- Date posted
- 2y
Partner has ROCD
My boyfriend has ROCD and it can get tough or discouraging at times but I’m in it for the long haul. Does anyone have any affirmations that help them?
My boyfriend has ROCD and it can get tough or discouraging at times but I’m in it for the long haul. Does anyone have any affirmations that help them?
Ask him what his thoughts are telling him, and treat them w caution- like u would if a child was telling u ab their nightmares, you’d be calm, kind& considerate. Stay like that and work through his thoughts w him, he might get overwhelmed or upset w himself but just stay calm and do ur best, that’s all u can do, it’s so lovely ur educating yourself- he’s v lucky to have u :)& also remember his thoughts and him are 2 different things, he would love u w all his heart and still have these thoughts, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love u tho, I wish u both luck xx
Thank you these comments are very helpful I appreciate you taking the time type this out!
Do you have ROCD? aswell or are you trying to educate yourself?
I don’t I’m educating myself
@Heyhowareya Personally i have ROCD, It’s honestly torture.. i’m not your boyfriend so i’m not sure how it’s like for him but i know personally i fear the abandonment, I fear that I don’t do enough for them, i shame myself over mini mistakes that someone who does have it, i find myself over explaining my feelings so they could understand, if i don’t over explain i’ll completely over think anything until someone else brings it up, constant reassurance is helpful but not good if he wants to get better. Do small actions to make him feel cared about because ROCD really mushes reality to false reality. He can be looping and scared that he will loose you for hours then question if he loves you- then he will feel so guilty for every thinking he doesn’t love you so he try’s to make it up by trying to relief the Ocd by impulsively trying to make things right to you telling you perhaps just so he can feel better which could offend you. BEST thing to do is reassure by actions just say “everything is going to be okay” i been with my boyfriend he doesn’t have ROCD he also knows my ocd is very very difficult for me so he just tells me that everything is going to be OK nothing more than that and he hugs me and then he kisses me and then he just reminds me that everything’s gonna be OK and that my thoughts and worries aren’t reality and the reality is that he’s here and i don’t need to worry about the What ifs
From the tone of your post I deduce he has the "avoidance" type of ROCD - i.e. he questions *his* love/attachment/behavior and not so much yours. I think you want to get to a place where you are sure not to give reassurance (unless he is really spiraling and in bad shape) and encourage him to tolerate the anxiety/uncertainty without resorting to compulsions. The key is really being able to sit with and habituate to the intrusive thoughts. Things that help me: "A thought is just a thought." "You are not always your thoughts." "You can tolerate intrusive thoughts". "You can tolerate uncertainty". "Love is action not feelings". "Love is action not thoughts." "You don't need 100% certainty to act in life." For your own psyche - it helps to view it as an unhelpful pattern of thinking that can attach itself to basically anything. It's not about you. Many of us have had many different obsessive-compulsive themes. It's about fundamentally being able to face fears and tolerate anxiety without resorting to compulsions. I have/had attachment ROCD - lived together, got married recently, going to start a family. Keep your chin up!
Meant to say I have/had *avoidance* ROCD.
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
I personally do not have OCD I am here because I love my bf of 6 years He is a great guy but he is having a hard time with rocd he is currently going through a lot of anxiety with was triggered by us discussing engagement plans This makes me sad because we love each other and I hate seeing a good man having to fight his own mind to be able to be in a relationship with me Someone tell me what to do Point me in the right direction please I am here for him and I will not abandon him I want to go back to him with everything I will learn from you guys 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.
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