Morning fellow dads - I have an almost 8mo old daughter who is happy and healthy (minus the occasional sickness brought back from daycare) and doing great.

What’s been insanely challenging since about.. 5 months into pregnancy has been my wife’s anxiety and now diagnosed contamination OCD where she obsessively cleans everything, puts paper towels on every single surface, won’t let me handle our daughter unless I wash my hands (and turn the faucet off with my elbow or else need to wash hands again), won’t let me cook raw meat, etc. I could go on and on about the shit I’m having to do and just feel like I have zero control over the situation and can’t even enjoy time with my daughter without the stress and feeling like I have an eagle eye watching my every move.

My wife is a teacher at a new school and the workload has been extreme this year so she doesn’t have a lot of time in her day to take care of herself or really give me what I need in a partner (but that’s an issue for another day). This week’s episode was that the other morning I decided I’d prep my daughter’s bag for daycare so my wife could get 10 minutes back which involves pouring 8oz of distilled water each into two bottles and then pouring the appropriate amount of formula powder as well. Unbeknownst to me the container of formula I took from was one she left open overnight and didn’t want to use (but didn’t throw out or tell me) and so I’ve now contaminated everything and made it all worse and she had a big meltdown and spiral.

This is not the first time something like this has happened, not the last time it will either, just the most recent. I’m really struggling to live with this and it’s had a significant impact on our marriage and relationship and there just isn’t much connection there these days cause she’s been in her own head and world for the better part of a year basically.

I don’t imagine there’s any solution but curious if anyone has gone through the same thing. Now that we’re trying to do baby led weaning the OCD is getting worse again (washing an orange for 3 minutes with scalding hot water, for example) and I just feel hopeless like this is my life now and it’ll never be normal.

Thanks.