No matter how hard I try my husband will never really understand how bad Rocd feels and will find a way to hurt my feelings...he may believes that this is something manageable even uf i have explained a hundred times that my mind works like that on its own. I am fed up explaining when I see that, even if he helps me in household with our baby etc, he doesn't seem to fully understand how trembling and severe this is for me. I know he can not possibly understand it completely but why doesn't he just try to let me do whatever I am comfortable with and tries to consult me when he is unaware in reality? He gets easily irritated when I start accusations, compulsions and ask him questions but I have already explained that this is due to my mental issue... what else can I do???

I am at a very difficult spot in my relationship. My boyfriend and I have been together for 6 years, and I have a history of cheating that for years we’ve been trying to work through. To me, it makes a lot of sense that my OCD has attached itself to this and for the last few years I’ve experienced intrusive sexual thoughts of others and relationship ocd. I have been open to him about the content of my thoughts and now, with a proper diagnosis of an anxiety disorder, I am able to reframe them and work through them with ERP so that my brain will *hopefully* get bored and stop sending them. But, things have not been easy. As a result of this and everything in our past, he has become anxious about all the scenarios where I could be having sexualized thoughts about other people. To him, if I am thinking something utterly different than what I am telling him or acting like to him, he can’t fully trust it. And of course, I can imagine how difficult it is to know your life partner is sexualizing others in her brain and to be able find a way to dismiss them as unthreatening, especially when past mistakes say otherwise. Is there anyone that has gone through this with a partner? And other than repeatedly explaining the egodystonic nature of my thoughts and providing reassurance, what are some things you did that helped them? Any advice helps! Thank you

Lately my ROCD has been flaring up, making it difficult to even be around my partner. I’m having so many troubling thoughts with the one that bugs me most being, “maybe this isn’t my OCD, maybe I’m just in a bad relationship and I’m trying to cover it up and blame it on OCD”. This thought really scares me because there are valid doubts in my relationship but my boyfriend and I have openly talked about them and are trying to work through. My OCD won’t take that as an option tho. It makes me feel like I need to be 100% certain that these things can NEVER happen again or else we need to break up immediately. So anything he says in that moment about trying to do better, my OCD will not trust anything he says and just wait until the next “bad thing” happens. When I continuously bring these things up to my boyfriend even tho nothing has happened between these conversations, it exhausts him making it feel like he can never do enough. I feel so bad because I know it’s just my OCD getting in the way. But then that thought creeps in saying I can’t trust him because I need to protect myself. It’s just an ongoing cycle that is so tiring. I don’t even know what I want anymore. We are very opposite when it comes to emotions. I am very in tune and very emotionally intelligent, and he is not. He is the opposite. I do recognize that my anxious attachment style may be hard for him too but I can’t stop thinking about all of his flaws and all of the things he needs to do to make our relationship better. It makes me feel like I’m the only one putting in effort when in reality that is not true. But my OCD does make me feel like he doesn’t really love me or want to be with me and that he feels forced to be with me or do things for me. It makes me feel like him being with me is like a chore. Can anyone relate? My OCD just makes me feel like I can’t trust anything he says to make our relationship better.

I found out more information about my husbands past and my brain is like what if you can’t handle it. What if you never loved him. And it keeps picking out flaws about him. My brain keeps trying to get the connection back but I’m very dissociated. I try to not do mental compulsions. But I feel like everything I’ve done is compulsive all my life. This is the hardest crash I’ve had with OCD in 15 years. I found out info after we got married that wasn’t a dealbreaker at all. But it went against my irrational beliefs I guess you could say. But I try to explain OCD to my husband and it’s hard to just “get over” stuff. He is a great person and kind and I know that editing the relationship the retroactive jealously and same things would apply. This only happens when I get really close to somebody. And ocd wants perfection. How have people gotten over this with very severe ocd with legit every theme? Especially with no emotions and constant anxiety. I also don’t work or anything. OCD has crippled me. But this is the worst theme I’ve had in a long time and it hit me 2 weeks ago. The thoughts keep looping in my head and all I feel is anxiety. I don’t want to hurt our relationship. I am feeling really guilty about myself too. And trying to run towards the anxiety. But it’s all consuming. 24/7. Plus other life stressors. I try to distract and I try to do other things. But I’m not even here. This isn’t his fault at all and it’s an internal battle. I also have shit self esteem. I confessed some of the thoughts to him even. Which is a no no. 😞