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.
David T. Culkin, PhD, is an adult educator with years of classroom and academic experience in continuing and occupational education and in government service. David retired from the U.S. Army in 2013 with over 21 years of service. He holds a Ph.D. in Adult, Occupational, and Continuing Education from Kansas State University and has facilitated mid-career learners at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He has a graduate certificate in qualitative research; his dissertation was an autoethnographic bildungsroman about growing up with OCD and learning to live with it. Michaela A. Culkin, PhD, is a professional primary educator with over 20 years of classroom and administrative experience in multiple school districts. Michaela holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Kansas and has served as an elementary school teacher (PK-6) and principal in several states. She and her husband, David, are familiar with the challenges of OCD as caregiver and sufferer, respectively, and have shared their experiences of living with OCD in presentations to others.
