Reddit reviews Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty

If you believe she was genuinely threatening your life, I'm not sure I know how you should proceed. But if you think it may have only been an expression of anger born of frustration, I may have some insight to offer.

It sounds like your wife is really suffering right now, and if you are triggering her symptoms, she may (irrationally) lash out at you as the cause of her suffering. For example, suppose she comes home from a long week at work, looking forward to the weekend. She comes in the house to find something unclean that you were supposed to have cleaned or would have cleaned if you were only thinking. Suddenly she is paralyzed with OCD. Instead of enjoying her weekend, she will spend it suffering. Why? Because of what you did or failed to do.

There is, in a sense, a twisted logic to her reasoning. If she was allergic to peanuts and came home to find you had thrown a friggin' peanut party and left peanuts strewn all through the house, doesn't it make sense that she would be mad at you? I think most people would agree that was a major asshole move on your part, so what's not to be mad at?

The difference here (and what makes her behavior decidedly unreasonable) is that there is no possible way you can anticipate what her OCD will demand from her. And even if you could, you are not doing her any favors by helping her accommodate those demands. It sounds like you want to help your wife, but you both need to be on the same page that helping her does not mean helping her perform her rituals (or avoid her triggers, e.g. cleaning the house perfectly so she doesn't start to obsess).

You said you two are in therapy? Good, keep going. And make sure you are seeing a cognitive-behavioral therapist who practices exposure and response prevention therapy. Traditional psychotherapy (as well as most other kinds of therapy) will be of little use to either of you. You may also consider trying medication to see how she responds.

Lastly, you need to talk about these episodes with your wive and her therapist. It sounds like your wive is really suffering right now, so she may not be aware of the damage she is doing to your relationship. But that doesn't mean the damage isn't done. You need to tell her what's going on in the presence of a trained therapist who can help her come to grips with the reality that her OCD is the enemy here, not you. They will probably also tell you to stop trying to accommodate her OCD.

Lastly, let me say that I understand what you are going through. You are trying to be a good husband, doing everything you can to help your wife in her time of need. And what do you receive in return? Death threats?! She gets mad at you for trying to help, when she should be thanking you?! Who needs that!

But try to look at it from your wive's perspective as well. If she is really in the grip of OCD, she is suffering CONSTANTLY. She's probably also terrified that it's only going to get worse and she's helpless to stop it. Even though the sun is shining for the rest of us, your wife is in hell. And sometimes when you're in hell, you say and do things you later regret.

The good news is, if you both want to win this fight, there's every reason to think you can. If she is willing to do the work of ERP therapy (perhaps with an assist from medication), she can put her OCD in check and you two can return to the relationship you had before her condition began to deteriorate.

I would also recommend you read Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by Jonathan Grayson. It is hands down the best book on OCD that I have ever read and will almost certainly help to supplement the work you are doing with your therapist.

http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder-Personalized-ebook/dp/B0049U4KGM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1410081018&sr=8-2&keywords=ocd+jonathan

Best of luck to you and your wive. If you have any questions, feel free to message me and I'll do what I can to help.

OCD is misrepresented pretty badly in our culture. The typical “I wash my hands too much” thing is not really what most people with the disorder go through. I can’t diagnose you over the internet, but the problems you are describing sound a lot like OCD to you. I suggest you read this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder-Personalized-ebook/dp/B0049U4KGM/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?adgrpid=56348462112&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0s7R87LE5AIVS5yzCh0w7AjuEAAYASAAEgIWW_D_BwE&hvadid=274707565562&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=9005925&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=b&hvrand=17230286814868511043&hvtargid=kwd-302479268088&hydadcr=22159_10176612&keywords=jonathan+grayson+freedom+from+ocd&qid=1568054687&s=gateway&sr=8-4

I recommend it to people on here a lot, because it really helped me understand what was going on (after a long period of wrong diagnoses and useless treatments). The author does a great job explaining what people with OCD actually go through and dispels a lot of the myths around it.