My wife is a neat freak, and life is so depressing. What should I do?

Hello, this friend. I can feel that you have a headache about your wife's obsessive tendency to be neat, which leads to disharmony in life, but at the same time, I can strongly feel that you are a good husband who cares about family relations and hope to improve the interaction with your wife at present.

I can see from your article that you have three concerns:

The first kind of worry: you are afraid that one day you will suddenly break out because you can't stand your wife's cleanliness, harming others and yourself.

The second worry: you are rethinking your relationship with your wife. Will you always maintain this pattern of quarreling about every little thing because of such cleanliness? In fact, you don't like this model, but you just don't know how to improve it.

The third worry: are you worried about whether such cleanliness symptoms will be passed on to children?

First of all, I want to say that from your description of your wife's behavior, I think she is more in line with the standard of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, because she has obsession with herself and others (while obsessive-compulsive disorder only has obsession with herself and no obsession with others). In this case, in fact, I think you are great, because people with obsessive-compulsive disorder don't think what they are doing is wrong, but think what they are doing is wrong.

For people with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, generally speaking, it is difficult to correct even through psychotherapy, because this personality has been formed in adolescence, even in childhood, and has a certain solidification model. In this case, only you have to get used to her.

In a sense, as a husband, you need to adapt to your wife more. Don't always see the trouble caused by her cleanliness, but also think about the benefits it brings, such as a clean and tidy home and orderly things.

Regarding the last concern, obsessive-compulsive disorder is not highly heritable, and there are usually no obvious symptoms of mother-to-child transmission, but it also has a lot to do with a good family atmosphere. Therefore, your urgent task now is to communicate with your wife more. Don't let your communication with your wife form a "conflict-quarrel-opposition" model, but form a "understanding-understanding-frankness" model.

Because in fact, compulsive people can't understand the sadness and feeling of being bound after others are bound. You should be honest with her, but in a tactful tone, not like a quarrel. Every time she does something, you slowly tell her how you feel, and over time, she will change.

You have to believe that she has the power to change, and you also have the ability to make her change. After all, you are in love!