health.

The thing is, if you split with him, are you going up find anyone who meets your OCD's definition of not being 'a contaminant'? His level of hygiene sounds totally normal, and the problem is the OCD. So you have to choose between the OCD and him/a relationship basically.

For those of you who insist on "toilet slippers" and "indoor/outdoor/bedroom clothes" (I'd never heard of them prior to this thread), if you have a family I'm picturing a house with piles of slippers outside every bathroom/loo and mountains of laundry.

If you go in and out of the house multiple times a day - school run/shopping/appointment - do you use the same outdoor/indoor clothes each time that day, or is it fresh outfit every single time? The thought of that exhausts me!

It sounds like your OCD is well on its way to ruining your marriage.

What is striking is you are taking no responsibility for the situation. You think your husband is doing this to you. Your OP doesn't even split it fifty fifty. It's all him causing this problem with his decisions.

You don't either seem to have awareness for how hard this must be for your husband. Imagine feeling toxic to your wife, when you are doing things in a perfectly normal way... feeling there are 'rules'. Feeling that when you are in the toilet your wife is listening in and assessing whether you are doing things to her standard.... feeling her anger and blame, even when you are leading life in a normal way, and trying to follow her instructions.

OP, yes your husband should care about your feelings and try to do simple things to meet your preferences. But ultimately, you are responsible for not allowing your OCD to make both your lives hell. I would go back to therapy and persevere this time. And cut your husband some slack.

Just pants in bed is fine as is bare footed walking the bathroom. Not proper hand washing after the loo is not. I still sing happy birthday twice when I wash my hands to make sure they are clean. Thanks Covid. This could be a dealbreaker for both of you. Depends who cares more.

What on earth do all you covered feet people actually DO to the floor in your bathroom?? I make sure everything ends up in the toilet bowl. I thought it was normal not to spray effluent and urine about?

This will ultimately break up your marriage OP unless you get help. You are ill.

No I wouldn't. Not even remotely. I'm not and never have been a fanatical handwasher and I'm still here to tell the tale! As for toilet slippers, the mind boggles.

You had me on the fence until "toilet slippers" this is a you problem. You are damaging your marriage by expecting him to conform to you mental illness, you have OCD, me too, it is your responsibility to manage.

Nothing he does is unhygienic, he washes his hands, albeit quickly, after the loo, doesn't wear shoes in the house, wears pants to bed rather than sleeping naked.

Honestly you should try living with my husband. Yours sounds a saint and a lot more hygienic than mine.

I can't bring myself to be intimate with mine, at times due to this. I can understand where you are coming from. I'm not sure what to suggest...once the icks there it never goes.

I hope you find something that helps.

YABU to view your husband as a contaminant. From what you describe, he isn’t.
Either you have become ill or you and he are from different cultures. Or even both. The fact you have been wearing bathroom slippers from a young age makes me suspect this.

I know from experience that it’s very hard to live with a person from one of those cultures that demands such high performing habits of cleanliness as you suggest your husband should adhere to. It’s hard to adopt new practises if you aren’t born into that culture and even harder to keep going with them especially when in a rush.

If it’s a culture problem and if you live out of the country of your culture then I think it’s your job to learn to relax your cleanliness regime to an extent he’s happy with, so that you are both compromising, not just him.

If it isn’t a culture problem then I still think the onus is on you to seek medical help for your mental health issue and counselling for your marriage as you already know your behaviour is driving him away.

I know it’s not going to be easy to fix this, but labelling him a contaminant is really quite insulting so this is an urgent issue to start addressing asap if you want to save your marriage.

This reminds me of the Friends episode with apartment pants…

It's actually healthier to be less clean - you need to be exposed to germs to build up defenses. People in sterile environments get more sickness, so your worries about contamination aren't routed in reality.

OP I have OCD and so wanted to make some points which you might find helpful.

Regarding therapy, it might not have worked if the therapist wasn't training in OCD.

Typically, CBT is best to treat OCD and so I would suggest you go down that route. In addition, I would strongly suggest you go on fluoxetine. I went on this and it just changed my life for the better. I was able to feel free from the restrictions of the OCD and actually live my life!

Lastly, it is often a trigger that makes you this way. You have mentioned your husband and his habits. But what is the marriage like overall? You have mentioned past trauma, is there something he is doing that relives that?

Sometimes you have to remove the trigger- mine was an ex partner and once they were out the picture, life improved.