Reader’s Question

My wife’s mother is 60 years old. She spends at least an hour a day cleaning her home. This includes a thorough cleaning of the floor, kitchen and bathrooms every day. She lives with her husband, who is 70 years old. Their home is spotless all the time, and almost never gets disorganized except on the weekends when the family comes for meals every week.

My mother-in-law also doesn’t like to go out very much. She doesn’t seem to go out and have fun very often. Instead, she cooks a lot and cleans a lot. She also occupies her time by taking care of a small child that lives in her area and has done this for many years. Her only apparent hobbies (besides family dinners and hosting family members for meals) are playing cards with her woman friends once a week, usually on Saturdays for a few hours in the afternoon. She has been to a movie theatre maybe 5 times in her entire life. She eats in a restaurant maybe once a year, and she does so only when forced by family members.

My questions are:

• Does her cleaning fall under an OCD type of disorder?
• Do you think she should be diagnosed by a professional?
• Is this woman just a simple person who enjoys the very basic things in her life, mainly the time with her family, and that’s that?

Thanks in advance for you time and effort to assist me.

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

For a person to be suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, they have to experience troubling and generally unwanted and intrusive thoughts and/or behavioral compulsions that cause them distress and interfere with other aspects of daily functioning. That said, there are individuals who engage in compulsive activity that doesn’t rise to the level of a disorder, and there are also individuals who have some obsessive-compulsive traits that make up a significant part of their personality. Such individuals tend to be a bit perfectionistic, neat, and orderly.

There are many other possible reasons other than a tendency toward obsessive-compulsivity for a person to have a limited number of interests. For example, your mother-in-law might naturally tend to be a less than outgoing personality who would therefore prefer the company of a few close friends and the pleasure of a simple routine as opposed to novel, external activities. She might also be the type of individual who experiences anxiety when doing things outside her normal “comfort zone.”

Although it’s not really possible to assess your situation accurately, nothing in the information you’ve provided suggests that there is a serious disorder here that requires medical assessment or treatment. If your main concern is that you’d like to have more quality time and fun with this woman outside of the usual activities in which you participate, do your best to make such enterprises as anxiety-free, positive, and comfortable as possible. Rather than apply pressure, be encouraging, yet accepting. The more enjoyable your time together doing other things, the more likely she’ll gladly go along with them time after time.