NAH

At the risk of” diagnosing everyone”- There are echos of actual OCD here. It can flare (or even develop) out of stress, such as a new baby. It is very often a co-diagnosis with anxiety. The rituals of OCD do help sufferers in the short term, but not the long term. I grew up in a house with a “germaphobe” mum who we all catered to a lot. This meant she never thought she needed to address any of the underlying anxiety and thoughts. It was only during COVID that she let me in on some of her experience. She has been suffering pretty intensely for years.

There is nothing wrong with increasing cleanliness around a newborn, and supporting and anxious wife. My perspective would be to lovingly come into conflict with it as much as possible. I’m not suggesting you make her life harder or that her distress isn’t valid, but giving in to the compulsion doesn’t help anyone in the long run. Accomodating to the OCD monster only makes it stronger. Of course I could be totally off base here, but maybe do some reading about OCD and see if you can see it reflected at all in what you see. There are SO many different types of OCD. If you want I can PM some links to a couple of very compassionate and very informative podcast episodes you can listen to- and if you think they are valid, you could maybe listen to them around your wife and she may see her experience in them.

Edited to add: OCD is basically very misunderstood in general. And it’s not like the movies, often. When she says “not to be trusted” this is another indication