Hello, I am having a very hard realization that my sweet and wonderful husband of almost 9 years is not just ADHD, but OCD, and has started becoming a hoarder like his father.

It started to become worse when he turned 40, during Covid had a lot of moral injury as a healthcare worker, then was diagnosed with MS. I have been in weekly therapy this whole time, and have discussed with my therapists my increasing frustrations with his messiness.

I thought, at first, it was just normal marital/household labor imbalance. So my therapist and I came up with a plan that I would stop picking up his agreed upon cleaning/chores. Then they wouldn’t get done… and I would just do what was needed to keep myself and our baby safe and healthy. This backfired, as my husband just let things pile and accumulate. We nearly got evicted on a random inspection but he managed to clean everything in a week to spotless.

But he can never maintain it.

We moved to our own land, and trash and random stuff piles up. Weird things come home because ā€œwe could use it.ā€ Sometimes things don’t work that he brings home but I can’t seem to get the ones that don’t dropped off to the transfer station.

And even though I clean and take out trash, and try to manage things… I swear the trash and clutter and ā€œthing we just neededā€ take over spaces at a rate I can’t keep up with. Our home is 500sq ft, and we have repeatedly gotten to the walkway stage.

My child turns 6 this spring. And this week they asked me ā€œwhen you build the house, can you and I move in without daddy? I know we can keep it clean without him.ā€ šŸ˜“

I refuse to ignore that. I have made arrangements to separate ourselves for the summer, on our property, and hopefully we can move in to the new house in the fall. I am *crushed* I didn’t realize that this wasn’t just ADHD & progressing MS until this week.

He understands he’s losing the ability to live with us, but I don’t know what to do next. Do I talk to his therapist? Do I try to help him find someone who specializes in this?

I don’t want to divorce him but I also don’t want to end up with my entire farm turning into a mess cause he can’t control things. Any kind advice would be appreciated.

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