How do I survive an OCPD marriage?

[Haiiro Ishi]

I believe my wife has OCPD. We have been married for three years and have a one year old daughter. For reasons mentioned below leaving is not an option I would choose.

Examples of her behavior;
Making me sell most of my clothes and possessions.
Taking away my debit card and paying me a small allowance.
Ordering me about all of the time.
Taking my daughter away from me to her parents home if I politely refuse to do something.
Becoming very angry if I do something she considers wrong, such as folding the towels "incorrectly".
Telling me I need to be institutionalized because I can't do simple tasks the way she does them.
Not letting me put up Christmas decorations because it would "ruin the look of the room".
Preventing me from expressing myself by forbidding me from sighing or using a "non positive" tone of voice.

In case I forget, I wrote out a list of things to do around the home to avoid making her angry. I basically live on egg shells. I have almost no possession and very few clothes because seeing my possessions makes her angry. I have not been able to see my friends, do any of my hobbies or even go to the store without her permission. I only wear the clothes or listen to the music that she likes, to avoid angering her.

Last year she decided I must give up being a vegetarian. I have been a vegetarian for 30 years, so this has been very difficult for me. She knew I was vegetarian from when we first met. I don't mind her or my child eating meat, and I respect her choice. I simply do not want to eat it myself. She will not let me cook and if I refuse to eat her food she becomes quite angry.

I live in a foreign country where custody of the child can only go to the parent indicated on the divorce papers. After which the parent with custody of the child has no legal obligation to allow access to the child. I know if we get divorced I will never see my daughter again. This is a first world country, but it is common for people to be divorced without their consent, it simply takes a forged signature. She has threatened me with divorce on numerous occasions already. I have already been to the town hall and filled out documents to show I do not consent to divorce to avoid this.

I have not told my parents back home about the situation because I fear my wife will refuse to visit my home country with our daughter if she feels any resentment from my parents.

The grey rock method has worked well for me, I learned about it on this site. But it does not seem to be a long term strategy. It is also hard to constantly have to brighten up the mood of the house because my wife is so negative about everything. Our relationship is going to have a big effect on our daughter. My worst fear is that my daughter will copy my wife's behavior, as my wife has clearly copied her mother.

When my daughter gets older it will be harder for my wife to take her away from me at that point. So I think I will bide my time until then and then start standing up for myself a bit more. I know that I have have let my wife get away with too much and she is settled into a pattern of abusing me. But I can see no other way of surviving aside from being obedient when she gets so angry about such small things. Pretty much hourly, I am thinking about the fact that I am staring down the barrel of 20 more years of this until I can run away. That is not a good attitude to have, for me or my daughter.

TLDR Any advice on living with someone with OCPD?

[bloomie]

Hi there and welcome. What extreme demands you are living under and a great deal of stress. I can sense there are some very imposing cultural influences involved in this and of course consideration for your beloved child - which make this complicated for you.

Is it possible to get some advice and help setting limits on these controlling and rigid behaviors from a respected 3rd party like a therapist or spiritual advisor?

Gray Rock is an excellent strategy to use when conversation would not be productive or incite further abuse. The toolbox above is very helpful as well.

There are some excellent media resources and book recommendations that may open up some avenues of coping for you and clarify what you may be dealing with found here:

Books: https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?board=26.0
Other Media Resource: https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?board=45.0

I do understand she threatens you when you do try to speak up for yourself and harasses you when you attempt to assert your human rights such as what you will wear and eat and how you will live. What you are experiencing is extremely life limiting. It may be of some help to talk your situation through with a trained domestic abuse counselors given the threats and what seems to be highly reactionary behaviors.

Here you will find international resources to consider contacting and working through a safety plan for yourself and your child: https://outofthefog.website/emergency

Keep coming back and sharing. It helps to not feel so isolated and alone. 

[tragedy or hope]

hairoishi,
One day at a time. One minute at a time if this is what you need to do. Children are helpless and you are wise to put your daughter's well-being first. it sounds as if your spouse is looking to see where her boundaries are with you... she has tried everything!

Decide how you want to live and live it. She is holding anger over you as a manipulation. Let her get as angry as she needs to be. Make sure you and your daughter are safe. Leave if you have to for awhile. If she has no audience for her rage, it is purposeless.

Behavior like that is extremely manipulative. Feeling rejected makes us want to solve the problem and do whatever makes them stop. We cannot make it better for them, only for ourselves. she has you living in fear. Fear keeps us from doing what we need to do for ourselves.

I can't imagine she is happy with herself. She can't seem to solve her unhappiness by controlling you because you say she does more. This puts you in a place to make your own decisions, she will not stop being unhappy no matter what you do.

You could find an Al Anon meeting. It is for families and friends of alcoholics and it is worldwide. Even if you have just known someone whose drinking has bothered you, you qualify to attend meetings. They are free. Many families are able to stay together with the kinds of behaviors you describe once the spouse learns how to take care of themselves. The meetings are support for you, not her.

Until you are ready to do anything different, you will find hope and strength to cope at these meetings. Others have been where you are. Many therapists recommend Al Anon to their clients.

Type in Al Anon and your country. Read the website. See if it comforts you. If it does it could be the beginning of a better life for you, and your daughter.

[treesgrowslowly]

I agree with Bloomie and will add:

Document the abuse. Document facts and events with dates.  Use a method obviously that she isn't privy to.

Find out more about the specific laws and child custody where you live and ideally talk to a lawyer who knows how divorce would work in your situation. Don't rely on her for info about those topics.

Having that information and knowledge will help you to feel more informed.

One of the things about living with abuse is that we can feel so down at times that it is hard to get information and learn about the resources that exist for us. You don't have to act on the information. Just having it is part of your survival strategy, so that you know what resources will be there to help you to protect your daughter.

I am so sorry you are in this situation.

Trees

[guitarman]

Welcome. You are not alone.

What a terrible time you are having. It must be all so stressful for you. You seem to have a life without any enjoyment.

Abusers are all about power and control. Your wife uses coercive control in every aspect of your life. She is projecting all her insecurities and fears onto you. You are not the problem she is.

You need to get support. I know of many men this has happened to so thank you for speaking up. I know it's not easy.

Maybe your wife is taking your money so that you can't afford to visit a therapist. Hopefully you will be able to get some free support.

She maybe provoking you to become angry with her so that she can then become the victim. It's the Circle of Abuse where the abuser turns everything around to become the victim. You can't control anyone else's behaviour you can only control and change your own. That is you can stay calm and not get angry which is exactly what she wants you to do.  However, that doesn't mean that you have to do things that you don't want to do. That is abuse. If it hurts it isn't love.

Please get the help that you desperately need.

Keep calm. Keep strong. Keep posting.

[Wilderhearts]

haiiroshi,

Welcome, and I hope you find a lot of support and insight here. 

I agree with so much of what's been said.  I hope that your country's legal system allows for exceptional circumstances in cases of child custody, otherwise no parent would ever be able to protect their child from another parent who endangers their safety or wellbeing.

After living with a pwOCPD, I found this website very insightful, specifically the "crazy rules" tab and the "Perfectionist's Credo" on the right hand side: http://perfectlyawfulusa.blogspot.com/p/crazy-rules.html.

I think that website is where I learned that "righteous indignation" is a key attribute of OCPD.  It's a special strain of anger driven by their own personal set of beliefs, which they think is objective logic, and they use this "logic" to justify their rigid behaviours and abuse/control.  What I tuned into is that the pwOCPD I knew was full of fear and chaos, which she had no idea how to control.  So instead, she tried to control everything and everyone around her. 

I'm so sorry that she's ruining so many things that would give you freedom, enjoyment and self-expression in life.  Cutting off or limiting financial access is a way of isolating a person, and gaining greater control over multiple aspects of their life in one fell swoop.  You may want to read up on the "Boundaries" page in the toolbox.  While your wife can use abuse, coercion, and controlling behaviours to try and get you to do something, you are still in control of your own actions.  However, I understand that giving up control over some things, no matter how significant, can be more tolerable than the abuse.

I hope you find lots of answers here.
WH

 

[11JB68]

I will second what Wilder hearts said:"I think that website is where I learned that "righteous indignation" is a key attribute of OCPD.  It's a special strain of anger driven by their own personal set of beliefs, which they think is objective logic, and they use this "logic" to justify their rigid behaviours and abuse/control.  What I tuned into is that the pwOCPD I knew was full of fear and chaos, which she had no idea how to control.  So instead, she tried to control everything and everyone around her. "
That is pretty much exactly my experience with uocpdh

[Haiiro Ishi]

Thank you all very much for the support you have shown me in this thread. It means a lot to me to just be heard and reassured.

Dear Bloomie thank you for all of the many resources, I am reading through them all slowly and there are very useful. It means a lot to have some light shone on my situation because it can be so confusing when you are under attack all the time. Thank you for your kind words.

Where I live there is no counseling available in English, and it's hard for me to leave home so that's why I turned to the internet. Thank you for having me and reading my posts. It would be great to have some kind of joint marriage counseling but she has already refused to try it.

hairoishi,
One day at a time. One minute at a time if this is what you need to do. Children are helpless and you are wise to put your daughter's well-being first.

Dear Tragedy or Hope
Thank you for your reply. I totally agree. I need to just live on day at a time and focus on the safety of my daughter. If I can get through the day I'm calling that a victory. One more day with my daughter is a small victory but one that I have to celebrate I think. I can't worry about making long term plans if my wife is just going to prevent me when I get a chance. I'd love to start going to the gym and exercising again. I'd love to buy a new computer because mine is over 5 years old now and on it's last legs. I'd like to start doing my hobbies again. But I feel like I have just have to play it safe for now. The apartment we are living in now is very small so it's hard to get away from each other. I'm hoping when we buy a house I will have some kind of bolt hole, even if it's the garden. That will help greatly.

You are right. She is a very unhappy person, and now I realize I can never make such a person happy. I actually feel sad for her in a way. She can never appreciate what she has. The best I can do is not set her off too much, at personal cost to myself. Although she is controlling me, I am also managing her behavior with my own actions. I'm slowly learning that acting a certain way gets certain results out of her, but doing this humble obedient performance all the time is very tiring.

Thank you for the information about AI-Anon. Sadly the only meeting is quite far from where I live, but I'm happy to hear that there is support for people out there.

Find out more about the specific laws and child custody where you live and ideally talk to a lawyer who knows how divorce would work in your situation. Don't rely on her for info about those topics.

Dear Trees. Thank you very much for your response. I am documenting the abuse, it helps a lot of write it all out and forget about it. Carrying it all around all the time is not good for you. I have done my own research into the laws of this country and sadly joint custody does not exist here. Because I am a man, and a foreigner, it is highly unlikely I would be given custody. There are many other people struggling because of this unfair law in this country, so I hope it will change sometime in the future.

What a terrible time you are having. It must be all so stressful for you. You seem to have a life without any enjoyment. ...She maybe provoking you to become angry with her so that she can then become the victim. ...Keep calm. Keep strong. Keep posting.

Dear Guitarman, thank you very much for your kind words. Yes, my life lacks enjoyment. But this situation has also made me realise that I need to appreciate the small things in  life that I might take for granted otherwise. Things like playing with my daughter, reading to her, and getting to take care of her. I also get a little time in the evening when my wife falls asleep. I can listen to the radio then. I look forward to that time throughout the day. It's kind of sad that such a small thing can keep me going, I would have taken such a thing for granted before.
Yes I can clearly see her trying to provoke me now. I think after years of working with people with mental health issues I have built up a good ability to stay calm. This really gets her cross, because she can't pass her anger off onto me. Our "arguments" are mostly her talking at me, I don't really say much. As you say they are totally circular, so in order to finish them I make some kind of formal apology which she always eats up. It makes me wonder if you can grey rock someone too hard.

haiiroshi,
"righteous indignation" is a key attribute of OCPD.  It's a special strain of anger driven by their own personal set of beliefs, which they think is objective logic, and they use this "logic" to justify their rigid behaviours and abuse/control...However, I understand that giving up control over some things, no matter how significant, can be more tolerable than the abuse.

Dear Wilderhearts, thank you for the link to the blog, I will  read it when I can. This is a trait I can see very clearly in my wife. She has a very rigid set of rules and logic, which sometimes seems to contradict itself. Not that I can tell her that. She lives in a very black and white world, her inflexibility is a source of her sadness and anger I think. Trying to understand and live within her logic is not easy but I'm trying to adapt to it.
Giving up my hobbies and habits has reduced her anger somewhat, and it's a shame, but I would have not do things for a while than lose my daughter in the long run. A sense of freedom has also come with giving things up. She can't take anything else away from me now. It certainly takes less time to choose what clothes to wear!

Thank you everyone. I feel much less alone now. 

[11JB68]

Haiiro, you mentioned:
She has a very rigid set of rules and logic, which sometimes seems to contradict itself.
These are arbitrary rules.
Also a key feature of ocpd.
The arbitrariness is frustrating.