OCD and Marriage: Pathways to Reshaping Your Lives Together

The premise of OCD and Marriage is simple: an OCD caregiver and sufferer can successfully manage symptoms and improve their quality of life and their marital relationship. OCD does not have to take over a marriage. The three aims of this book are to (a) encourage individuals diagnosed with OCD to face the disorder head-on together with their spouses in creative ways, (b) permit married couples to reach out for support, and (c) seek relation-based healing that complements established, evidence-based OCD therapies. Rather than approach coping with OCD from a clinical perspective, the authors choose to offer sufferers and their spouses a resource they wished they had when they struggled with the myths, barriers, and impact of OCD. Central to this is a focus on strengthening marital relationships through active, creative communication. This focus on communication highlights our belief that living with OCD is a family affair by which everyone affected—whether care giver or sufferer—can survive and thrive.