- Date posted
- 6y
- Date posted
- 6y
First of all: You are not responsible for his actions. We are all responsible for ourselves. These are two separate issues. You need to take responsibility for how you’re acting by getting professional help, making amends when possible, and being better moving forward. He needs to do the same. For his part: Re read what you wrote: he’s emotionally abusive, he abandons you, he spits on you. This isn’t a nice guy. And you weren’t the cause of his not-nice-ness. He’s showing you who he is. Listen. For your part: deal with the drinking problem, your own anger issues, your mismanagement of meds, and when someone says they need space: respect that. Don’t physically restrain someone, ever. Unless they’re in immediate physical danger to themselves or others. His issues are his issues. Yours are yours. You can take responsibility for yourself (and should!) but you cannot and should not take responsibility for how he’s treating you now.
- Date posted
- 6y
You can love him and have compassion for him and still leave. You treated him poorly, okay. Many people are treated poorly without becoming emotionally abusive or abandoning those they care about or spitting. You can have compassion for how he’s feeling and still know that all of this is unacceptable. You can’t help him or make him get help. In relationships, we’re both responsible for our own mental health.
- Date posted
- 6y
Have you read about the various attachments styles people have and the effects on love? Look up anxious-avoidant relationships. Sounds like you’re in one. https://youtu.be/OYoIVCHVwKI
- Date posted
- 6y
Sounds like you are abusive, too. And that’s good to acknowledge and start working on. It still doesn’t excuse his abuse. Again, these are separate issues. Take responsibility for your own actions: get help, get better. That’s all you can/should do. Unless this guy is ready to do the same, right now, leave him. He’s not a good guy. And you aren’t responsible for that.
- Date posted
- 6y
Well I can tell you one thing for sure: your past does not make you unlovable. But being an abusive partner who doesn’t take responsibility for their actions or own mental health may. I’d recommend reading “Self-compassion: the proven power of being kind to yourself” by Kristin Neff. You need to start getting your self worth from yourself and that starts with being a hell of a lot nicer to yourself. Stop worrying about what men will think for now and start exploring what YOU think. And get off those stupid forums — those guys are tools.
- Date posted
- 6y
If it helps at all: of all the things you told me today, the sugar dating sight was the least concerning. Give yourself a little slack here.
- Date posted
- 6y
i agree 100% with pureolife. you need to leave; this person doesn’t sound safe or healthy to be around
- Date posted
- 6y
I’m sorry you didn’t grow up with a good male figure in your life or a positive example of how relationships should work. It makes sense that you’ve struggled to form a positive relationship yourself. But that doesn’t mean you can’t. Leave this guy because he’s not owning up or taking responsibility or getting help. But YOU can and should do all those things. With a partner who also wants to do them.
- Date posted
- 6y
Thank you so much for your responses pureolife. You’re so kind and helpful. I will look into that book and have a serious talk with my boyfriend about working on ourselves. A lot of my real event ocd focuses on that sugar dating site and I have agoraphobia now for fear of running into the two men I met on that site. When my boyfriend sent me home to New York for a few months from Dubai, all these feelings came back and I barely leave my house (but I’m also broke that’s why). I can’t believe the difference between being on my meds and off of them.
- Date posted
- 6y
One of the sugar “daddies” got me drunk and took me to the basement of the bar to receive sexual favors, but spoke to me for months and promised a dating relationship. Later on he messaged me saying remember when u did this? When I confronted him not paying or dating he called me a whore and blocked me. Now I have obsessions I am caught on camera in that basement bar and this was 3 years ago. He was a regular at the bar so I guess they let him go down there with girls. I would never wish this experience on any women. Real event ocd really gets triggered with this memory and worrying about the worst case scenario (if there were cameras, being blackmailed one day, etc)
- Date posted
- 6y
I know you probably can’t afford therapy right now in your situation but do look into some books on pure ocd. I think they will help. Good luck!
- Date posted
- 6y
I have apologized many times and I think other fights happened because of the way he was punishing me. He would be so cold and I am now walking on eggshells. Last week he got mad over something small and needed this week to have some space. Whenever I bring up something he’s done wrong he says I keep saying we should break up but u are the only one holding on. Then he doesn’t end up breaking up and says he loves me. I’m going nuts!
- Date posted
- 6y
@pureolife I’m aware of all of this but I still stay because I love him and am trying to have compassion. He said no girl ever treated him half as bad as I did and he doesn’t know how to react. He respected me so much before I started the disrespect. He deals with issues by shutting down and it made me go nuts because he leaves me in suspense. I wish I could get help with therapy and medication but I have no money. I lost my job and was in a foreign country.
- Date posted
- 6y
Before his spitting I had thrown a flip flop at him and when I was drunk I threw my shoe. I think all this built up over time and I didn’t blame him. Part of me knows it’s toxic but I also struggle with self esteem and thinking no one will love me because of my past. I didn’t mean to hurt him at all. I was battling something within me and lashing out at whoever was around me. It’s hard not to think of myself as abusive as well.
- Date posted
- 6y
I have a narcissist father who is emotionally abusive and all I saw growing up was yelling and conflict. My boyfriend came from a very quiet place. All this made me realize how much my childhood has affected me in my relationships. I think my boyfriend also realizes what’s happening to his behavior and always tries to break up for that reason. He just doesn’t own up to it and apologize to me.
- Date posted
- 6y
How do I get over the fear of not being loved because of my past? Ever since I tried a sugar baby dating site a few years ago to help pay off my debt, my self esteem and regret had hit an all time low. I was taken advantage of on that site because I was naive and innocent, and i am traumatized. I googled what guys would accept from a girl’s past and a lot of forums have guys saying they would never done a girl who has done what I’ve done. I feel so hopeless.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w
Hello. I am on my first relationship, (and I want it to be my only!) I've been at it for nearly 2 years, and it first starting happening a few months in. When the relationship started, it felt perfect to me. We are both extremely different people, we have different taste, different humor (but we both made each other laugh!) and just a different way of talking about things, (I tend to be more analytical, while she isn't as much). But I considered these differences to be fine, I never felt like it was an issue because our core values are very similar and I consider her a very intelligent girl. We just enjoyed time together, and each other, I thought she was cute as hell, and even if she didn't talk in depth about a lot of stuff, that didn't matter, I enjoyed the quiet times with her just as much as the talkative times. When the OCD kicked in, that's when I started to question everything, I questioned if I even loved her in the first place, if our relationship was just a sham, if I even found her attractive in the first place, her intelligence, her point of view, even dumb petty stuff like "oh she likes THAT movie???". After my first major breakdown, I confessed a lot to her. At this point, I didn't even know what was going on until I started to look into it. And that's where I found ROCD. On one hand, it was satisfying to see something I could point to as "the problem", on the other hand, I think it gave me bad motivation, it reassured me that this was something that I could just try and ignore. After I cooled down from this, I once again had a long period of bliss. I had a good schedule with her. >Go to work >Hang out with her (spend the night at her place sometimes) >go home and hang out with friends I enjoyed my time with her, taking part in her interests, and her taking part in mine. She wasn't always 100% into the things that I was, and that was always a bit disappointing to me, but in the same way you'd be disappointed if your friend didn't like the thing you liked. (now I over analyze these moments and question if I did always care more about this or not) This moment of bliss would end after another huge trigger. A part of the OCD I have yet to mention is my tendency to be worried that "getting along with other people that I find attractive" is the equivalent of either cheating on my partner, or backstabbing them. There was someone at work that I found attractive and I had a moment where it felt like I may have developed a thing for them, I still don't know if it's true because I generally found them to be annoying at times. I made a joke during work, that felt like I was propping myself up to them, I still don't know my motivation behind this joke, because it feels like it could have been something that I would have joked about to anyone, but I'm still not even sure about it. Either way I basically had a panic attack and later confessed to my partner. I don't know if I should have done it, or not, because I'm to this day confused about my emotions during that situation. Regardless. She was hurt, but she forgave me. It felt like I couldn't look her in the eye and feel like a sincere person to her. After this major moment, I felt like I never recovered. I started to avoid talking to this person at work, or really many women at work at all because of the fear that I'd fall for them. When an attractive women shows up I try and end the conversation quickly, this has only created a fear for taking to people, and it's extremely stressful. I got by though. And I would continue to love my partner. Until another major breakdown. This one created a new type of numbness to my partner, that felt completely different, and it's way more convincing. I mentioned in the past that my partner and I are very different, and that we even have different ways of talking about interests. My partner very much enjoys things for what they are, there's not much analysis, and that's fine. Me (and my friends) are very analytical. Last month I was showing her a game I like, and I started to question if she was even tracking what was going on, or even understood it, I was obsessing over the idea that she didn't even care about it (even tho I know she has always taken interest in what I like). This way of thought broke my brain and it made me feel completely incompatible with her. I question my behavior when I was showing her stuff in the past, I remember moments in which I questioned if she was actually paying attention even during moments when the OCD was low. I question if she has the ability to even watch something and understand what's going on. All terrible thoughts, and all thoughts that I never want to have. I'm scared to talk to my friends half the time because the thoughts of them being more "intelligent and analytical" pulsate through my brain. My friends and I are extremely cynical, about things like the film industry and sometimes if I'm going in on something it feels like I'm shitting on her by proxy just because she doesn't care about it as much as I do. I've isolated myself from friends and I think that did worsen my condition, because when it's just only me and my partner hanging out, I feel like it started attacking her more. This is the part where it just doesn't feel like ROCD anymore. I used to not give a single shit about these things, I was able to make blanket statements like "I think TikTok sucks and it's users are annoying" knowing full well my partner uses TikTok every day. There was a separation between me making broad statements and then not necessarily being indictive of my partner SPECIFICALLY. Now it doesn't feel like I have much anxiety anymore, because it just feels like I've accepted that my partner is who she is and I "don't know if I love her" when in the past, I've accepted my partner for who she is, and I loved her anyway. I feel like I'm just not as connected to her as I once was. I used to enjoy everything with her, now my brain overanalyzes everything she does and says. I can't just relax. I feel like I've lost any amount of structure and this turned into a ramble. But I guess that's where I'm at now. I've been attempting getting proper health insurance so I can talk to someone and not break the bank. I think about the times when none of these ridiculous nitpicks didn't matter to me, and I cry about the idea of leaving her. Thank you for reading.
- Date posted
- 16w
Hey everyone, First time posting here! Wanted to share my story for some support but also to hopefully make others feel less alone. In short - my ROCD has made such a mess of my personal life. I was in a great relationship until spring of last year, at which point we separated mainly due to my ROCD. I struggled heavily with OCD about 10 years ago (harm based intrusive thoughts, sexual orientation ocd, etc). It took a lot of work but I was able to mostly overcome my struggles and truthfully, hadn’t given ocd much thought since then. I thought I was cured. And then 10 years later I am in a very fulfilling relationship with a girl I really love, but at about the year mark in my relationship things really changed. She wanted to have a conversation about next steps (moving in, marriage, kids, etc) and at that point my brain just went into panic mode and the ocd took over. From that point on, I was constantly scanning for red flags, felt very reserved when it came to any sort of statement or commitment and tended to avoid anything that would indicate I was committed to a long term future. It was not that I didn’t love it was just that my ocd was doing anything to keep me from making a big commitment. It eventually got a point where we had a big conversation about breaking up or staying together and my OCD convinced me that it was safer and that I would do less harm to her if we ended things, which was incredibly devastating to me. At the time I felt like my obsessing over small red flags were normal and that I needed to protect myself. I just had no clue it was ROCD. I spent the next 8 months missing her and kicking myself for my mistakes, and I eventually got the courage to reach out and see if she’d be willing to talk again, which she was. But the problem is, at this point I still didn’t know it was ocd. So when we talked again I was still plagued by ROCD as all the same thoughts and feelings came flooding back. We tried to talk through things but once again I was unable to make any sort of commitment to the future so it went nowhere. Once again, I am feeling very sad and angry at myself for not being able to handle ROCD. I feel like I let it control me twice and has robbed me of a lot of happiness and hurt someone I care very much about. I understand it’s probably not best to just look at ourselves with anger and guilt all the time but it’s hard not to when you feel like you just caused so much harm. Anyone feel like they can relate? Or if anyone is going through something similar I am happy to chat as ROCD can really be tricky. Thanks
- Date posted
- 15w
Hi I don’t know but I’ve being having so much stress in my relationship with my boyfriend and I feel like I’m upset at him with small things and taking it out on him like when he looks at other girls or when he repost things with girls it upsets me and changes my mood and people tell me to talk about it with him but I don’t know how to talk to him about it because I don’t necessarily know how I feel I feel mad and upset and I feel like crying but I also just can’t express how I feel and I don’t know what to even say to him to communicate how I feel I found this app by googling”how to feel more stable in my relationship” I feel like I’m not in a relationship sometimes and I just want everything to work out with him but I don’t know what to do I wanna feel like all those relationships you see and feel loved and want to have a future but I don’t know how to get there
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