My soon to be ex wife is diagnosed OCD with anxiety and depression. I love her pieces. We’ve been married for more than 10 years and have a couple of kids. She’s never been really open about her struggles, I only learned about them slowly over the years (she was very good at hiding her symptoms). She’s very intelligent, but reserved. I’ve worked really hard to be accommodating. But, it doesn’t matter. When she feels like she is not in complete control of her environment it spikes her anxiety. When that rush finally calms down it usually leads to different levels of depression.

It’s been difficult as I’ve always felt like I’ve had to keep a perfect environment where nothing triggers her ocd. Turns out that’s impossible.

Anyway, she has decided the only way to survive is if she lives a life on her own (with the kids half the time). We are on great terms and still care about each other.

Being as close to her as I have been for many years, I think I see an obvious reason why she feels she needs to leave. If she lives by herself she can be in complete control of everything. Thus doing everything possible to avoid triggering her ocd.

This is all well and good, but I wish she would seek help to actually deal with the issue instead of just avoiding it. As I met her extended family throughout the years there are several women that have basically become shut ins as they aged because of anxiety. She always says she is nothing like them, but I’ve literally witnessed her symptoms get worse with age. She’s going to miss so much. I.e. we stopped taking vacations 5 years ago because they were too stressful.

Basically I’m crushed that she won’t consider that things could get better if she would seek help. She’d much rather ignore her mental health than deal with it. I’ve done everything I can to support her but feel like an abject failure. I know it’s my ego but I’m human and it hurts me to my soul that I’m not worth the trouble to try to get better for. I’d do anything for her. She’d rather just leave. Thank you for letting me rant. I have no one else to talk to.