i am having major ROCD right now and i just want to vent. my rocd centers around hyperanalyzing my past thoughts and behaviors and convincing myself that i might have cheated. to clarify, i haven’t physically cheated. but there’s a guy who i had a class with who i find attractive, and before i had such debilitating ocd (about a year ago) i feel like i indulged in this “crush” by fantasizing. i also feel especially guilty about one time when i thought about him when i was ~alone in an intimate setting~ and i think i might have said his name out loud. i am so so so embarrassed and feeling so guilty for that. it’s hard because a lot of the rocd cheating stuff i see is people having intrusive thoughts about someone else, but i worry because at that time it wasn’t intrusive thoughts, meaning i was indulging in the thoughts of someone else without feeling bad about it or pushing the thoughts away. but now i feel so guilty and wonder how i could have not felt guilty right away!! i love my boyfriend and it felt harmless at the time, but now i feel like i need to confess every little detail to him. it seems like a combination of rocd and moral scrupulously ocd to me, and i’m wondering if any of you guys agree with that? maybe real event ocd too in the sense that i’m making a small thing out to be some horrible thing? im mainly struggling with how i didn’t feel bad about it immediately and now i regret having those thoughts and doing those things. it’s difficult to know what is ocd making my actions seem worse than they are and what is like maybe i did really make some horrible mistake? it sucks because i feel this urge to be 100% honest all of the time, but telling my bf this could really hurt his feelings, but if it’s really gonna hurt his feelings maybe it means i need to tell him because i’m lying!!!

Despite the fact that I have never once acted flirtatiously with someone else over the course of my 3-year relationship, never talked to anyone inappropriately, never touched or interacted with anyone inappropriately, I have been battling constant ROCD obsessions centered around cheating ever since my partner and I got together. I am constantly worried about whether certain things are cheating: daydreaming about another person (already told my partner about this and he said it was okay and that he does it too), talking in a group chat with someone, sitting next to someone, speaking to them in person. I question my intentions. I worry that I cheated by wearing my hair a certain way in an attempt to look more attractive or by jokingly poking someone with a fake sword (despite doing it to other people too), looking through someone’s social media, etc. I have confessed so many ridiculous things to my partner and he’s always told me that none of them are cheating. I feel so guilty for being attracted to someone else, despite the fact that my partner said it was fine and normal. I have made a very very conscious effort to limit my interactions with this person. I never ever ever ever message them privately, I make an obsessive effort to NOT reply to their messages in a group server (constantly keeping track of the ratio of my replies to their messages compared to other people’s), to ignore them when I see them in person and hardly ever speak to them or initiate conversation with them. Yet I still feel like a disgusting dirty cheater who is hiding a big secret.

I’m so so so anxious right now, I got triggered really badly. My partner made a joke saying he’s glad all his coworkers are old and married because he “won’t develop feelings for any of them.” This sent me into a major spiral and I almost threw up and starting sobbing from the anxiety. It triggered me badly and everything was fine before that. I’m so anxious that I cheated on my partner. I’ve had an ROCD obsession with another person for a few months now, and I’ve told my partner EVERYTHING. I told him how I have a crush on this person, how guilty I feel about messaging a group server that this person is a part of (despite being very careful to never ever message them privately or even reply to their messages in the group server and instead message other people), how I have fantasized and daydreamed about this person. My partner was fine with it, and he said fantasizing is normal and that he has had crushes too. He said he has had a work crush and fantasized about her and that it was all fine and that fantasizing is fun as long as it stays a fantasy. I kept telling him that I am terrified that I’m having some sort of one-sided emotional affair by fantasizing about this person, and my partner kept telling me, “Okay so what? Now what? Let’s say your worst fears are true, now what? I’m not leaving you and you’re not leaving me so why worry about it?” I also feel like fantasizing about this person turned into a compulsion because I would spend months agonizing over the ROCD guilt, ruminating, throwing up, thinking, and then I’d try to fantasize in order to soothe the anxiety and “prove to myself” that it was nothing. I have talked to my therapist about this extensively and he told me that I should not confess as it’s a compulsion. He said if it were something wrong, my body would just “know” and I’d intuitively confess instead of ruminating over and over on whether it’s worth confessing or not. My partner told me he doesn’t want any more confessions and that he doesn’t need to know what goes on in my head. I’ve told him a lot already, about the crush, my fears, the daydreaming, and he said it was all fine. I know for a fact that I have never ever ever crossed a line with this person, I have been extremely careful to rarely ever interact with him. I’ve been careful to ensure that we’re not even FRIENDS at all, just barely acquaintances. Literally every single interaction has been just small talk the handful of times that I’ve seen him show up to a group event. He is also moving away and I’m never gonna see him again. I have been extremely obsessive and careful about not ever EVER speaking to him unless spoken to, never giving him attention, obsessively monitoring the frequency with which i pay attention, etc. But I’m so terrified that I’ve already done something wrong by having these thoughts and feelings. I feel like the feelings lasted this long BECAUSE of the OCD and guilt and anxiety. Because I became anxious and started ruminating on the feelings and the morality for months and months. I don’t know what to do. I need help. I feel like I’ve irreparably ruined my relationship. Did i catch feelings? Is there a difference between feelings and a crush? Is this a form of cheating? We are going on a trip in literally 12 hours and I’m so incredibly stressed I can’t take this. Do i confess?

I’m currently in a very emotionally stressful situation with my partner. We had a huge argument because I did something I had promised not to do again: I looked at my ex-partner’s profile. To me, it didn’t have any real emotional meaning. It was impulsive, meaningless, almost automatic. But my partner was deeply hurt – and I understand why. I told him about it. We talked. It was hard. But after that, things got even worse for me. I suddenly remembered that it didn’t just happen once. And since then, I’ve been stuck in this thought loop and I don’t know if it’s OCD or not So, should I tell him that it was more than once?”– if I should tell him, even if it might mean he’ll leave me. Should I confess this? I urgently need advice. I don’t know if this is OCD or not – the thought suddenly came to me in that situation. I have been formally diagnosed with OCD. But if I know that my partner would see this as very serious and might possibly leave me over it – shouldn’t I still tell him? I feel so awful and I’m having panic attacks. Is this OCD?