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"My husband is a control freak." (Can This Marriage Be Saved?) Margery D. Rosen.

Abstract: A husband who was suffering from undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder was ruining his marriage. The couple went to a counselor, who sent him to a psychiatrist, and the pair received joint counseling. Communication techniques improved their marriage.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1997 Meredith Corporation "I can't live with this man one more day," says Susan, thirty-seven a full-time homemaker and mother of two girls, ten and eight. "We've been married for twelve years, and in the beginning, things were wonderful. Yes, Kenny had his quirks -- he never liked to go to parties or even to be with another couple sometimes.

"Back then, I shrugged it off. Everyone has something they're fussy about. There was also something endearing about his need for order. My friends were all complaining that their husbands were slobs, and mine was a total neatnik.

"But lately, my life is ruled by Kenny's quirks, and I can't stand the woman I've become: I nag, I yell and I'm furious all the time. He's started getting panic attacks, too -- when he was a kid, a very close cousin died from a congenital heart defect, and now Kenny is convinced that he's on the verge of a heart attack. He's on the phone to our family doctor every other day, and despite all reassurances, he won't believe that he's perfectly healthy.

"As the children get older, his obsession that something bad will happen to them has escalated. He refuses to allow the girls to ride their bikes or play sports unless he's right there. He won't allow my ten-year-old to fly to Florida to visit my father -- even if my dad flies to New York and takes her back with him. How will these kids grow up to be responsible and self-confident it he's always at their elbows?

"Kenny's behavior at home is increasingly odd. Every night, he checks and rechecks the windows and doors to make sure they're locked. If I make dinner and he's a little late, he won't eat what's left over. He's convinced he'll get food poisoning unless he eats food immediately after it's served.

"One Saturday, he was supposed to drive the girls to their soccer game. He sat in the driveway turning the ignition on the off for ten minutes. Finally, my older daughter ran in and begged me to drive them so they wouldn't be late.

"Kenny's behavior is definitely affecting his work. Two years ago, he quit his job as a manager at a bank and decided to sell insurance on his own so he'd have more control over his professional life. Well, he spends more time organizing his papers than he does selling. I don't have to tell you what a strain thee financial pressures put on our relationship.

"When we met, Kenny's family seemed so normal. I was the middle family peacemaker and clown. We were not a happy bunch, and we rarely did things together. I adored my mother, though when I think about it, she was very fearful and overprotective, kind of like Kenny. Me dad was an angry man, and when he was upset, he was antagonistic and belittling. He'd mumble under his breath and do nasty little things just to set my mother off.

"I was a B-student without even trying, but I was never motivated to work hard and go to college like my brothers. After high school, I found a job in a bank, but I've always felt bad that I never had a real career. Now, at thirty-seven, I've gone back to school part-time for a bachelor's degree in marketing.

"I met Kenny on a blind date, and we married a year later. My mother died soon after that, and it took me a long time to get over it. Our marriage has gone slowly down-hill. We started to argue and blame each other for the slightest things. Now other people have begun to mention things to me about Kenny's weird behavior. My brother said Kenny did the same thing with the ignition key at his house.

"Finally, I have him an ultimatum: therapy, or we call it quits. If he wants to ruin his own life, fine. But I will no longer allow him to ruin everyone else's."

KENNY'S TURN

"I don't appreciate being psychoanalyzed by my wife. Who says she's the authority on my life?" said Kenny, thirty-six, whose face was filled with worry. "Besides, i can't stand being with her, either.

"I don't know what's wrong with me. Sometimes I feel like I'm going out of my mind. It's hard to explain these anxiety attacks. I feel as if the world is closing in. I have difficulty breathing, and my heart pounds as if it's coming right out of my chest. It can last for five minutes or an hour. When my chest gets tight, I'm convinced I'm having a heart attack. I know -- the doctor insists I'm fine. So why can't i get it through my head?

"I had a perfectly average childhood. I'm the older of two boys, my father was a foreman at a factory, and my mother worked as a secretary at the Red Cross. My father is an alcoholic -- we all know it, though to his day we never acknowledge it. It's easy to ignore because he isn't a fall-down drunk. He's completely dominated by my mother. She's the kind of person who has every pencil in the house sharpened, every bill paid on time, labeled and filed in its proper place. When she vacuums the carpet, the pile all has to go one way or she does it over again.

"Still, there were many wonderful things about the world that I grew up in. We lived in a row house, and as far as you could see, up and down the street were all family or friends. Everyone looked out for everyone else. I guess I was a happy kid -- i was good student and fairly athletic. But I was shy, and I was always the shortest in my class. I certainly don't remember having anxiety attacks, but I think there was a general sense of worry about the world out there. One traumatic incident affected me deeply. My favorite cousin died from a congenital heart disease when I was eight.

"I went to college nearby, lived at home, graduated with honors with a degree in finance and found a job in a bank. When I met Susan, I liked her immediately. She's so upbeat and outgoing -- the complete opposite of me.

"I think my anxieties started when Jocelyn, our eldest, was born. We were very young -- I was twenty four when we married, and I think the idea of having a wife and child to support scared me more than I wanted to admit. Work was going well. I was promoted several times and was making a good salary, but I started to feel trapped, really constrained by all the corporate rules and my tyrant of a boss.

"I'm not a control freak. Yes, I get anxious and worried, but I think my concern for the kids is justified. You know, when I was growing up, you never rode your bike outside the neighborhood. You didn't fly a thousand miles to visit someone, no matter who it was. It was a very full childhood, but the horizons were much smaller.

"Susan doesn't understand where I'm coming from at all. I try to explain, but we're just on a different page. Over the last year or two, we've become distant. We fight and say some pretty ugly things. Each fight seems to raise the ante.

"I don't understand why my fears are getting so out of control. My behaviors are . . . crazy, aren't they? My father used to check the doors and locks of the house, too, and I used to laugh, but now I'm doing it, and I'm ashamed that I can't stop.

"The worst part is, I'm losing the one person in the world I truly love. We had the greatest marriage, and I don't understand what's happened."

THE COUNSELOR'S TURN

"When Susan and Kenny finally came for therapy, there was so much acrimony between them that I wasn't sure how much progress they'd make," admitted the counselor. "Susan was on the verge of throwing Kenny out of the house -- she couldn't stand her husband's obsessive fears, his rules and what she described as his weird behaviors. Susan may have ignored Kenny's behavior at first because it didn't seem all that unusual, given her mother's need for order. But now she was convinced that his controlling ways were adversely affecting the children. In her frustration, she'd turned into a nasty, bossy spouse.

"Kenny was angry that his wife couldn't understand his needs, and secretly ashamed that he couldn't control his strange behaviors. He knew he was responsible for some of the problems in the marriage, but he didn't see himself as being controlling at all. He waged a war of low-level insults, mumbling under his breath and criticizing Susan in much the same way her father had criticized her mother. This infuriated her, and she lashed out, until quarrels easily escalated into loud, ugly battles.

"Susan and Kenny each came into my office convinced that the other person needed fixing. Their immediate reaction to any difference of opinion was to point fingers. Cries of `I can't believe you'd do such a thing, and It's your fault, littered their arguments.

"After listening to Kenny describe his background and his current symptoms, it seemed clear that he was suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, a brain or behavior disorder whose symptoms and severity can range from the relatively mild to the truly crippling. An estimated six million people suffer from OCD -- many of them in silence because their odd behavior puzzles, frightens and shames them. Doctors still do not fully understand what causes OCD, though recent studies have linked it to a lack of the brain chemical serotonin. Some victims, like Kenny, can only get relief by engaging in ritualistic behaviors. However, since the relief never lasts, they repeat those actions over and over again.

"Most likely, Kenny's lack of self-confidence and his sheltered upbringing, coupled with a genetic predisposition to OCD, triggered a desperate need to gain some power over his own life. As his insecurities and anxieties about caring for his family grew, new and stranger ritualistic behaviors emerged.

"I first referred Kenny for a physical checkup, and then to a psychiatrist, who agreed with my diagnosis and prescribed an antianxiety medication; within two weeks, Kenny felt less driven to act on his compulsions.

"Once he understood how much his illness had been affecting his judgment and feelings, and had the medication to help control his anxieties, Kenny was able to learn several behavior-modification techniques that helped him calm down even more. We worked on visualization -- picturing a large stop sign in his head whenever he had the urge to, say, turn the ignition on and off.

"Kenny's confidence has gradually increased, and though he still gets anxious, he no longer slips into a full-blown panic. As Kenny grew calmer and more attentive, Susan softened and stopped her harangues, allowing us to work on some of the marital issues that had blocked intimacy.

"Susan and Kenny had to break the `I'm right; you're wrong, sparring. To do this, I told them they first had to learn to express how they felt about something without voicing the conclusion that it was their partners mistakes that caused them to feel this way. I taught them the five-minute rule: One of them has to talk about his or her feelings for five minutes while the other listens and then recaps what he or she has heard. Then they switch roles. It took several months, but both Susan and Kenny gradually began to let down their guard and own up to their responsibility for making the relationship work.

"This couple was in joint counseling for a year and a half, and I still see Kenny from time to time. A combination of talk therapy plus medication saved this marriage, something I don't think could have happened if Kenny hadn't been properly diagnosed and treated. He's stopped taking the medication now that his symptoms are under control, though he's aware that he will always have the propensity to fall into old patterns. But the fact that Susan understands him, and supports his efforts to conquer his illness, makes all the difference in the world."

Mag.Coll.: 88F2019.