Typical OCPD

[11JB68]

Like a lot of stuff I dealt with this with medium chill. Not worth a fight. Observe and report.
I'm sure some of you can relate.
Home late from a good party,
I admit I'm a bit drunk.
Ds goes into one bathroom. I go into the other to wash up. UOCPDh comes in...'is he still in the downstairs bathroom?' Yes. 'Well then you need to get out'. Ok...he needs the bathroom, I get it, fine. I go downstairs. Ds is out of downstairs bathroom (toilet tends to run....this reminds me of someone else's recent post about their dad waiting for the dryer to buzz...)... I suddenly need the bathroom... I try to flush but it is stuck/running. UOCPDH is now calling to me "is the toilet running?" Ugh. I literally JUST finished. I open the door. H:"is the toilet running?" Me: I just finished in here. H:but it's running, I know it's running, I heard it from upstairs.

OMG.

Me: ds JUST finished. I tried to flush it. Too soon. Give me a minute. (Count to3)...it stops running, flush, fine...

Ugh

He just has to be on top of us with everything

[Poison Ivy]

My former father-in-law displayed some OCPD behavior, I think.  (I use the past tense because although he is still alive, he is very old, and my ex doesn't talk to me any more, so I don't know if exFIL still does these things.) The two that spring to mind:  He would scold my ex for having the refrigerator door open while looking for something in the refrigerator (wasting energy!) and also would scold him for leaving any lights on in the house at night, after people went to bed (again, wasting electricity!). 

[Whatthehey]

Leaving the lights on drove my exOCPDh crazy.  Especially at night.  If the light was left on after final lock up (checking every door and look/closing/locking windows) say a kid left a light on in the kitchen when they for a snack, he would go bonkers and never let them forget it.  I would set an alarm for about an hour after final lights, just to check that the lights were out so we wouldn't have to deal with it again.

I remember him waking me up at 4 am because I didn't leave the pot in front of the barn door and the door could possibly swing open.  He noticed when he went to the bathroom and he had to go and fix it in case the door swung open.  I needed to be told immediately and reprimanded.  Sigh.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Yes, that's all very familiar to me. (It was my dad who pounces on the dryer.) I think "pounce" is a great verb for OCPD. The springs are wound very tightly at all times. And that perpetual readiness for the starting gun they experience is imposed on us. It's a very inhuman way to live, always under scrutiny and of course coming up short. It's suffocating and abusive. I ended up feeling ashamed to take up space as a teenager, zero self confidence. For which I was shamed. Not surprising, since at home I was apparently not even deserving of basic resources like water and electricity, since I'd be berated the moment I stepped in the shower and told the river was down.

It's seriously damaging to a child, growing up with constant criticism. Perhaps your DH isn't as extreme, but still it sounds bad enough if you can't go to the toilet in peace. 11JB68, you have a really hard but critical task to protect your son from the effects of your husband's OCPD, as well as yourself. Your son doesn't have the autonomy to counter it on his own.

[11JB68]

Swirling: I would set an alarm for about an hour after final lights, just to check that the lights were out so we wouldn't have to deal with it again.
It amazes me the hoops I / we all jump through just to avoid blow-ups.
It's exhausting (physically and mentally) to always be overcompensating in this way.

Cordelia...DS is now almost 22. I had a heart to heart talk with him about a  year ago about his dad.
For the many years that I was in the FOG it was so hard - to stay vs to leave and the repercussions of each. I almost left once but was very fearful that H wouldn't let me take DS and THEN WHAT?? I didn't want him stuck alone with him.
DS seems to instinctively use MC and no JADEing...

[Call Me Cordelia]

Ok, I'm sorry I was reading this as if he were a kid. Glad to hear he's got some skills!

[11JB68]

Cordelia, that's ok....I realize I left off the 21 as in DS21...
And you're right...when he was younger I really struggled, and especially being in the FOG and not realizing that h likely had a pd, I know that I failed in many ways. It felt like a lose-lose situation, and still does.
Actually ds taught me some valuable stuff, e.g. about logical fallacies.