Many of us might not have watched the Hindi daily soap Saath Nibhaana Saathiya but we surely are aware of some hit scenes which were shared as memes on different social media channels. One of them is ‘Gopi Bahu washing the laptop of her husband’.
The meme appeared funny till the time it was not a real-life scene. In a completely extreme case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in Bengaluru, a 35-year-old woman washed her husband’s laptop and phone. Irked over the wife’s obsession with cleanliness, the husband seeks divorce.
The husband’s plight wasn’t just about the laptop and phone being washed. But it was much more than this. The woman has kept the husband and their two children out for 30 days to deep clean the house after her mother-in-law’s death.
The RT Nagar residents got married in 2009. The couple moved to England for an on-sight project. The wife used to keep the house neat and clean and he was pleased with that.
“But things started to turn ugly after their first child was born two years later. The husband started getting irritated after she repeatedly forced him to clean his shoes, clothes and cellphone every time he returned from work,” said BS Saraswathi, a Parihar Vanitha, Sahayavani counsellor. Saraswathi took their case after the wife filed a complaint with the police.
They came back to India and opted for counselling. As the counselling went well, things improved between the two and they had their second child.
The relationship started turning sour again after the COVID-19 outbreak. With the passage of time, her OCD worsened and she started sanitising each and everything.
“During the lockdown, the husband working from home and to his shock, she washed his work laptop and cellphone. In his complaint, the husband stated that she bathes more than six times a day and even has one exclusive soap to clean her bathing soap,” the counsellor said.
Another shocking episode was when she kept her husband and children out of the house for 30 days after her ailing mother-in-law died. She did that to deep clean the whole house.
“The tipping point came recently after she forced her children to wash their school uniforms, shoes and bags after they returned home every day,” stated the counsellor.
Fed up with the wife’s behaviour, the husband moved to his parents’ home with the children. The wife filed a complaint with the police. Three counselling sessions were held in November but no positive results were seen.
Suspecting the wife had OCD, the counsellor asked her to take medical help. However, the wife considers it a normal behaviour and is expected to file a harassment complaint against the husband for describing her hygiene habits as abnormal behaviour.
