"AITA For Divorcing My Husband Because He Spent 10 Minutes In The Car During A Family Emergency?"

Everyone has their own little weird quirks. These can range from funny and harmless, all the way to downright annoying. Dating (or being married) to someone who has uncontrollable compulsions can be a bother at the best of times, but deeply set behaviors might actually get in the way during a crisis.

A woman asked if she was wrong for wanting to divorce her husband after he refused to leave the car for 10 minutes when their son was injured. We reached out to the wife in the story via private message and will update the article when she gets back to us.

As many of the commenters noted, the husband’s behavior very closely matches the “compulsions” and intrusive thoughts that people with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) have. In short, people with OCD often have little “rituals” they have to perform before leaving the house, or, in this case, leaving the car.

It’s also important to remember that OCD is a pretty broad term, with a whole host of symptoms. Some folks get obsessed with certain topics or actions. At times they start to develop beliefs that if they don’t do something a certain way, something bad will happen. For example, a person with OCD might believe that if they don’t put their keys in a certain place after entering the home, some unspeakable tragedy will occur.

Interestingly, many people with OCD do tend to understand that these thoughts and feelings are quite irrational. However, this man does also seem to know that his behavior is by no means normal, but is also unwilling to let it go in the face of a crisis. In general, this is the sort of thing that can be treated through therapy and, just as importantly, a desire to see it fixed. Unfortunately, as the woman shares in the comments, the husband refuses therapy and, indeed, has his family “calling her out” for not respecting his trauma.

Trauma there may be, but it’s worth asking if it actually supersedes the very real, physical trauma suffered by the son. It’s also somewhat telling that he seems incapable of seeing his wife’s point of view. Indeed, he immediately downplays his own lack of action and can’t really understand why a mother seeing her own child injured might also feel traumatized. This alone might be enough of a reason to call off the relationship.

Some comments do suggest that she has some responsibility here as well. For example, asking him to come home from work when she could have just taken the suffering child to a hospital herself. Similarly, this particular habit of her husbands does seem to be something she really did think about a lot.

However, she did not take any steps to deal with it until an actual crisis happened. In her defense, however, it would appear that the man did refuse any therapy, so she is definitely not to blame for seeing a divorce. This clearly bothers her to a significant degree, so there is no use wondering if it’s an “overreaction.” His chosen lifestyle is simply not compatible with her at the end of the day. Generally, people need to be on the same page on a lot of things before marriage, which is clearly not the case here.

While her response to her son’s injury was perhaps not ideal, as she probably needed to do something beyond sit around and wait, it’s also understandable why it might be impossible for her to really “get” her husband’s actions. Despite the emergency and panic, he still has to go through this strange ritual. If she was choking or bleeding out, would he still sit there? One should be able to rely on their partner and it’s clear that this woman does not feel that way about him anymore.