My husband has anxiety, OCD, or both, or more...

I came here out of desperation. And I apologize if I didn't follow a rule of some sort. I suck at forums.

My husband has anxiety or OCD, maybe depression. He has tried CBT therapy in the past but we’ve gone through some rough financial times lately and it seems to have really set him back.

I only say that he has OCD because I’ve read more about it online as I was searching for a forum where I could vent. I think he’s a “doubter and sinner.” He is constantly worried that someone is angry with him. He's paranoid, almost all the time. He's always afraid he said or did the wrong thing. And sometimes he does, but that's normal.

We both do work online, and of course, there are no verbal cues over email or Twitter. My husband receives emails from people and interprets them completely wrong. He always thinks he said the wrong thing, or that he’s offended someone. Yesterday, after an already long day where his paranoia was at an all-time high, he had me read the same email three times and asked me, “Don’t you think she sounds sarcastic, or angry with me?”

No, she absolutely did not sound that way. And if she did, so what? But I can’t get that through to him. That was only one in a long string of events that occurred throughout the day.

Bottom line, I lost an entire day to his chaos that I couldn’t afford to lose. This happens regularly.

Making it worse is the fact that I do creative work for a living, and it’s hard to feel creative when you just spent eight hours talking your husband down from the figurative ledge because of something that he had completely concocted in his own mind. He doesn’t realize how crazy it sounds to ask people, “Are you mad at me?” when all they did was send him a quick email. He’ll obsess that someone hasn’t emailed him back, “They’re probably mad at me.”

He constantly interrupts me with nonsense (if I let him), and we’ll have the same conversations over and over. I tell him why his thoughts are irrational, then five minutes later he asks me the same question.

This happens all the time! I can’t take it anymore! I spend all of my time reassuring him over nothing, and then I can't do my own job because I'm emotionally spent.

Right now, we are having financial problems because I haven’t been able to meet deadlines. I write fiction for a living, but I can’t seem to get anything done with my husband in this state. I go to my office to write, and as soon as I come out just to go to the bathroom, he bombards me with his latest unfounded worry, and I may spend hours trying to get him to think logically. It doesn't happen every day but it happens often enough that I feel like it happens constantly.

We’re in a bad cycle because, to make money, I really need to meet a deadline, and that means I need TIME. I have no time to give to his irrational thoughts. His worries over money are a self-fulfilling prophecy because he’s the one who takes most of my time and mental energy.

And when that’s gone, I can’t work and make money. I need time, and the mental / emotional energy to focus on fictional characters, which isn’t as easy as you might think. I don’t have the emotional capacity to encourage him for hours, then switch back to writing about my characters, unless I want to just write a story about a wife who can no longer tolerate her husband’s obsessive thoughts.

Sadly, he's highly intelligent, and these obsessive thoughts work against him. I can't trust him to make sound decisions. It's like he's always at war with himself, in his mind. He says and does things that make no sense, and he will often realize that later, but by then the damage is done. We haven't been able to have children, and I'm glad because I could NOT trust him to be a father. I already feel like he's a child in many ways.

I love him, but this is killing me. I don’t want to divorce him over it, but I am at the end of my rope. Divorce has come up a lot lately, always from me. He does not want to get divorced.

I am slowly losing my sanity over this, and it wasn't great to begin with. I have my own issues, such as PTSD and depression. I get angry with him, and I know that's not the way to deal with it, but I have no patience for it anymore. I've had day-long marathon conversations with him, trying to convince him to think rationally, and it's wasted time that I can't afford to lose -- literally, can't afford to lose it.

Thanks for letting me vent. Again, I apologize if I broke a forum rule. I did read the rules, but I'm having a bit of trouble focusing right now. I'm fed up. I don't want to just abandon him, but he's slowly killing us both.

Tough situation. I totally get you, im a writer too and i know how the industry works. You need your focus there. Your husbands issues are not your own - avoid taking them as your own. When you do work, try to only focus on that and thats it. Can you ask him to see a therapist? You are not a therapist. This will stress you more and more because you take on his burdens.

If nothing works, divorce sounds like an option...try to relax before work and dont let the thoughts of your husband interrupt you. Sorry i dont have better advice.

I know how important it is to have focus in your creative job without the constant interruptions. Can you rent an office space/ use an alternate space elsewhere away from your spouse just for your writing?

You need to create SOME SPACE OF YOUR OWN.

This is hard for some ppl to realize, you want to fix another's problems, but it's not your responsibility to fix your husband. He needs a therapist for that, not his wife. You play other roles as wife and lover, but there is nothing in the marital vows that says you are obligated to fix your beloved's PD, i.e., to be his therapist. That's NOT your full-time job, and you need to step up to the plate and say you don't want that job, you're not qualified to do that, that it's for a psychological professional to do (and can do better), and insist on it. He views you as so immersed in him and understand all his quirky OCDs, at your expense unfortunately. If he doesn't like that view and won't see a professional, then consider you've done everything you can think of to salvage your marriage and move on.

And no, you haven't broken any forum rules by venting. That's what this forum is for, a place to go when nobody else seems to understand what you're going thru, but here ppl do understand. Please post back with your concerns as you see fit.

Im-pure wrote:Tough situation. I totally get you, im a writer too and i know how the industry works. You need your focus there. Your husbands issues are not your own - avoid taking them as your own. When you do work, try to only focus on that and thats it. Can you ask him to see a therapist? You are not a therapist. This will stress you more and more because you take on his burdens.

If nothing works, divorce sounds like an option...try to relax before work and dont let the thoughts of your husband interrupt you. Sorry i dont have better advice.

Thank you so much for responding. It feels good just to know that a few people can relate.

He may start seeing a therapist again. Right now, the timing is bad for that, but we have no other choice unless we both want to lose our sanity at the same time.

Thank you so much for saying that divorce might be an option. I needed to hear that. I feel so selfish for thinking that, but I feel like my only other option is to just kill myself. And I know that sounds drastic, but a person can only take so much suffering. I'm completely miserable. I feel like I can't leave him while he's like this. Financially, I definitely can't. I'm trying desperately to get a book finished (that's why I'm offline for days) but he's taken up so much of my time, I don't know how I'll get it done.

But today's a new day and I'm going to try.

Thank you so much for listening. It's a huge help.

realityhere wrote:I know how important it is to have focus in your creative job without the constant interruptions. Can you rent an office space/ use an alternate space elsewhere away from your spouse just for your writing?

You need to create SOME SPACE OF YOUR OWN.

This is hard for some ppl to realize, you want to fix another's problems, but it's not your responsibility to fix your husband. He needs a therapist for that, not his wife. You play other roles as wife and lover, but there is nothing in the marital vows that says you are obligated to fix your beloved's PD, i.e., to be his therapist. That's NOT your full-time job, and you need to step up to the plate and say you don't want that job, you're not qualified to do that, that it's for a psychological professional to do (and can do better), and insist on it. He views you as so immersed in him and understand all his quirky OCDs, at your expense unfortunately. If he doesn't like that view and won't see a professional, then consider you've done everything you can think of to salvage your marriage and move on.

And no, you haven't broken any forum rules by venting. That's what this forum is for, a place to go when nobody else seems to understand what you're going thru, but here ppl do understand. Please post back with your concerns as you see fit.

I really appreciate your thoughtful response. Thank you. It makes my chest loosen a little to feel such understanding and sympathy.

I already rent an office not that far away, but it always seems to cause more stress when I go there. Also, the people in other offices are loud, and even when I listen to something to drown out noise, if I leave the room, there's a chance that one of them will try to talk to me. I think they might just go there to get away from home, and they like to kill time by talking. That's not something you can do when you write.

I agree, he needs to know that I'm not his therapist. He feels extremely guilty for doing this to me, but it usually happens before either of us know it's happening. It's constant. And it sucks that we're together so much. We live and work together. He does have good days, but the bad ones seem to be increasing in regularity.

The stress of what he's doing to me weighs upon him, heavily. It makes his anxiety much worse. He's a sweet person and always feels horrible when he does anything to hurt me. He's heartbroken about this, but he feels powerless to do anything about it.

I read advice online (only thought to do that this week) about living with a person who has anxiety, and I read that I need to be more patient with him. I've taken to yelling at him sometimes because my fuse has gotten extremely short. Especially when he asks me the same question for the fiftieth time and I have to say, "Okay, we've already talked about this. I already told you why this is not rational, and you agreed with me..."

My increased patience has helped a little. But I only have so much time to give him. The problem is, no matter what, he requires a lot of time and mental energy.

I don't have it in me to be his therapist. I know that. I've only recently realized how much I'd been filling that role. Ever since he came along, he's become my only friend, because I only have the emotional capacity for him. When he's not around, all I want to do is be alone. When friends find out he's out of town, they want to get together, and I'm just too spent. I need time to recover from this, to just hear silence and get my baseline back.

Divorce has come up lately, and it will probably come up again.

He's about to leave town for a week to visit a friend, because he knows we need time apart or he may lose me.

I'm going to pay attention to how much more productive I am, without him. He left the house for maybe six hours yesterday, and it was a wonderful six hours. So... a separation may be in our future, and after that, maybe divorce.

That's if he won't get help. CBT therapy seemed to work for him, but he stopped going.

Thanks for listening. I just rambled there. It helps so much to talk about it.

Wife_needs_help wrote:I already rent an office not that far away, but it always seems to cause more stress when I go there.

I understand. What worked for me was to put up a sign at eye level on my office door that said, "Please don't knock--I need to make a living". Seriously enforce it by not answering the door when you hear knocking, ppl will eventually get the message. Ever tried earplugs or ipod with earbuds running soft music to block the loud noises? And turn the cell phone to airplane mode for the hours you're working. I usually wound up finishing my work by 4 to 4:30 and then had time to chat with office neighbors, so as not to be a total turn-off socially. Just some suggestions to make your space and time your own...

Why did your husband stop going to therapy? I understand you guys are in a rough financial patch right now, but is it possible to obtain a therapist on a sliding scale payment plan for him or not? Hopefully he begins to realize his anxiety attacks are swamping what's left of your patience and emotional energy to go seek professional help when he returns from his trip.

Wishing you speedy typing so you can get some catching up done...

I wanted to come back and post an update.

My husband and I separated about a month after I posted here in July. It was unavoidable. I couldn't get any work done because I was constantly counseling him.

With the help of a good friend who works in mental health, I was able to figure out what to do for him, finally.

My husband hasn't been officially diagnosed with this yet, but I am positive -- from reading a few online resources, and from my knowledgeable friend -- that my husband has Asperger's Syndrome.

He's suspected this before, but it was a passing thought, long before his latest bout of anxiety. I had never researched Asperger's until today, and I wish I had. It's like reading about my own life to read other peoples' stories. I've been telling my husband for months, "It's like your fight-or-flight response is broken."

He will soon have an appointment with a free mental health network in our area. I will probably accompany him at first because he's not in a mental state right now where he can explain his own issues to a psychiatrist.

I read an article today where someone said that being in a relationship with someone who has Asperger's is like riding a rollercoaster naked, with nothing strapping you in, and you never have any idea what's around the next curve. Right now, my husband can't seem to understand why I can't just move on and get back to normal and resume my normal writing career. I feel like I just fought a war and barely made it out alive - that's why I need a little time to recover from his whirlwind. But that's the reaction you'd expect from someone who has Asperger's. He has difficulty empathizing.

Thank you for your concern and your help!

The issues you have with him doesn't seem related with AS. Not directly anyway.

It seems more of a neurotic problem, like fear of rejection.
That is why he is always after you, because the more you try to isolate, the more he gets insecure, and make up reasons to talk about something else and get your attention.
It probably sounds irrational because the real discussion is not about the subject matter, but whether you care for him and will be there. So he needs emotional reassurance, essentially, and you don't give him that, at least not as much as he would want.

I feel like I just fought a war and barely made it out alive - that's why I need a little time to recover from his whirlwind. But that's the reaction you'd expect from someone who has Asperger's. He has difficulty empathizing.

Two months is more than a little time, and I bet for him it is an eternity. So you both seem to be on very different time scales. I don't think it is about empathy. Although if you think that him wanting to see you get back to normal, is some sort of aggression towards you, or going against your privacy, maybe that is something you should look into, because I think he showed that he cared by leaving you alone for two months, and he hopes it won't last forever. It seems that you get hostile when he shows he cares, but I could be wrong, it is just the impression it gives. Maybe that is what triggers the anxiety. If that is the case, his empathy would be quite normal. He just does not understand why you are angry at him, or reject him. Anyway, like a previous poster said, it is probably about creating boundaries you both agree with, because right now it does not seem to be there. You can't rely on empathy to create boundaries for you, you need to communicate them directly. Like the time of separation should have been agreed upon already, the fact that it is not shows a lack of communication.

Just my take on it.

I know this is an ancient post. This is the only place where I really documented what was going on with me and my ex-husband. I didn't even put it in my personal journal, it was too painful.

His mental health has declined since we divorced. He's received new diagnoses since then, and I believe one of them is Autism Spectrum Disorder / Asperger's, but neither he or his family will admit that. They're part of the problem, didn't want to admit he needed professional help. That's the main reason why he wouldn't seek help when we were married. It wasn't so much the money, that was an excuse. He was afraid of what his parents would think.

I'm sick over the fact that I didn't divorce him sooner. HIs family blames me for his mental problems but they existed long before me. I did everything I could to hold that man together until there was nothing left of me.

I was in absolute hell when I wrote these messages. I can't believe that I even said my ex was nice to me. I think I was trying to find something good about him, or maybe lying to myself. I think I was still trying to be a good wife.

I said that I was the one with the short fuse, but he was constantly yelling at me then. Anything set him off. I had no life outside of placating him. He wouldn't leave me alone for five minutes to think.

I had tried to forget about all of this until recently, but lately, I've had what my psychologist says is PTSD, related to all this.

I didn't realize you could experience trauma from being emotionally or mentally smothered by someone.

Here are examples of other trauma I've experienced: I was trafficked / raped / abused for two years when I was in my early 20's, and I went to therapy for it, I don't have flashbacks. Before that, I already had PTSD from early childhood abuse, my dad thought children were brought into this world to be punching bags. My earliest memories are violent. Writing is what helped me more than anything. I can write about these old memories now, when I used to never let myself think about them.

So, I thought I was okay because I dealt with all that, but now I'm dealing with what happened in my marriage, probably because I'm finally trying to write again. I spiraled, too, after the marriage, went into a different business. I wish I hadn't abandoned writing, but my mind was mush. I couldn't think for my characters anymore.

We broke up in 2015. It's 2021, and I'm now having physical symptoms, anxiety, like chest pain, shortness of breath, and headaches because I feel like he's always outside the room, ready to smother me with the worst kind of attention. He would take every ounce of my mental energy until I could barely remember my own name.

I can't stand for anyone to send me a text message, or call me, or even ask, "how are you?" because of all the time and attention he took. I feel like my friends and family are all "bothering" me, like my ex did. I know that's irrational.

I feel like I need to be left completely alone - no phones, no people, no mental stimulation, no one requiring attention - for at least six months, then maybe I'll feel normal again.

I can only speak for myself, but I would rather be trafficked again than married to that man.

Thanks for letting me share.

Sorry to hear things ended, as they did. And it's an old thread; but it's your thread, after all- we appreciate the update, although we're sorry to hear about things.

Wife_needs_help wrote:I can only speak for myself, but I would rather be trafficked again than married to that man.

That's... pretty bad.

His family sounds as if they're being unfair- if he had problems before you, then they know it. Them being in denial isn't doing him any favors. I sympathise for both of you- I'm named moderator over OCD- and have it, in spades. I'm not Asperger's... quite. I have a feeling I would come close to being on that spectrum, but not quite. I can... see over the fence into that yard, however.

Sounds as if he has more going on than just those two things. You did what you could, and when it became too much- as RH said, you can't fix someone for them. They have to pitch in and do all the heavy lifting. Even though I try to shield them from most of my crazy, I'm sure I give my partner plenty of grief (not as much as you got! please God) but only I can fix me, and we both know that. If I ever become too much for them... then I am- we're all only human. That's simply how it is.

Don't forget that there are plenty of places to post in PF, besides this forum, if you want to talk about your own mental state, beyond venting about your ex.

Oh, and look for a private message from me concerning the forums- nothing serious, just want to let you know about some options you have.

Welcome back to the forums!