My wife has terrible OCD and I’m pretty sure narcissistic personality disorder. Her OCD rituals have dominated our lives for the past 6 years and I feel this continual domination has taken its toll on my mental health and dignity (not to mention finances). There have been times when her yelling, screaming, physically restraining me has caused me to explode and become physical in return. Judge me if you want but there’s only so much a person can take when they’re backed into a corner and being screamed at. I’ve gone to various counselors and spoken candidly that I want help with anger but they all told me that anger is actually the appropriate response in such situations and that a change of environment is what I need. Aside from her OCD panic attacks and ritualistic cleaning (which destroyed our last apartment and landed me with a ¥1,000,000 (($10,000)) cleaning bill) her narcissistic personality is completely self centered and she doesn’t take accountability for anything she does. She’ll wake me up in the night and remind me of something I said that hurt her, or how the things she does to me really hurt her more than me. Basically whatever happens she brings it back to her and how I’m not supporting her enough (even though she doesn’t work and I’m footing the bill for her destroying our apartment, cook her dinner, cook her breakfast etc. She refuses to get her own parents involved or ask for financial help because they will ‘judge her’). I see what this relationship is doing to me and you would think me crazy for not having divorced already but that’s my problem. I’m my own worst enemy. One day I’ll tell myself I fucking hate her and want a divorce but other days I’ll wax philosophical and think about helping her or if I’ll regret divorcing.

Finally I have decided to take action. My parents have sent me money to pay my debts (I’m living in Japan) after which I’ll board a plane and get out of this hell.

Some days I want to divorce and start totally fresh back home. Others I want to just get on the plane and send her money to make sure she’s alright until she can work since I still care for her and want her to be happy. I’ll fill out the divorce form and if things don’t work out while I’m away she can file it at the city office and that’ll be that. (Divorce is thankfully very simple in Japan.)

I realize this is all very naive and thanks to this group I’ve been able to see that things never go as planned and people rarely turn out to be who we thought they were.

Talk some sense into me guys. Help me to do this right.