by MagnoliaMum » Mon Jul 29, 2024 2:10 pm
I sympathise, as my husband has OCD tendencies (it runs in his family) and there have been times when it has become hugely annoying and limiting for the rest of the family and he has needed to get professional help.
For us, the problem has arisen in times of him being under a lot of stress at work and him developing his own coping strategies at home, to feel like things are under control. But then the coping strategies themselves seem to get out of hand, perhaps because they don't actually deal with the root cause and therefore have to be constantly increased and adapted to keep giving him the illusion of control. If unchecked, they develop into convoluted, superstitious-like rituals that he feels he has to go through in a particular order and he gets really upset and uncomfortable if anything gets in the way of them. For him, it started with insomnia due to work stress and he developed 'sleep hygiene' rules that he had to follow before bedtime in order to sleep well, that gradually got longer and more complicated and demanded compliance from the rest of the family (for example, he needed everyone to be at home, quiet and lights out by a particular time that got less reasonable as the children grew up and my own social life came back).
It was hard to get him to seek help. If I seemed to belittle or criticise his rituals, or accidentally thwart them, I was accused of being unsupportive and not understanding his insomnia and everything he was doing for the family. Because they had grown up gradually, he really believed that his rituals were 'normal' and he was very protective and defensive of them. However it was a huge relief to him when he did get therapeutic help (CBT in his case) and it worked to free him from the tyrannical routine that he had created. It crept up again a few years later, but then we were all better able to recognise the symptoms and deal with it promptly.
In your case, I would be gentle and non-judgmental and have a conversation with your husband. Start by saying that you appreciate his help in tidying the house, however you're concerned that his methods and approach are out of character and have become a bit extreme. Ask him whether he is feeling out of control in the rest of his life and trying to counter that by over-organising. Try to be sympathetic and focus on the bigger picture of how he's feeling overall, so that he can't distract from the issue by arguing that you are finding fault with his tidiness or that you are being controlling yourself! You are absolutely right to be concerned now; it is unlikely to go away by itself and will probably get worse if nothing constructive is said or done. However you may find that a frank and supportive discussion, bringing it all out into the open, will help a lot in his case without necessarily going to a professional, although you can fall back on that if needed. He may be doing this subconsciously or you may together be able to find a solution to what is really bothering him. Good luck!
I sympathise, as my husband has OCD tendencies (it runs in his family) and there have been times when it has become hugely annoying and limiting for the rest of the family and he has needed to get professional help.
For us, the problem has arisen in times of him being under a lot of stress at work and him developing his own coping strategies at home, to feel like things are under control. But then the coping strategies themselves seem to get out of hand, perhaps because they don't actually deal with the root cause and therefore have to be constantly increased and adapted to keep giving him the illusion of control. If unchecked, they develop into convoluted, superstitious-like rituals that he feels he has to go through in a particular order and he gets really upset and uncomfortable if anything gets in the way of them. For him, it started with insomnia due to work stress and he developed 'sleep hygiene' rules that he had to follow before bedtime in order to sleep well, that gradually got longer and more complicated and demanded compliance from the rest of the family (for example, he needed everyone to be at home, quiet and lights out by a particular time that got less reasonable as the children grew up and my own social life came back).
It was hard to get him to seek help. If I seemed to belittle or criticise his rituals, or accidentally thwart them, I was accused of being unsupportive and not understanding his insomnia and everything he was doing for the family. Because they had grown up gradually, he really believed that his rituals were 'normal' and he was very protective and defensive of them. However it was a huge relief to him when he did get therapeutic help (CBT in his case) and it worked to free him from the tyrannical routine that he had created. It crept up again a few years later, but then we were all better able to recognise the symptoms and deal with it promptly.
In your case, I would be gentle and non-judgmental and have a conversation with your husband. Start by saying that you appreciate his help in tidying the house, however you're concerned that his methods and approach are out of character and have become a bit extreme. Ask him whether he is feeling out of control in the rest of his life and trying to counter that by over-organising. Try to be sympathetic and focus on the bigger picture of how he's feeling overall, so that he can't distract from the issue by arguing that you are finding fault with his tidiness or that you are being controlling yourself! You are absolutely right to be concerned now; it is unlikely to go away by itself and will probably get worse if nothing constructive is said or done. However you may find that a frank and supportive discussion, bringing it all out into the open, will help a lot in his case without necessarily going to a professional, although you can fall back on that if needed. He may be doing this subconsciously or you may together be able to find a solution to what is really bothering him. Good luck!
