Anger and ocd issues

[Spoton777]

Hi

I wanted to have some advice from those people who live with partners with a form of ocd. Although my partner denies it, I’m positive he has a form of ocd. His typical traits are he doesn’t like change, everything has a place at home, however he is not tidy, he lives in chaos but organised chaos to him… he is a massive hoarder and I struggle with this because I am the opposite, I like to get rid of unnecessary things I feel like it cleanses my soul, I hate clutter and crao let in piles all over the house so we regularly fight over these things. I can’t throw anything away without asking him and he raids the bin to see if I’ve thrown stuff out…he drives me nuts. On top of this he has a bad temper…on most occasions we are good and he has a good heart, but sometimes he lacks empathy towards me and our kids and goes into a massive unnecessary rage about something I feel is ridiculous.

I’ll give you an example…the night before my son’s birthday we were all sat having dinner. I thought we were all finished so started cleaning the plates away. As I was grabbing the plates and emptying in the bin, husband passed a plate from my 2 yr old over to where I was so I emptied in the bin. This resulted in a massive what I see an over reaction. Husband was shouting why did you throw that away I wanted to eat those left overs etc, stop throwing stuff away. But his anger was so extreme. I told him he passed the plate over so I thought he was helping me clean up. May I add there were left overs anyway and there was no need to go in a massive rage over 4 tiny pieces of chicken from a 2 yr olds plate. He then said I threw a toy in the bin the other day without asking him and I need to stop throwing stuff away. At this point he stormed off to the other room and didn’t speak to me.

needless to say we had an argument after and we didn’t really resolve anything apart from realising we both have different views and feelings about things.

the next morning my sons birthday. Everyone was up my son was excited to open his presents, I’d filled the kitchen with balloons the night before I wanted to make it special for the little man…but husband didn’t come downstairs to join us and insisted on getting ready for work making my son wait. My son went up several times and his answer was you’ll have to wait… then when my husband did come down, he then still didn’t make any effort to watch my son open his presents but made his breakfast, made a coffee etc and paid no attention… when I called him out on it trying nicely not to make a scene he said he was too busy and carry on he’s got stuff to do before work… I’m not going to lie this enraged me, how dare he try and make our son not feel special because he’s in a bad mood. Anyway eventually he came over and joined but the look on my son’s face I will never forget.

later on we had a discussion about it and he said I was making a mountain out of a molehill and y couldn’t our son just wait to open his presents. I explained he did wait, the 20mins while he was upstairs getting ready and then waited for you to come down but then you tried to make him wait again. Our son was excited of course he wants to open his presents asap.

anyway I’m droning on now. Now my husband is not talking to me or very little anyway… and as much as I feel I can’t stand him right now I feel lost in the situation…

Ive suggested Councelling many times before for his bad temper and he’s never taken it up and at one point bought a self help book which I’m sure he didn’t read.

You're obviouly stuck in a situation where you both find it difficult to feel any kind of respect or appreciation for each other. This is very unhealthy and unliveable.

You're trying to get things back in motion by suggesting counselling, which is a good idea. I do think you might have more impact if you'd be willing to see/admit that he's not the only one who needs to work on himself. I rarely see people getting motivated for couples counselling if they fear that they'll be made to be the bad guy and their partner plays the victim. This doesn't work. Couples counselling will attempt to bring you closer by realising that you both bring your own value to this marriage, and learning to appreciate your partner for who they are.

Right now you're looking at him as 'the problem' and yourself as the victim. And who knows, maybe that's the case. But if that's true, then your marriage is over and you're better off getting a divorce. If you want to stay married and work on your marriage, you need to realise that you're not right and he's not wrong. He's not the problem and you're not the victim. You're supposed to be a team, working together to fix the problem.

Maybe with that attitude, he'd want to consider counselling.
If not, well then he's showing you he's unwilling to do his part in getting your marriage back on track.

Your poor children being exposed to this. It sounds very similar to my autism and ADHD but those things don't make me a dick. Your partner is a dick and it's not fair on your dc to be around this kind of toxicity. What's your housing situation? Could he or you move out? This won't get better so I recommend considering ending this relationship and modelling good boundaries and behaviour to your dc. You and your dc deserve better.

Thank you for your messages. I’ve considered leaving in the past. But then I look at my beautiful children and think of all the disruption they will have in their lives. I am very lucky to live in quite an affluent area, non of my family are here they are very far away and this would mean I would need to make steps to move closer to them to be able to afford a house much cheaper, my children would need to go to a new school etc which breaks my heart as they have lovely friends and they have a good life where we are with many opportunities for the future. I hate the thought of breaking my son’s heart telling him life is going to change and how much this will impact him especially, but I also recognise this situation or relationship is not healthy. But unfortunately my sons now got to an age where he is questioning things, the 2 yr old non the wiser. I’d do anything for my kids, I just know my son is very sensitive and this will affect him the most.