- Date posted
- 3y
cheating ocd (need advice)
im writing this at 1am because i feel the most intense fear ive ever felt in my life and i need some kind of support and/or advice, so fair warning because this may be very triggering for people with this particular trigger ive been dealing with the fear of cheating on my partner for a long time now, but recently ive become more fixated on the fears of emotional cheating because it’s something that i think is more likely to have happened in the past than physically or romantically cheating just because i know there’s no way that i’ve ever done either of those ive been obsessing over a time last year where i used to contact this male friend of mine about my relationship problems but mainly my relationship obsessions (my main trigger has been ROCD) because i wanted reassurance and advice about them and he would give me good advice on how to go about dealing with those obsessions. this friend and i used to flirt and dated for like a week in high school, before we realized we were kinda just using each other to get over our exes and we weren’t really into each other so i never counted it. because i opened up to him about my relationship problems, i would obsess over how that was inappropriate and it was emotional cheating because every article i’ve read compulsively says that if you open up about your relationship to someone outside of your relationship, then that’s emotional cheating, even though i know that the real reason i opened up to this friend was because i couldn’t just confess all of my ROCD thoughts to my boyfriend. i thought i had that under control until i did an exposure and read a story about emotional cheating and then i had a random memory pop back up in my head that wasn’t there before about how i may have accidentally, or intentionally flirted with him, which led me to review my old texts with him, and i found some things that could definitely be considered flirting…and now i don’t know what to do…i don’t know what i was thinking when i sent those messages and i definitely never had feelings for this friend while i was going to him for advice, so there’s that small chance that it may not have been flirting but it really feels like i did because looking back at it i don’t know how i would have interpreted it otherwise… i feel like the worst person on the planet and i feel the strongest urge to confess to my boyfriend because this feels so real and i’m almost certain that this is evidence that i have emotionally cheated on my boyfriend. part of me feels that he would be understanding but another part of me feels like this would break his heart and that our relationship wouldn’t be the same anymore,especially since we’re both victims of our parents being cheated on when we were kids and how that affected us and our families and i just cant help but feel like id be inflicting the same pain on him than my the kind that my mom did on me. i wish i had never read those messages otherwise i wouldn’t have even remembered that i said those things. what should i do? do i tell my boyfriend? i feel like if i were to not tell him i would just feel absolutely undeserving of his love every time im with him and the guilt would consume me to the point where i couldnt enjoy it. it doesn’t help that we might be about to enter a long distance relationship within the next two weeks after almost two years of being together, so this news on top of the fact that he’s about to leave and we’re supposed to be enjoying our time together makes me feel even worse. i also blocked that friend on everything, but should i delete our messages too? i would really appreciate the help because im losing my mind right now. just last night my boyfriend and i were talking about how lucky we are to have each other and how we can’t wait to see out future together after all that we’ve been through. he’s known about my cheating obsessions and just about every other obsession about him ive ever had but he’s decided to trust me and support me no matter what, he’s been nothing but kind and understanding…but this time it feels like i would be confessing the truth rather than just another obsession. i’m terrified.