Husband

My husband of 30 years has severe OCD, an OCD personality, unmanageable anxiety, and PTSD (VietNam vet). His entire life is a mess. We have been blessed with two amazing children (adults now), but they are fed up with their father. My husband inherited his parent's lovely home, but has hoarded until every room is completely occluded, every window totally blocked, and only one door besides the front door and garage door in the whole house can open and close (due to the amount of cr*p in the way). When my kids were growing up I was mostly a stay at home mom. My husband has managed to mostly support me financially, and most of that money was left to us by his parents (who were very well off).

My husband is a number of years older than I am. When he was younger he was a sweet person, kindly, despite his disorders. Now he's 68 and is a mean, irritable old crank. He thinks he's allowed to be a screw-up and that the whole world owes him forgiveness because he believes God will forgive him, no matter what.

Thankfully, I am able to live in my own home because I couldn't stand living in that hole my husband resides in (you literally have to walk sideways to get from one part of the house to another).

My husband constantly "forgets" important things...forgets to go to the bank to deposit money, forgets to pay bills, forgets this and forgets that; his answer to his "forgetting" is "I think I deserve to be cut some slack because I was trying hard to do the right thing". He desperately needs to be on medication, but refuses to take meds - no matter what the cost to his personal life.

Ahhh....this post is my vent and I'm also wondering if anyone else on psychcentral has a close family member with OCD and, if so, how do you live with them in your life?

Hi PoppyRoad, I am sorry to hear your husband has turned so brittle and obstinate. But the blessing is you live in your own house. It sounds like my situation in a way we each have our own parts of the house and they reflect our organization or lack of. There is nothing I can do about it.

But it is sad remembering how things were. Like the Barbara Streisand Song The Way We Were.

Thanks for sharing and reaching out.

Thanks very much for your reply, CANDC. It's sad, because my husband & I are dear friends, but his mental health issues prevent true intimacy.