Do any of you constantly have the feeling that ir cheating no ur partner psychologically? Like if u think someone is interesting that means ur not in love with ur partner! Or if u have a friend of the same sex as ur partner and u love him/her that means ur in love in a sexual way with them! I’m always thinking that I might Love someone either than my partner! It’s an awful sensation!

I have this deep fear I’ll accidentally cheat on my long term partner. This fear was initially triggered a couple years ago after being at a bar with my friends where I enjoyed the attention of being flirted with by a stranger. Because of my enjoyment of receiving verbal attention, I began spiraling about what if I accidentally cheat. Since then I have made multiple confessions to my partner to seek reassurance, replayed events over and over in my head, spent hours googling/looking at reddit threads, and now I dread “bar like” situations where I know my partner won’t be around. Today I was triggered and have wasted about 4-5 hours of my day ruminating. Does anyone else with relationship ocd struggle with this fear and have any tips?

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 am so deeply terrified of the possibility that I could be emotionally cheating on my partner. This obsession has dominated my psyche for 6 months now, and even though I have told my partner about my crush, told him about my fantasies, told him about my fear of emotional cheating, and done everything in my power to eliminate ANY sort of closeness with this person in a group setting (including keeping them at arm’s length, acting aloof, ignoring them, ensuring that I’m never alone with them, ensuring that I never initiate conversation with them EVER even in group settings, even obsessively monitoring how often I reply to other people in a group server), the guilt still doesn’t stop. I feel like i’m going crazy. I’m googling “emotional cheating definition” like every single day and trying to figure out if having a crush counts (even though my partner knows and says it’s okay).