I read this thing online about how relationships we have with people are based on our childhood experiences and people are their to teach us things about our inner selves but that sometimes we don’t need that lesson anymore or it’s served and the people outgrow the relationship . I’m worried now that I will outgrow my relationship when I don’t want to I want us to stay together . Like I can see people who are married and they now seem miserable together , my boyfriend and I are talking g about mariage and he is from a different culture , he tells me he worries about me not enjoying his culture as he wants to move back to his home country and I would be expected to move back too , he says in his culture people marry for life and it is different to the UK. For someone who suffers with ROCD anyway , this pressure feels unbearable I’m unable to process everything that’s going on but I do know that I want things to work out between us . Sorry for the long post I just needed to vent and write it out .

Longish post but please stick with me. Hi everyone. I’m just looking for a bit of insight and if anyone else has felt this. It may sound strange and I’ve not had the courage to ask this for a while…. So I’ve been with my partner (27M) for almost 3 years now, I’m (24F). He recently proposed which I was not expecting so soon. We always joked about it and when he said he looked at rings I was happy. I knew it was coming at some point but not so soon. When it happened it’s immensely triggered my ROCD. And I’m struggling with something in particular, I just want to know if anyone else has experienced it/ what the root cause could be so that I can work on it……. When he proposed it’s like my brain put a time stamp on our relationship. All of a sudden I’m counting the days of my relationship/how long I’ve been in one. It’s like my brain is “keeping track” of the amount of days/weeks that I have a relationship. It’s like my brain wants to be in a relationship for a very long time IMMEDIATELY, which is of course not possible. It’s like my brain is saying “you have to break up with him because you haven’t been together a while yet”. It makes it feel like time is going so slowly. I see couples together for 6/7years prior to my age/time and just think “how did they do it”? Same with married couples. It’s like I think “they’re lucky I wish I was at that many years already”. But at the same time, the thought of being with someone for a long time makes me feel anxious and sick and like I have to “escape” or “get out” urgently. I’ve struggled with this particularly for a month now and am just wondering if anyone else has experienced the same or similar? Or can anyone offer insight into what this really could be deep down/root causes, as I REALLY want to figure out why and where it’s coming from. Sorry for the long post. Advice appreciated ❤️✨

So I have POCD & now ROCD because I’m in my first relationship. My boyfriend is a few years older than me and was born and raised in Turkey before he came to the U.S. in his early 20s. I’ve read that Turkish culture takes pride in their children, with holidays such as Children’s Day, too. So they are used to bonding with children in a non-creepy way lol (I’ve seen it before, it is a *slight* cultural difference between my culture and his but it’s very sweet) I grew up SA’d as a child and I told my boyfriend, so he knows. Yet he’s said a few things that have caught me off guard. - When I told him there was a chance I was mleafed as a child, we were cuddling and he readjusted himself in a funny way before saying “sorry, I mlested you.” I let it go because English is not his first language and he was probably just trying to be funny to lighten the mood because I was crying and he might have thought that I interpreted him re-adjusting himself as him hitting on me. (Right?) Even when we have daily conversations, he doesn’t understand about 25% of what I say, and I don’t think he’s been learning English when it comes to any of these kinds of topics that I’m speaking about. Sometimes he says stuff just to say it. But still, he understood the context we were speaking in and still tried to make a “joke.” - When I talk to him about my nieces (who I loved and adore and whose mother refers to me as their second mother) he once said that they’ll love him because he s good with kids. Okay sure. Then he said “they’re gonna be like ouuuh, he’s so handsome!” and I was like?? Why are you thinking about that I’m so deeply upset. He’s my first everything. I grew up with my mom defending the monster that abused me & my sister and I always swore I was never going to be that. And I won’t. Sometimes I just can’t tell if I’m overthinking because of my OCD. Because it’s also very extreme to assume someone is a monster like this! But OCD is extreme! And so it’s so hard for me to understand. I’m heartbroken because I feel so vulnerable. He was all I had. Now I feel like I’m gonna f*ck him up if he’s any type of weird like I think he might be. I hate everything sm. All I wanted was someone who loved me, someone I could love, and I’m terrified that I might be with someone who’s sick in the head, just like my father. I feel like throwing up and raging.

I have had ROCD in my relationship for a while and I’ve always been having the feeling do I break up so I not but even with the anxiety I still felt love and knew I didn’t want to be without him. But now it feels different. What scares me is it feels like I could actually see myself wanting to date someone else because of qualities he doesn’t have. I keep seeing him as overall bad. For more context he is caring, generous, we are very similar, but have different communication styles and talking issues out is hard for him. He also can be irritable easily, he doesn’t like talking things out that much and there’s a bit of a maturity difference which I know is sometning that can grow. Lately I feel like when I’m around him I am just frustrated with how he is acting like when he does something that upsets me like makes a joke about something he knows isn’t funny and bothersome to me, he’ll say sorry but then end up doing it again. Even though I know he really does care about me which I know it feels like he only cares about him doing wrong like he doesn’t want to do wrong instead of actually wanting to fix my feelings being hurt cause when he asks if I’m upset and I say yes he will get upset and try to be defensive and it makes me feel he cares more about being wrong. I also have had less empathy toward him which really scares me because I am a very empathetic person but I am hoping it’s just cause of bad ocd and built frustrations. Also, I do know cause he has told me and I’ve seen it that he always wants to impress his parents and not make them mad because they pick at him the minute he does wrong. This is probably why it’s hard to talk things out but lately I have been feeling like I can’t say anything cause he will just get more anxious or shut down or not want to hear it. Anyway, what makes me anxious is it feels like I don’t feel anything anymore and my brain is saying the only reason why I get anxious thinking of not being together is because I hate change and cause he is the first person I’m with. But I keep going back and forth. It’s so hard to be around him now. All I’m trying to think of is evidence that I still love him or the good things about him. I’m really afraid this isn’t ocd and that it has just morphed into it just isn’t working anymore. Some feelings like less love feel real but also ocd gets in between everything and it’s so fuzzy. I am afraid deep down I really know. My brain keeps saying I can’t be with him anymore cause I can’t be with someone if I feel like this about him. Meaning if I don’t have empathy for him cause I’m frustrated or whatever and if all I can see his bad even though I know there is good. It also says if I was with someone else that was a little nicer or could talk things out or whatever imaginary scenario in my head I wouldn’t feel like this😭 and I love the family and it keeps saying I’m only staying cause of the family. And some of this I’m like wait that might be true and I have to rest and review and I’m exhausted. And one minute I want to leave the next I don’t….im worried the only reason I am with him is cause of how great things were or cause he loves me and not me loving him.