OCD / Guilt / Porn and Confession Not sure if this really falls under the umbrella of OCD or not. I have a bad habit of confessing things to my wife when I feel as if I’ve done something wrong. I used to confess to her if I thought I’d looked at another woman or if I had inadvertently flirted with someone else. In hindsight, in many of those cases, I don’t think I had done anything wrong, but at the time it seemed like I did. Or, I would confess if I had sexual thoughts about another woman. Stuff like that. I’m often obsessed with the feeling like I’ve been unfaithful. I love my wife. Would never cheat. She has been urging me to stop confessing and mostly I’ve been doing better, but I recently did something I feel quite guilty about. While out of town, I slipped up and watched porn a few times while we were apart. I feel particularly bad because the last time this happened was during a time when my wife was mourning the loss of our family pet, which she had had for many years. We weren’t in the same city when I slipped up and looked at the stuff, but I feel as if I stabbed her in the back during an emotionally rough time for her, even though I feel that I was otherwise completely emotionally supportive of her and was checking in on her constantly and giving her my support. I know I screwed up. I don’t generally watch porn anymore. I used to (a lot) but stopped when we started dating like 3 years ago. In that time, I’ve looked at it maybe three times. When I last confessed this, she said that she doesn’t care if I watch it and that I should stop confessing. I hear her and I believe her. I’ve also made up my mind to stop watching porn because it makes me feel bad. Maybe it’s fine for some people but it makes me feel bad. Part of me says that I should just move on, not confess that I slipped up a couple of times recently and just move on, but another part me says to confess it. That I’ve done something really wrong, especially when she was herself going through a rough time. Any advice would be much appreciated. OCD has clouded my judgement about when to confess.

Cjs2496

Date posted: 6y

There is absolutely nothing wrong with watching porn, as long as it doesnt lead to you creating unrealistic expectations for your wife. My boyfriend watches porn and it does not offend me at all. I know how you feel though. Last week, I confessed every little detail of my wild past to my boyfriend. Lets just say oversharing is not your friend, and what you do with your own privacy is only your business

thorin

Date posted: 6y

Thank you for writing this. I struggle with similar things. Idk if you are religious, but a big part of many religions involves confessing to the lord in prayer. Try doing that and maybe that will help you feel better. But that may be a form of checking so maybe not. Just an idea. You got this

moe5

Date posted: 6y

Ye, well OCD has a flavor of morallity + harm OCD. So it can be like fear iay cause have to a loved one by not being careful enough or by thinking that I'm a bad person. And when harm OCD comes in we get this agressive impulses. From my experience I believe that with harm obssesion you get agresdions and it causes us to think in black and white . So we get hooked on small things but maybe we need to look behind the scenes

emisparkles

Date posted: 6y

i struggle with the same thing. i have an obsession of accidentally hurting someone’s trust in me. you’ve got this. just remember that your wife obviously trusts you and that you love her so much.

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