An Odd Routine
Hi, everyone. This will probably be lengthy as I have nobody in my life to talk to about this. My wife suffers from intense germophobia and anxiety. We have been together for 11 years and married for eight.
She has not always been like this; she was relatively normal while we dated, but it started to get so much worse after we got married.
She previously worked at a hotel as a receptionist and was occasionally required to handle and wash guest towels.
Well, she ended up contracting a staph infection and had to be hospitalized to have the infection drained. Following this, she had to be on antibiotics for 30 days. Ever since that experience, her anxiety and fear of infection has steadily grown over the years up until this point.
We also have two children—a two-year-old boy and five-year-old girl—and her tendencies affect them, too. The following list is my attempt at a comprehensive germ-prevention “Standard Operating Procedures” of our household:
If I touch a light switch I need to wash my hands
If I touch a doorknob I need to wash my hands
If I go to the garage I need to take a shower before I can sit down or do anything
If I touch her pajamas or I touch towels then I need to take a shower
If I even enter the guest bathroom then I have to take a shower
If my kids enter the guest bathroom they have to have a bath
I am not allowed to use her toilet in the master bathroom
She stops up her toilet every day and requires me to plunge and clean it (she uses 3x as much toilet paper as a regular person would). The cleaning process is 3 Clorox wipes—one for the seat, one for under, and one to use to flush it with.
I have to immediately shower after this. If she spills excess water on the floor then I have to mop it up. She goes through entire loads of her pajamas daily just trying to change her clothes. Every time she uses the toilet, she has to change her clothes.
She washes her hands and arms up to her elbows and then her face. If she gets water on her shirt, she will change it.
If, when putting on her shirt she touches it to her body, she will change it. If her pants touch the floor when she is putting them on, she will change them.
She discards the top shirts in her drawer every time she gets dressed. She uses 6-7 towels after a shower, discarding half of them because “they touched my chest.” As you can see, this adds up and I end up folding laundry for 60-90 minutes every day.
This doesn’t include the time it takes to actually change it out and take showers. If I change out laundry and I graze the doorframe when I enter the bedroom with clothes, I have to discard ALL OF THEM. If an article of clothing touches the edge of the bed, discard it.
If I even touch the dishwasher I have to wash my hands. If she takes a shower and gets in the bed, she will NOT leave the bedroom or she considers herself dirty and would have to shower again. This means if she is hungry or thirsty, I will bring it to her.
Her showers last around 40 minutes. She bathes 3-4 times and washes her hair 2 times. Our water bill is ridiculous.
If my son takes one step outside of his playpen then he has to have a bath before he can go in his bed. This includes naps.
If I take him outside (even just for 1 minute), he would need a bath before he can get in his bed. Not even changing his clothes would suffice. When I clean the house, everything has to be done in a very specific order.
No deviations from this order, or it has to be re-done: Change out laundry and leave washer free; Wash hands, face, and arms and change clothes; Sanitize all toys on floor and put away; Pick up all clothes and put in baskets; Sanitize all counters; Clean kids bathroom;
Take out master bathroom trash, wash hands, replace bag; Take out kids’ trash, wash hands, replace bag; Take out kitchen trash, wash hands, replace bag;
Clean guest bathroom, wash hands, take out trash, wash hands, replace bag; Take shower; Put bathroom rugs in washer; Take shower; Sweep entire house in a very specific order; Mop house in very specific order; Take shower.
I want to make this clear: I have no problem with cleaning, but I often do something in the wrong order or forget to wash my hands and I get berated.
My wife has little patience for mistakes that involve germs. Often, I have to clean the house late at night after the kids go to bed so I will be doing it after midnight.
Of course I will make mistakes when I am mentally exhausted. If I bring her water, I have to wash my hands and then hold the cup over my head as it clears the kitchen counter. She thinks that if I hold her cup around my chest that it will touch the counter and be dirty.
I do the same thing with plates and utensils. If I have to discard a piece of clothing on the floor in her vicinity, she will change her clothes and get angry.
She thinks that the air created when the clothing hits the floor will blow bacteria all over her. This is perhaps the one that upsets me the most.
If my dog gets out, he has to have a bath before he can come back. He gets out often because she won’t close the door.
My wife will not touch doorknobs. She uses her foot to close the door and she will just leave it open over actually closing it—even when she leaves the house.
If I leave the house with my phone, I cannot bring it back into the house until I sanitize it. That includes washing the phone case with soap and water. No shoes on in the house, ever. I had contractors over a month ago and they wore shoes.
Well, I had to sanitize every object they touched, and mop TWICE where they walked. Her depth perception is abysmal.
We get in so many fights because she thinks that I touched her with a dirty object when I was halfway across the room.
When she gets dressed, I have to watch her and verify that she doesn’t touch her body with the outside of the shirt. Same with pants. We never have people over because of her fear of infection.
Plus, I am the one who has to clean and sanitize so I am reluctant to even mention hosting an event or having a party at the house. There are more things I have to deal with, but I cannot remember every situation right now.
The worst of it for me is the constant laundry (3-4 loads a day, sometimes more) and showers (4-5 showers a day).
I have taken as many as 9 showers in one day and as many as 35 showers in one week. I wash my hands over 50 times a day.
I have gotten to the point where I just pretend to take a shower or wash my hands if she isn’t in the room. I fantasize about just being able to get through my day not feeling like a puppet on a string. I get no sleep (maybe 4-5 hours on average) and have almost no free time. And this is not because of my kids.
You may be thinking, “Dude, go to marriage counselling.” We did that about two months ago. My dad may be the only person who really knows what I am going through and he told me to be completely honest—hold nothing back. That is exactly what I did.
I told the counselor everything that I just revealed to all of you. I have had this talk with my wife already, but she says, “You can leave at anytime, if you can’t handle it you don’t have to be here.” The counselor was speechless for a second, but then began to address my wife, asking her if it was all true.
My wife just shut down and barely refused to acknowledge it. After the session, my wife got upset at me for “throwing her under the bus” and canceled all future sessions. I want to say one last thing. Before she went deep into this fear of infection, we had a great relationship.
We loved each other and felt we were meant to be. I still love her and want it to work. I have been dealing with the worst of this for nearly three years now. I am physically and mentally exhausted. I have thought of leaving multiple times, but I am afraid of how it will affect my kids.
We also bought a huge house and invested sums of money into it that we would lose. My wife refuses to take medication for her anxiety, though I don’t blame her; most of it hasn’t worked in the past.
I talked to my wife a few minutes ago and let her know exactly how I feel—again. She broke down, as expected, and ended our conversation before I could continue it any further. When I get home we will continue to address this.