The Husband Post--The debate whether to stay or go

     This post has been a long time coming.  Truth be told, I don't even know where to start with this post or how to even possibly put this all into one post--but I'm going to try.  This may be a little different format to how I typically write.  This will probably be just more of a journal type entry, as this subject is something I'm not even sure can be organized or put into words.  There are so many added layers of complexity with my OCD when it comes to my husband.  It may be easier to revisit some of my old blog posts to learn how my OCD got started, why living with your spouse with OCD is difficult, when your spouse doesn't seem to care about your OCD, and when your spouse is your biggest OCD trigger.  These are all important posts I've done in the past which will give a lot of background information rather than revisit all of that here in great detail again.  To summarize briefly, I believe I started showing signs of OCD in 2005.  Our marriage was suffering greatly that year, I felt worlds apart from my husband, and was mostly a single mom to our then 2 year old daughter.  Everything came to a head one day when I was driving to work--I had a full fledged panic attack.  Not just minor-moderate anxiety.  A full fledged I truly thought I was going to die that day panic attack.  Another very significant panic attack occurred the following week, which landed me in an ambulance and in the ER.  These preceded a bout of major depressive disorder which lasted throughout that entire summer.  I remember making journal entries about our relationship that summer and how I truly wanted to divorce my husband (side note of probable importance--he actually found that journal hidden between the mattresses that summer and unfortunately I minced no words in my journal entries.  He still brings that up periodically in arguments).  I wanted out of the relationship desperately though.  I could feel myself sinking farther and farther into depression and anxiety.  I believe that summer, in a sense, "triggered" or turned on my OCD.  I've done a lot of reading about OCD through the years, and one thing most people are in agreement with regarding it's onset is the fact that it is both genetic and environmental.  You must have an underlying genetic tendency to the disorder, and there must also be an environmental factor that "turns on the OCD".  So if we have OCD we are genetically disposed regardless, but we also must have a stressor/environmental factor that puts it into motion.  I wholeheartedly believe the summer of 2005 was my trigger.  Unfortunately so much happened that summer, and I don't feel my husband was there for me emotionally through any of it.  He did not seem to care about my anxiety or depression, or even really notice how bad things were.  We continued to grow more apart, and deep resentment began to set in.  It was shortly after that, that I began to see OCD tendencies in myself.  It began with a lot of "magical thinking" (thinking if I didn't do things a certain way, that something bad would happen).  For example, I might be folding laundry and have to make sure all the tags were folded in properly to the shirts, so that something bad wouldn't happen to my daughter.  Of course I knew these things were irrational, but in order to get some peace from the thoughts I would keep doing them, and the obsessive compulsive cycle just grew stronger every day.  More and more things were being added each day.  I started doing a lot of extra cleaning/wiping during this time--wiping off library books that came home (covers and all of the pages), scrubbing my daughters lips and skin around her mouth every time she went out in public (because I was worried germs were entering her mouth and somehow I felt that had to lessen her chance of getting sick).  Handwashing became a constant thing.  When her friends came over, I would make them wash their hands even before they played with her toys.  If you kept narrowing down the reason why I was doing these things, most of the time it came back to the thought that I was trying to protect my daughter by doing these rituals.  I was scared of something bad happening to her.  Because my marriage was strained, I was deathly scared of something bad happening to her.  My daughter was/is my person in this world.  My husband was gone a lot.  Our marriage was disconnected.  My daughter and I had each other in this world, and I needed to make sure we were safe, that nothing bad happened to either one of us.  My general OCD/contamination OCD became mild-moderate over the course of about 3-4 years.  I continued to struggle with severe anxiety, but the major depression had lifted a little by then.  We started trying to conceive another child and went through several years of infertility and a miscarriage.  Things between us still were not great at all.  Our marriage is general was still very strained, and the OCD wasn't even specific to him at that time.  Meaning, I found him no more contaminated than anything else was.  We had terrible communication.  I also found out I was allergic to nuts around this time, and found out he would still eat them (even before we were to be intimate since we were trying to get pregnant).  It is possible for someone with a severe nut allergy to have a life threatening reaction by kissing someone who has recently eaten nuts.  I would ask him if he had eaten nuts before were intimate, and he would get irritated.  But I would ask only because I had found empty granola bar wrappers in his pockets and was trying to keep myself safe.  It didn't really seem like he was worried about my safety at all.  So, that became a source of contention.  It was also around this time that I began to notice my husband was not a very hygienic person.  He had probably always been this way, I just hadn't noticed or paid attention before.  My non-OCD mind back then was able to filter all of this out (as a neurotypical mind is able to do), but once I developed OCD I began to notice things and fixate on them.  I think the more disconnected we became and the less we felt like a couple, I began to feel like I was putting my health at risk being with him, and that created a lot of resentment.  In the spring of 2009, he became contaminated to me, and really has been ever since.  What happened is that he spent a lot of time restoring farm equipment that summer and painting cars (a hobby), and would spray these things in our backyard (where our daughter and I spent a lot of time).  One time he came in with with his hands and the front of his jeans both covered in green spray paint.  He didn't stop at the sink that day to wash his hands, he just walked back to the bathroom and got in the shower.  That is the exact moment he actually became contaminated to me.  All I could picture at that time was paint/chemicals on his hands, moving to his whole body as he washed himself.  Sorry if TMI here, but I became fixated on his that paint contaminating his genitals.  Which again since we were trying to conceive, became a very huge problem.  That summer, some very strange things happened.  Before we were intimate, I would have to get in the shower with him and wash off his genitals.  That is the only way I could feel comfortable with the act of having sex, knowing my clean hands had washed his genitals.  Since we dealt with infertility, this resulted in some very long awkward months of this happening.  Add that to the no kissing (with him eating nuts), and the still very dysfunctional cycle of our relationship...and it just was not good.  It was also around this time that I would take note of things that probably had always happened...I just was noticing more, and becoming increasingly bothered by them.  For example he might come in and throw his dirty hunting clothes over our shoes in the entryway.  One time he took a makeup/eyeshadow compact out of my makeup drawer and used it as mirror to look at something in his truck engine when he was working with dirty/greasy hands, and I found the compact sitting in the kitchen after the fact.  Fortunately I was able to figure out what happened before he had a chance to return it to my makeup drawer.  Many ,many examples happened, too many to list.  It was then that I realized I didn't trust him to be clean with my stuff.  I didn't want him using or touching my things.  I started putting all of my things in safe places.  I moved my clothes to my daughters closet.  I moved my makeup and toiletries and towels to a linen closet he never used.  I started putting open food (boxes or bags of cereal, candy, etc) in a special cupboard (so I could keep track of what was opened and not opened).  I put my shoes in a different area.  Eventually through the years this grew into keeping separate dishes in separate cupboards (which he still doesn't know I do), sleeping in separate bedrooms, and really just living as separately as possible.      
     Most of these things wouldn't even bother a neurotypical person, but I can about guarantee if you have contamination OCD--you will understand how these things become bothersome.  Most of these things people would say...yes you are being totally ridiculous and irrational, and I get that.  I am.  But that is the unfortunate thing about OCD.  Some of the things he does though are over the top, and I've talked to a counselor about many of these things--and she has said they are abnormal on his end.  Regardless, all of these things create barriers to our relationship and make it really hard to live together or function normally as a couple.  Therefore, we really haven't been a couple for quite some time.  It feels more like a strained roommate situation that is just constantly stressful.  First for the "so-so stuff"--his room looks like a teenage boy lives there.  All of his clothes are littered all over his floor, and I'm talking hundreds of clothes.  Things he doesn't even wear.  Stuff he doesn't just pick up and donate or throw away.  He doesn't pay attention to whether or not things are clean.  He just picks them up off the floor and wears them.  He could put on socks that haven't been washed in months, that have been worn multiple times.  In fact, I know he has about 3-4 pairs of socks currently, and I don't know what happens to the rest of them.  He just keeps re-wearing them day after day dirty.  He could put on a pair of jeans to go hunting in that hasn't been washed in 4 years (that he has hunted in multiple times).  He will then of course sit in these clothes in his truck, at our kitchen table, and on our furniture **correction HIS furniture**.  Yes, we have separate furniture, it's just sort of a normal thing around our house now for the last several years.  There is no way I would be able to function in my house if I did not have separate areas from him.  I keep my safe zones clean and free of him, and that is how I can deal with his spaces looking the way they do and not let the trail of contamination spread.  For some examples of the really gross unhygienic stuff--he has his own bathroom, and it never gets cleaned unless I clean it.  I try to clean it before it gets really out of hand, but there have been times I didn't know how bad it looked--and I've had to go in there and literally clean black mold off the shower/shower curtain.
  

Yes, these are a couple of actual pictures I took at the time that are mortifying for me to look at.  He told me that 9/10 men wouldn't have a problem showering in this shower.  That was his response when we talked about how filthy and unsanitary this is.  How unhealthy this is for him to shower and breathe in mold spores every time he stands in there when the hot water gets going.  To add another layer of complexity, I have a very severe mold allergy (I have several environmental allergies confirmed via skin testing), and mild asthma (usually flared up during allergies or colds) and I have had to be the one to go in and clean these messes multiple times.  How am I supposed to feel like he cares about my well being again (back to the whole nut thing) when he allows and is okay with me cleaning this mess up, exposing myself to something I am highly allergic to.  How could I ever feel like he is clean, when this is where he takes his shower?  He also lays his towel over the toilet and reuses it for days on end (probably sometimes weeks).  It was also around this time that I found out his night mouthguard (that he wears for tooth grinding) was growing mold on it as well.  I could see an orange residue film on his nightguard, along with some black mold spots.  Something that goes in his mouth every night.  How could I ever possibly be comfortable kissing him thinking about that?  Please, I am begging anyone to chime in here and comment.  Is this stuff over the top?  I feel like it is.  I feel like this is not normal.  I feel like it makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible to have any type of physical relationship with him.  I talked with a therapist last summer who told me (and I am not trying to be demeaning or insulting to my husband in any way here.  I'm just trying to be real and try to figure out if there is a way through this mess or not) that there is likely something mental going on with him to allow him to live this way.  But here's the kicker...because I have OCD, he somehow justifies his lack of hygiene and turns it into my problem.  It's always my problem.  He doesn't really see a problem with any of this stuff (even the moldy bathroom and nightguard), and just throws it back at me...like I'm the one with the issue.  There are so many things that seem so wrong about our relationship.  I feel so angry all the time because I can't live freely in my home, because I feel he is dirty/contaminated.  I feel like I am a prisoner in my own home, like I can't go anywhere because I have to sit here and watch what he is doing to make sure he doesn't contaminate anything (specifically my safe zones) because I've literally seen what he's done before to my stuff.  I feel like the idea of any type of physical relationship with him is impossible.  Even going on dates or spending time together alone is not possible because it would either require me to ride in his truck (which isn't going to happen, I feel its contaminated) or for him to ride in my passenger seat (which isn't going to happen either because I don't want him contaminating my car with his dirty clothes).  So, we pretty much could never go out together the two of us (unless I made him ride in my back seat which seems ridiculous).  Which means we don't really spend time together either.  We haven't slept in the same bedroom for about 16 years (no way could I sleep in his bed.  He doesn't even have sheets on his bed anymore.  Just a mattress pad which has some blood spots and some giant orange stain in the middle of it).  The thought never seems to occur to him to clean anything when it gets visibly dirty.  The thought of sleeping in that bed is sickening to me.  Sometimes he will go 3-4 days without a shower (he won't do that when he works at his office job, but if its a long weekend or he has time off it's not unusual to see him go that long of a stretch).  I do remember a time when he went 3-4 days over a long weekend without brushing his teeth (I only know this because he had just got back from traveling and the toothbrush was still in his suitcase 3-4 days later).  And it's not just the OCD.  It's so many other things too.  It always has been.  We've always had a strange relationship.  We don't even really talk when we're home together.  It honestly feels like we're strangers.  It's felt this way for about 14 years.  There are some days when we really don't say much of anything to each other.  Anything we do talk about is superficial and not really important.  There is a major disconnection in our relationship.  He spends most of his time looking at the Internet when he is home.  Sometimes I feel such rage at him looking at Craigstlist for hours on end every night, I truly think I'm going to explode.  The internet addiction has been an issue for him since very early on in our marriage, before my OCD ever started.  He would spend hours late into the night looking up anything and everything on Craiglist, playing online poker.  I would check his internet history and it just went on and on.  I feel so resentful and bitter toward him when I think about the toxic dysfunction that our relationship is.  And the fact that we've never really had a marriage.  I do feel that he has ADD--that has never been confirmed by a doctor, but I strongly suspect it.  And he's even admitted to me that he thinks he might have it.  My counselor also thought he probably has ADD based on his inattention and being in his own world most of the time.  She thought it also might account for the condition he keeps his room/bathroom in, and some of the other odd things he does.  On top of that, he is very angry and irritable in general, yells a lot, rarely apologizes to me, doesn't like to talk about serious issues that really need to be talked about.  There is rarely resolution to our conflict (which is pretty much all the time anymore).  He doesn't really help me at all with our daughter or our two dogs.  I get up and let the dogs out every single day first thing in the morning and walk them most days, and pretty much are their main caretakers.  He goes out with friends on the weekends, or hunts, goes out to his family farm to mess around, goes downstairs and watches TV or takes naps while I take care of our daughter, our dogs and our home.  He makes large financial decisions without me.  He sleeps in often on the weekends, while I am taking care of everything/everyone.  I truly think he is addicted to the internet and is iPhone.  He doesn't pick up after himself in general.  Just leaves things wherever he wants and I have to clean up after him.  He gives me the silent treatment rather than communicate about our issues, and deflects all of our marital issues back on me.  He rarely hanks for me for anything I do around the home.  I work 3 days per week, and take care of all the housework, laundry, cleaning, groceries, bills, etc.  I make nice meals most evenings for our family and he rarely compliments me or makes any positive comments about the food I make.  I feel completely unappreciated for what I do.  I do not enjoy being around him anymore.  Often I feel physically ill when I am around him.  Theres been many times throughout our relationship that I've been so upset by our interactions that I literally start shaking in my hands (sometimes my whole body has shaken horribly, almost like someone with Parkinsons' disease) and I have even vomited at times because my stomach gets in such a knot.  I am unhappy and depressed being with him.  He has said some horribly awful things to me through the years in relation to my OCD.  He has never tried to understand my OCD.  I invited him to come talk to my therapist years ago about it a few times and he went one time and declined to go back.  He has never really been there for me emotionally, or seemed to ever care about what I am going through.  In the deepest, darkest, worst days of my OCD (which spanned 2013-2015), he spent most of that time irritated and mad at me.  I was literally in quicksand those 2 years, absolutely drowing, trying to keep my head above water.  Trying to hold things down around the house, juggle a job, and deal with debilitating OCD and once again...major depression.  There were days I didn't even know how I would ever possibly make it through each day.  Life was extremely difficult/impossible at that point.  Looking back on things, he had to know how bad things were.  But never once did I ever feel an ounce of support from him.  It was another devestating blow to our relationship.  But coming back around to his possible ADD again...was just he unware because he wasn't capable of noticing things?  Or did he just not care about me period?  Also just another example of how disconnected we were back then....I had surgery in the fall of 2015.  My first surgery ever, and the first time I had ever been put under general anesthesia.  I truly had horrible anxiety surrounding the surgery.  I thought I was going to die, and never wake up from anesthesia.  It was very irrational thoughts and likely ruminating caused by my OCD.  I remember he was traveling that week (I actually scheduled the surgery that week on purpose because I just wanted my mom with me during surgery, I knew she would be supportive and caring, and I was worried being with my unsupportive husband would just make it harder), and he came home late the night of my surgery (it was just outpatient so I came home the same day), and all he said to me as he walked in trough the garage door before he disappeared back to bed immediately, was "You're still alive?".  He didn't even sit down to ask me how things went, or act like he cared at all.  He didn't even ask what they found during surgery, or if I was okay.  These types of situations have been deep, deep cuts in the foundation of our relationship.  I really don't want this to turn into a bash post against my  husband, I've just always tried to keep this blog very real.  It's how I process things.  This is just about how I experience the relationship and the issues that I see surface.  The truth is, and has been for almost 14 years now, I really don't want to be with my husband.  There, I said it.  So, is this OCD some weird type of subconscious way to keep my distance and not get too close to him?  Or is the OCD really just a result (and growing and morphing through the year) of the chronic stress I feel.  I have been better able to handle most types of contamination situations over the past few years as I've been working on my OCD.  In fact if you look through my blog over the past several years, I have come quite far since 2013.  I am pretty proud of myself in regard to that.  I am leaps and bounds better than I was 6 years ago.  But with my husband specifically, I'm not going to lie.  There have been some really odd dynamics to all of this.  I'm not willing to contaminate myself with him.  Other than 2 years ago we resumed our sexual relationship for a few short months (I did want to prove to myself that I could allow myself to be contaminated by him).  During that time we got our second dog, and a new puppy is kind of like a second baby, so the sex dwindled again and hasn't returned since.  It's not even about the OCD so much anymore.  I have no desire to be intimate with him.

     As the years go by, I'm trying to be realistic about things and be able to accept the situation for what it is.  If my husband is always going to feel contaminated to me, regardless, then do we ever really have a chance of having a normal relationship?  I know that I don't want things to go on like this forever.  They just can't.  I have developed so many stress related health issues throughout the years.  Every time I see my primary doctor she warns me that this marriage stress is really affecting my health greatly.  I have developed both Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and fibromyalgia and feel like general crap most days.  I feel achy, sore and tired--I feel flu-like most days.  I feel cold to the bones most days.  I have horrible TMJ and experience severe facial/jaw pain daily.  I clench my teeth every night.  I wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety.  I have nightmares and dreams about my  husband (sometimes about our bad relationship, sometimes weirdly about him contaminating things).  I've dealt with IBS, migraine headaches, strange neurological symptoms (weird twitches under my eyes), arthritic discs in my back and neck, overactive bladder, and an undiagnosed autoimmune disorder that my doctor keeps following me for, telling me "you have something...I just doesn't know what exactly yet".  I have some other health conditions, but these specific ones I mentioned have likely all been brought on by chronic stress.  I feel like I will live a life ruled by depression, OCD, and anxiety as long as I am with him.  That's a really depressing reality.  Every day I'm just trying to get through each day with him.  Most nights I go to bed knowing that I can't keep doing this forever.  My mood plummets to extreme lows as soon as I hear him come home from work.  Sometimes I watch him sit on the couch looking at Craigslist, and I literally am seething inside.  He has been working from home more recently with his job, and those days have been awful.  I just sit and stew all day about the fact that he's there.  First for the fact that it's hard to be around him an additional 8-9 hours each day, and second of all for the fact that again with the OCD it ruins my plans for the day.  I'm stuck at home doing nothing.  I don't feel comfortable running errands or leaving the home when he's here by himself.  We've also entered hunting season again for the year, which always kicks things up a notch.  If he is even 5 feet away from me walking through the kitchen, my OCD tells me "he got you, he brushed against you, he contaminated you, change your clothes, throw your clothes away, do something!"  I've been throwing away a few more things recently than I'd like to admit.  This is a problem I've had severely in the past that I'd been doing much better with recently, but with 2 dogs now in the home it has complicated things.  And for some reason this last month has been terrible with him.  I'm feeling myself worried about his things all the time again.  If I see his hat laying on the counter, I'm worried somehow my clothes brushed against it.  The dogs climb all over him on the couch, and then I feel like the dogs become contaminated with his dirty clothes.  So if the dogs come by and swish their tail against my clothes, I start feeling like his contamination is spreading onto my clothes through the dogs.  It is really becoming difficult again.  I don't think I've ever had a period where I've felt happy with my husband recently.  Like I stated earlier, mostly its just getting through each day.  It's looking forward to when he goes to work, when he has plans with his friends, when he goes on a work trip, etc.  Because then somehow I can feel free and I can feel comfortable.  
     I'm worried that this post doesn't cover everything.  In fact, I know it doesn't.  I know there are about 10,000 pieces to this puzzle, and I've given maybe 100 here.  Some of you will read this and think "wow, this girl is crazy, no wonder her husband is disconnected".  Some of you will read it and probably think "wow, they have both have issues".  Some may think "I can totally understand why she is having such a hard time, I would too".  Some may think that our marriage problems are all a result of my OCD, but I assure you it's not.  My OCD never saw him specifically as contaminated until well into our marriage, long after we were having problems.  I don't know if I should stay or go.  So much of me wants to go.  But a small part of me wants to stay.  I understand fully that living with someone with OCD is very difficult.  I feel for him in that way, I really do.  I wish that I could be the normal spouse, that doesn't worry about those things.  But that is not reality for me.  That is not where I am right now, and probably never will be.  I think if he has to deal with my OCD stuff, then maybe I just need to deal with his ADD/disconnection stuff.  Both of our conditions seem to be feeding off the other, and it is just a horrible cycle to be in.  It just doesn't seem like there is a way out.  I have set in my mind that if our relationship is not better by the time our daughter graduates from high school (only about 18 months away now), that I feel like it would be best to leave then.  At least we would have some chance of a more normal life alone.  The strangest part about all of this, is he tells me he doesn't think our relationship is that bad.  He tells me I'm the one who thinks it is bad.  That is another frustrating thing about him is that he tends to minimize my feelings, or make me feel like I'm in the wrong for wanting more out of our relationship.  The bottom line is we don't have a relationship, we never really have.  There is no friendship, no time spent time together, no support, no physical relationship.  The emotional, physical and mental aspects of our marriage are all missing.  We live together in the same house.  We are roommates.  But we made a promise before God 18 years ago when we said our vows.  There has been no infidelity in our relationship, which is really the only biblical excuse for leaving the marriage.  But I do believe there has been emotional abandonment, and neglect.  I think there have been abusive behaviors and words (on both sides).  And there is a very obvious contempt and disdain between both of us in almost all of our interactions.  I don't think that is healthy.  I can't fix a marriage alone.  I don't feel like I can leave the marriage, but I don't feel like I can stay.  I don't know what to do.  If you stuck with me to the end of this post, thank you!  This was a hard one to write.  Lots of feelings and emotions to dredge up, stuff that sits with me everyday and probably affects my interactions with my husband everyday, even in subconscious ways.    If anyone has any thoughts/ideas, I would greatly appreciate any advice.  If you are in a similar situation, my heart goes out to you.  I write this blog in hopes that I can just reach at least one person with each post, where my story and words hit home for them.  Because if I can reach at least one person, then all of this writing was well worth it.