20 questions or police interrogations

[Jsinjin]

Paraphrased    quotes added only to show when someone in the situation below is speaking

The toughest part of my life with a undOCPD spouse is the interrogations.    I literally feel like I'm a hostile witness except the courtroom is the kitchen and the crime is setting the laundry detergent on the washer instead of the dryer.    The questions can come over the simplest of things; I chose to drive home through the park, or I switch belts.    The worst is if something is moved like a picture moved for dusting or a chair is brought into a different room.   She has a near photographic memory for every piece of her horading and if things are even adjusted to close a door the questions will launch.    I have had friends over to talk about scout camping trips and she will march in demanding to know "are you planning to get rid of the fruit bowl, because it's not there and ..."   But it was in the dishwasher just being cleaned.   

I ask because this behavior is not linked to any paranoia for her.   It's almost as thought she simply lives in world where the assumption is that anyone has the full set of her imagined intentions as though setting a wallet and keys on the table instead of the nightstand was a conscious decision to radically change how those items are stored.

The very worst are the bizarre passive aggressive ones.    I leave for a trip and leave the coffee maker on.   While at the airport I see a call from her and I'm thrilled thinking "she is calling to say goodbye" the the voice comes on "did you know your coffee maker is on?" 

Did you want it left on the whole week while you are gone

Do you know the water will probably evaporate

I just didn't want to turn it off if you meant to leave it on

And so forth


It's the strangest behavior and I see almost no one else in my life like this.


Just wanted to see if anyone else gets this behavior.

[Thru the Rain]

My DH is a little like this. He's been diagnosed with mild OCD. (Not the same as OCDPD btw.)

I've noticed that the OCD gets worse when he's feeling anxious. When the OCD ramps up, I've learned to ask if he needs a break or if something is bothering him.

I've told him explicitly that I've seen this link between anxiety and OCD in him. This has actually helped - he feels like I "get" him.

I don't know your DW, so hopefully my DH's situation will resonate and help a little.

One thing you mentioned that jumped out at me - she expects you to automatically know her full set of imagined intentions. When these sort of topics come up, you may want to gently tell her that you don't read minds, and that it would be helpful for YOU if she could use words to communicate. I say both of these things regularly to DH, always with extreme gentleness, and it seems to help.

[Cascade]

Yes, I get interrogated sometimes. My husband can be living in his own world for days and then all of a sudden he'll realize he has no idea how so and so are doing or what has been going on in my life and then the questions will start.

[11JB68]

Jsinjin
I truly believe my h has ocpd but he is not diagnosed.
Please read anything you can find about the differences between ocd and ocpd and be cautious.
The 'p' makes a big difference.
For years h was convinced, and had me convinced that he had ocd and aspbergers.
It wasn't until I started researching his controlling behavior that I realized that was likely not the case.

[Jsinjin]

Below is paraphrased with quotes to show when someone is speaking in the narrative.

Thanks all.   My spouse definitely has undiagnosed ocpd.    The symptoms are much more than just interrogations; that behavior is just the one that involves me the most.    There are many more!  The interrogations are one sticking point that feels as though  a police officer suspects I'm running a  illicit mafia operation only the transgression and suspected behavior is that I made a batch of cookies or dusted unexpectedly.    Example: I take the toll road home at a strange time of day and she notices the three dollar charge on the bill but the time is at 2:30 instead of 6 pm.   Through an interrogation, we have to work to reconstruct the entire day and why I came home early that day in a game of 20 questions.     Her founding assumption is not control of me, it's that something in an actuarial world is different and unaccounted for so it's worth hours of time and questions and review to get the reason.   But I have to show in full detail that on that day I had to do something like a kids scout meeting or something for church or a Dr appointment or a flight because her fear is that someone else may be using my toll tag and getting away with it.   The tough thing for me is that the interrogation is like a full fledged assault where she has already gathered evidence about the date and time and background and innocently starts with a simple question like "hey, do you usually come home at about 5:30"    when I answer yes it's an immediate leap, " so would you ever come home at 2:30"   

Then " I don't know, I guess I could"

Her with an instant fire off " why would you be driving home at 2:30?"

Me, " I don't think I would"

Her, " well your toll tag bill says that on sept 16 you drove home at 2:30 pm and ther is a bill of 3.00, why would the time be different on that day? "


And it would go on and on with her eventually looking for proof of the event and checking and not letting it go.   The odd thing is that she isn't looking for a transgression by me, she is literally worried that someone else used a fake toll tag or the toll tag company made a mistake and she wants to solve it.     But this type of interrogating can occur with anything at any time.   I once reset all the clocks at daylight savings time and forgot one somewhere and I think it was at least an hour of very frustrating questions of me about why I didn't reset that one as though I left it on the old time to keep track of something.   'I forgot to reset that one' was not an acceptable answer.  There had to be a specific reason why I left that one clock back an hour and we were going to figure it out.

It's just one of many behaviors such as hoarding, over volunteering, violent rages etc. but it is the one that interacts with me the most often.

[11JB68]

It is exhausting
Have you read my posts about 'Popsicle-gate'?
That argument only went fairly quickly because I have learned over the past year about not JADEing, Medium Chill, etc. Otherwise it could have gone on for hours.

[Penny Lane]

Wow! I can totally relate to it.

My H's ex does this all the time and I find it extremely adversarial and alarming. It's often things she has no right to know. And it's almost always something that doesn't really matter or information she doesn't need to know.

Think like, 20 emails over two weeks about H making a playdate with one of the kid's friends. Is it happening, when will it be, what are they doing, who initiated it ... she'll go on forever unless DH cuts it off.

Thru the Rain, the insight about it possibly being about their own anxiety is a good one (and I think it might translate to PDs even if that's not why your husband is doing it.) I think she often does it when she's feeling insecure. The result is that DH feels attacked - but maybe that's not the point, the point is to soothe her own anxiety or feelings of inadequacy.

Anyway, Jsinjin, I can totally relate to how difficult this is to deal with. It creates tension when there should be none and blows things up in the a problem for no reason. I like the metaphor of the police interrogation because that is really what it feels like. It bothers me (I'm trying to not let it) and I'm not even the target! DH responds with a version of medium chill, although that's much easier in writing than it is in person.

[Wilderhearts]

Jsinjin, these "innocent" initial questions are exactly what I've experienced from an pwuOCPD.  I think it's a bit of a trap they set - they're hinting that if you've done something wrong and know it they've figured it out, or, as you've noted, they expect you to know what they're talking about when being as vague as possible.  I've noticed OCPD has a serious communication problem - either bombarding with rationales and justifications for her own behaviour, or ever-so-vaguely prompting others for similarly detailed explanations (about arbitrary things or things that are just none-of-their-damn-business).

I (fortunately) no longer have the opportunity to do this, but there are ways to not play into the dynamic.  I like being direct, so a "what are you trying to ask/say?" may get them to just spit it out and skip over the 20 questions game.  pwOCPD feel like they need "permission" a lot, especially if it's to act outside of their 'crazy rules' (i.e. OCPD "logic").

A lot of these "medium chill" responses I find suitable for an OCPD's prying:
https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-2/2015/12/3/medium-chill

[11JB68]

My uOCPDh thinks he's using some kind of 'socratic method' or something and I finally called him on it and basically asked him to quit it.
Also MC works wonders. It doesn't 'solve' anything but it curtails the never-ending circular arguments and questioning.
I'm so glad to have some others who are dealing with pwOCPD - it seems to be one of the less common PDs (and too often confused with OCD, which I think is much less difficult for the 'non' to deal with). While I don't 'wish' it on anyone, I'm glad to not be alone in dealing with these behaviors.
Wilderhearts, your comments here about the communication issues are very helpful - you responded to my post about the vague 2 word 'sentences' and I see some of that issue reflected here too...

[Jsinjin]

Another one occurred today.   I can't figure these out.   Ever make a mistake for no reason; as in you just didn't even think and you simply made a mistake.    Last night I loaded the dishwasher, a task she really doesn't like anyone to do but sometimes it has to be done.    I didn't run it because it wasn't full and this morning after a cup of coffee I loaded a few dishes in early and started it.    Without realizing it at 6 am I grabbed the wrong bottle of soap from under the sink and instead of dishwasher soap I had liquid soap for handwashing dishes.    And the dishwasher foamed and the foam came out the drains and filled the sinks.    There was absolutely no reason other than I just grabbed the wrong bottle.    The questions went one after another for the better part of an hour and showed me everything that didn't get clean punctuated with loud "oooh's" and physically bringing me into show me how bad it was and asking what was I thinking and reviewing whether or not this would destroy the dishwasher in documentation online and showing me websites.    I kept saying do you want to run it again or I'll even hand wash the dishes.

Then there have been multiple stops of whatever I'm doing to discuss how we can keep that from happening again.   We literally have cat boxes that don't get emptied for a whole week when I'm out of town and there have been multiple hours assessing the quality assurance of my attention to detail with dish soap and an appliance.

[11JB68]

Oh yes, the how to never have this mistake happen again....ugh...all the time. And he knows there is no logical way to prevent a mistake, so in the end he pretty much just tells me well don't do it again. But no one can criticize him ever.

[GentleSoul]

All so exhausting.

[livinginmyhead]

My husband does that too and it drives me crazy.  One time when I was really irritated at him and he was doing this I told him,"I'm sorry-I haven't been sworn in yet...." because he treats me like a hostile witness!  I used to call him the D.A.

He also won't believe me when I talk about some news that he hasn't heard about yet.  If he didn't hear it from a friend or relative or his hobby forum or fakebook it didn't happen and he gets an accusatory tone in his voice like I'm just making shit up.  I want to say something like, "Exhibit A:  NY Post article, dated January 14, 2019, stating yadda yadda yadda.  Defense rests."

I'm not in a courtroom, I'm in my home trying to converse with this stranger who is posing as my husband.

It's unbelievable.

[livinginmyhead]

From the Medium Chill drawer in the tool box:  "Engage in the type of conversation you might have with a total stranger while waiting for the bus."

Sometimes I forget this simple rule and I usually regret it.

😆

[GentleSoul]

I'm in my home trying to converse with this stranger who is posing as my husband.

Wow, this hit me in the face.  This is how it is for me too.

Thank you, reading this has been a help to me. 

[Whiteheron]

 
perfect description!

Whenever I made a mistake (very frequently!), my stbx would lecture me like a know-it-all professor. In excruciating detail. I would be standing there impatiently, asking, 'can I clean it up/fix it yet?" and he'd harshly reply that he wasn't done yet... I guess he had his captive audience.

[Stillirise]

I had missed this thread until the more recent comments! I’d considered uPDH to be mostly of the NPD/BPD variety, but wow. Some of these things really hit home.  I think I’d become used to this particular quirk after all these years. 

However, I find it particularly annoying when he does this to the kids. Like, any new idea they come up with, he drills them about where they saw it, heard it, etc., as if they can’t have an original thought of their own.  Or, even if they did see something similar online, they usually have no idea how to respond to his line of questioning! If I try to step in to help them out, then I get, “I’m talking to Ds/Dd!!”

He also does things like obsessively preach that we left a light on in the house during the day, even though he leaves his shop lights on for weeks, sometimes.

He typically has difficulty keeping up with his tools and other personal belongings.  He then accuses me or the kids of using it, and not putting it back.  However, if I move, change, or heaven forbid—replace an item of mine, or in the house, the interrogation is on.

Just last weekend, he decided he was going home early from a family outing.  When he was leaving, I made the mistake of asking him what he had planned for the rest of the day. I forgot that was way too personal to ask of a stranger! Boy, did I get the snark and passive aggression for my “interrogation” of that one.

I could go on and on with these things. So, thanks for your insights!   This gives me a whole new way if looking at, and reacting to, my own special uPDh.

[athene1399]

I don't get the 20 questions from my sis, but I get the "charges have been pressed" (if we stick to the police interrogation metaphor). We live together (yay! [sarcasm]). I walk into the room and she's like "Why did your SO move my x?" I"ll say "He didn't tell me he moved x. Is it in your truck or room?" (which is where they always end up being. She's the one that misplaced it, yet she accuses my SO of it). sis; "no. I already looked." Cue her hiding his stuff as punishment for his transgression. A week later. I see x on the table in the kitchen. Me: "I see x turned up." Sis: "it was in my truck under the seat." I'm so glad SO has infinite patience with her. When he finds out she is "punishing" him, he usually laughs because it's so stupid and doesn't really bother him.

He also does things like obsessively preach that we left a light on in the house during the day, even though he leaves his shop lights on for weeks, sometimes

Sis yells at me about things, and they are usually things she forgets to do herself. Sis also talks to me like she's my mother. "If you don't do xyz, your house will look like crap.. I don't understand why you won't do xyz. You're dumb for not doing it..." I've lived through one emotionally abusive mother, I don't need two...

[Whatthehey]

If I didn't know better, I would swear you all knew my stbxOCPDh.  Same behavior.  I feel better knowing I'm not alone.

[Stillirise]

Maybe I've become hyper-aware of this as I come Out of the FOG, but I've also been noting a similar phenomenon more often lately.  The "not really a question" question.  In the past 10 minutes I've been asked, "You always take your phone with you to the shower?" (I had it on a ledge in case I wanted music.) Then, shortly after I got out, "Is that what you're wearing to the store?" (Wearing gym clothes. Should I have chosen a formal gown?!)

Because I'm not JADEing at the moment, I simply replied, "sometimes," and "yes."