# Am I being too much of a hard a**?



## hubby (Aug 10, 2009)

If you read through some of my posts you will see that we have come a long way since the beginning of the year. It all started when I really set my boundaries and expectations. It was difficult at first, but the dividends were 100X the work. 

Fast forward to today, I am trying to find a point of balance. The last few days I have done fairly well in the giving department: I just finished my first week in my new position at work which has much more responsibility, pretty good bump in pay and stress, I let her have two nights out in a row to go out with the girls for dinner/drinks/late movie while I watched the kids, and yesterday I spent 3hrs cleaning the bathroom while she was out ice skating with one of our kids. She has been really grateful (a BJ before each night out and lots of thanks for cleaning). 

However, we got into a bit of an argument yesterday. I was on the computer and she comes over and starts snooping around asking me to go through each window, "innocently" asking questions about what I was up to. I know what she was doing. Of course she came across some porn. We have already come to terms with the porn and she has "accepted" that I watch it from time to time. That upset her and started a downhill trend in the evening. She pointed out that while she will not stop me from looking at it, or hold it against me, it still makes her upset whenever she thinks about it. 

Since we were discussing things that upset us, I brought up that there are still several things in the relationship that I feel need to change: I need her to start sleeping in bed at night with me and I need to be able to use the garage. The whole garage thing is part of a bigger issue with her OCD, which granted is much better these days. But I have not been able to park in the garage for almost a year now and we have not been able to open the garage door in almost a year as well. She has it sealed off with caulking and foam with a note on it that says "Do not open." This is both annoying and embarrassing whenever we have guests. 

So my question is, am I being too much of a hard a** insisting that she sleep in bed with me and I use the garage, while at the same time she is trying very hard to please me to the best of her ability sexually and trying to deal with her OCD the best she can? I could be even more greedy and ask for her to open up more sexually... we are still having sex only in the closet, only one position and she will do it after the kids are asleep (excuse to hurry the whole thing up I think).

Any advice? I know she is going to be super bi*chy today because of my requests and that she probably did not get much sleep last night because she had to f'ing sleep with me (sorry, I am a little p'ed).

Thanks.


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## MarkTwain (Aug 1, 2008)

I have very mild OCD...

The best thing to do with OCD is to play with it. What OCD people do is take themselves far too seriously. They set up all sorts of boundaries that they must not cross and you must not cross. Some of them are clearly ridiculous.

Begin with the mildest ones, and gradually "pull the table-cloth away". That's right. Announce to her that "we are not going to be a slave to this idea any more". Do it with a smile and a laught. Do not make heavy weather. As I said, pick the one that she could most easily give up. If you want to be a master at it... allow her to have it her way 5 days a week. Then 4 then 3.

You will notice that her OCD goes up and down with her mood. That is because it is linked to low serotonin and low dopamine. Make sure she eats lots of these foods: Cottage cheese, salmon steak, nuts, avocados - assuming she is not alergic to any of them obviously.

These foods are high in the pre-cursors to serotonin and dopamine. Long slow orgasms are good. But if she is in the habit of wanting fast sex, cut down on her orgasms a bit. Unless it's done slow it ain't worth a dime. ESO is a book about how to have orgasms that last half an hour. It is written by two doctors. Buy it.


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

MT knows this stuff way better then I do. I will add that if she does an intense cardio workout 3-5 times a week that will help. I am not OCD but tend to have a high baseline anxiety level. Cardio sure helps. 

As for the porn - this is a tough one. There was a level of sexual satisfaction at which I was willing to give up porn - but it was partly an aging drive falling thing also. As for the sleeping in bed thing - I admit that would bum me out so much more then the garage. 

You can always pull the career card - I used it rarely but it went like this: With this level of stress and workload I just need you to try harder to avoid making home a place of conflict. And this is what I NEED you to do....

If I remember correctly your wife spends a lot of time on the computer. Enough that you could start to push that button if you need to. 






MarkTwain said:


> I have very mild OCD...
> 
> The best thing to do with OCD is to play with it. What OCD people do is take themselves far too seriously. They set up all sorts of boundaries that they must not cross and you must not cross. Some of them are clearly ridiculous.
> 
> ...


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## hubby (Aug 10, 2009)

Thanks for the advice guys. 

As expected, she was pretty cold to me. I tried to give her some affection and she pushed me away and told me she is still trying to deal with what we talked about last night and to give her some time so I don't get rejected.

The bed thing is a huge deal to me. She was the first girl I slept with on a regular basis (actually sleeping together). Sometimes we would have sex and just fall asleep naked in each other's arms. I loved that and totally inhanced our connection. Now I can barely touch her. Last night you could have fit the amazon river between us in the bed. Baby steps I guess....


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## MarkTwain (Aug 1, 2008)

hubby said:


> Baby steps I guess....


If you're going to try my method - which by the way is the latest thinking on the subject - which habit of hers are you going to pick first to challenge? 

It must be the one she can most easily stand to confront. At a guess I would say that would be the last one she added. Am I making sense?

Once you take that prop away from her, you can begin on the next one. The food thing I mentioned is vital. It's could be the difference between power-steering and manual! (If anyone here remembers those old motor cars).


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## hubby (Aug 10, 2009)

MarkTwain said:


> which habit of hers are you going to pick first to challenge?


Ever since I started down this path of "fixing" our marriage, I have not allowed her to add any more habits. There are still quite a few legacy tasks/issues:

-Not sleeping in bed
-Not opening the garage door
-Not using the garage
-Literally slamming the door every night and double checking the locks a few times
-Checking the house for about 10 mins before we leave to go anywhere
-Checking the car (emergency brake, AC, stereo, windows, lights, locks, doors, etc) for about 10 mins every time we park it in the driveway.
-General cleaning process (how many seconds I should wash my hands, when I should wash my hands, she won't let me wash any dishes/cloths b/c I am not able to do so to her standards).
-I am sure her OCD spills over to sex with her inability to do different things.
-Countless others I do not have time to list and she hides a lot of her OCD habbits that do not involve me. 


Not really sure where to start. We started with the bed last night. That is a fairly big one.

In retrospect, things are not nearly close to how bad they once were. At one point in our marriage, I spent 6 hours checking EVERYTHING (in a 1200 s/f appt) multiple times every night. Talk about enabling. I was an idiot.


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## MarkTwain (Aug 1, 2008)

hubby said:


> In retrospect, things are not nearly close to how bad they once were. At one point in our marriage, I spent 6 hours checking EVERYTHING (in a 1200 s/f appt) multiple times every night. Talk about enabling. I was an idiot.


I have a friend who turns himself inside out in trying to make me join in, in his rituals and nonsense. Last night I refused, so he got my wife to do it!

The current advice from the experts is -play with the rituals- make a joke out of them, mix them up break them down.

When I get a chance, I will look at the garage thread. Can you give a link?

See my post on OCD in this thread: http://talkaboutmarriage.com/99638-post38.html


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## hubby (Aug 10, 2009)

MarkTwain said:


> When I get a chance, I will look at the garage thread. Can you give a link?


I did not have another thread on the whole garage thing. This is the first one. If you want some of the gory details here you go...

In general, she has a fear of someone getting in and hiding in the garage, then sneaking into the house. That and the fear of snakes/bugs getting in. To be fair, a snake did get in the garage door once and into the house. It has been a year since we have used it as a real garage. We actually plan projects so that we don't have to gain access to it that much. When we do, we spend 5 or so minutes making several laps around it to make sure there are no people or snakes in there. We do not park in garage, obviously. The door to the house is literally sealed with caulking and foam tape. There is a note on it that says "do not open", quite embarrassing. 

I know what you are thinking, how could I let her do this. It is very difficult thing to break. For one, it actually starts to seem normal to me at some point and I start to accept it, in order to keep my sanity. If/when I do push back, I get a lot of guilt laid on me. I am told that I am not considerate of her illness, she gets VERY defensive and angry. She will be upset for me for days. I need to stick to my guns or we go right back to the way things were. 

After a day or two, she starts having mood swings where she will drop the anger and show affection, and then she will swing around abruptly and lay the guild on again. For example, she slept in the bed again last night. She did not go to bed until about 3 or 4. We both slept as close to the edge of the king size bed as humanly possible. This morning she tells me that if I want her to sleep in the bed that I must be prepared to deal with a bi*ch sometimes b/c she is not going to be getting enough sleep. Also, she sometimes will need a night or two on her own on the couch to catch up on sleep. This is the hard part where I weigh the pros and cons of sticking to my plan. I know in the end it will be worth it but sometimes the guilt is just too much and it makes me feel that she does not think I love or care for her.

You can just imagine how this bleeds over to our sex life...


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## okeydokie (Sep 10, 2008)

hubby, i deal with a similar situation and it is far easier for people to say "just throw it all out" than for thm to understand how sick OCD people are.

my wife is a hoarder. i had to move out of our bedroom, it was the last straw. i plead with her to deal with it, i demanded it. she hung her head and understood, but she has never dealt with it, cause she simply cant. it is difficult to see someone you love be so helpless, powerless to control their own actions. whats even more frustrating is that my little messes (no where near the level of hers) seem to get more attention from her than her own messes. it pisses me off to no end that she goes after my stuff and never touches her own.
my garage is similar, although she did finally address some of it when she had a yard sale. there is still a bunch of her crap out there that i can tell you will never get handled. it gives her some sort of deep comfort to be surrounded by junk.

since i moved to another part of the house i am much happier. i only see the bedroom when i shower and change so i am less exposed to it. if i posted pics of it you would be astonished, how she doesnt see it as unlivable i cannot understand. OCD is no bueno.


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## hubby (Aug 10, 2009)

okeydokie said:


> hubby, i deal with a similar situation and it is far easier for people to say "just throw it all out" than for thm to understand how sick OCD people are.


I agree it is very difficult. While I do feel a lot of guilt when I push for change, two things ring loudly:

-my wife did not show OCD behaviors until we moved in together. She did not have them with her parents and she did not have them when we stayed at each other’s house. It progressed over time. I feel that if I had nipped it in the bud at the first sign, none of her behaviors would have manifested. Of course, I understand that OCD tends to rear its ugly head at around 20-25 years old.

-every time I do push back, and hold strong, it has worked out for the better in the long run. 

It is just so emotionally draining to fight the fight until her urges subside.


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## MarkTwain (Aug 1, 2008)

With OCD, it is vital not to "humour" it too much.

OCD people know deep down that their fears are irrational. If you humour them, it allows them to push that knowing even deeper and out of sight.

Pick one... name it. And use this thread as a log.

The garage can come soon, but you need a few minor ones to practice on. It will take all your wits and skills. You are only part time on her case. She is on this FULL TIME.


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