Not Diagnosed Yet But Suspicious

Hey I'm new here... Married for two years, not formally diagnosed with OCD but over 25 years, I've dealt with obsessing over my sexuality, then it has shifted to obsessing over my relationships. In my first marriage, I would notice other attractive men and at one point I started to obsess over one man at my church. Eventually it went away but I divorced for other reasons. Fast forward 15 years. I meet my now-husband, but we break up twice while dating. I was terrified. I have learned I do struggle with fearful/avoidant attachment, but I made it through to get married!! But now, the obsessing over other men is happening again. I work with a lot of men. If I notice one who may be handsome, all of a sudden I feel weird sensations in my body, my mind races, and I fear I want to cheat, or wonder if I'd be happier. It has happened with a guy at my church, several coworkers, my husband's best friend...so I know there's a pattern. But as of late, it has gotten worse with one coworker. I have to see him every day. The thoughts are loud. They feel real, like they're how I feel (I like him, he has nice eyes, I love you). I am a Christian, and when I pray about it, it's almost like something inside me says, 'don't fix this, this isn't OCD, I want this guy' blah blah blah. I feel awful, like a whore, like a cheater, like a double-minded person. And I feel so far away from my husband. I've dealt with feeling the need to confess everything early in our relationship. I've gotten better at not doing that, but I feel like I carry this private pain that no one understands. It really hurts. I guess I just needed to vent and let this out. Sometimes it feels so lonely. I feel crazy. I'm in my 50s, I have a full time job, I take care of my home, yet I feel paralyzed by this sometimes. Thanks for reading.

I am at the point where I feel like I don’t even know myself anymore and have a really hard time explaining my thoughts and feelings. The thought that no one may ever be able to help me or understand me is blazing constant in my head. I don’t know if I will truly ever be happy, the dissatisfaction I have in my life is beyond words and I try to be happy but my mind is so toxic and ungrateful. I feel that I may never understand myself. Have been dealing with extreme intrusive thoughts in regards to my relationship, if my partner is for me, if I am the reason problems come up in my relationship, if I am overly sensitive causing arguments etc. I will have constant thoughts about other people in my head although I have a partner. A hyperactive imagination of others if you will or specific individuals in my life. I have a severely low sex drive. I have also noticed recently that my partner will say things that I don’t like but can’t tell if he’s the problem or if i’m the problem. If I like my partner anymore or if I don’t, can I see him in my future or not. When I am with him I enjoy being with him but there is always a thought in the back of my head of do I just like being around him as a friend because I am lonely or if I truly love them. It’s to the point where I question leaving them or not. My only issue is that I don’t want to leave but at the same time I have trouble feeling emotionally and sexually connected. I even pick at physical imperfections that they may have which to my true beliefs does not matter I will love them otherwise. We recently have been arguing a lot and I can’t tell if I am the problem or he is but it causes me a lot of stress because I feel misunderstood and feel like he wouldn’t understand me unless he was me. It can be hard explaining OCD to him because he is one of those people who loves to self help almost like a life coach, explains to me that anxiety doesn’t exist and that I can help myself or stuff along those lines. It hurts so bad because he doesn’t understand how hard it is for someone with OCD and how him saying things like that only makes it worse and makes me want to turn away from him in a way. I want to feel like I can talk to my partner and that I know for a fact is my true belief. I pray that God will heal me of this terrible disease. I feel I have turned away from the Lord so much because of how alone and misunderstood I feel with what feels like no change. When I’m in public I’ll look at a guy and feel as though because they looked at me back they will think I like them or that I may be interested even though i’m not. I obsess in my head sometimes about real people I know that are kit my partner and have just learned to accept that but it’s still disheartening to me. I understand the concept of being with a partner and still finding other people attractive without obviously doing anything about it and I try to remind myself of that. Please someone tell me this is OCD because the thought of it not is sickening. Another thing I do is compare myself to other girls my age almost that if i’m not as pretty as them im not pretty at all. To whom ever reads this please be very mindful of how you respond because I am triggered very easily. But I am so so lost.

My husband told me recently he was going to hang out with a local friend he often goes to see. It got very late and I heard nothing from him. Tried calling and texting. Stayed up all night thinking maybe he was dead or injured. Logged into our cell phone account to see if I could find any recent location and discovered he had talked to someone on the phone that night but he was like 2 hours away from home at that time. And also saw a phone number he was spending hours on the phone with every day. I had been confronting him about his secrecy prior to that and he kept telling me it was this friend or that friend, or he was just taking the dog on a long walk or having a fire out back. He finally called me back in the morning and I yelled at him. He told me he was randomly with two friends from longer ago and had gotten drunk and passed out, and hadn't told me about these plans because I had a heart surgery a few weeks prior and health concerns and he didn't want to stress me out. He told me the phone number was a girl that he related to on trauma factors and that he views like a little sister. He said he didn't tell me because he was caught up in his trauma spilling of events he didn't share with a single person since they occurred to him 35 years ago, due to feelings of shame and anger, and that he thought I would view it as emotional cheating. I told him it really could be viewed as emotional cheating and in principle, honesty shouldn't be dependent upon the outcome... lying isn't justified because I would be upset by the truth. Since then, he's been more open with me and tells me when that girl is calling, talks to me about their conversations, answers her calls when I'm present. I talked to him about boundaries and things I'm uncomfortable with or bothered by and he changes those things. Especially because I have trauma from an emotionally abusive ex, having him lie to me when I directly questioned him about what I was perceiving or experiencing and telling me those experiences weren't real, when they actually WERE real, has really messed me up. Now when he wants to hang out with a friend, I don't trust it. But I'm handling these feelings in destructive OCD ways. I spend literally the entire time he's gone thinking and thinking and thinking about what if he's lying or what he might be doing instead of what he said. I call and text him intermittently and feel like all of my obsessive thoughts are confirmed if he doesn't answer right away. I'm always checking the phone history. The driving toll history. Scrutinizing everything. I cannot get out of this mindset. It's like this horrible mixture of emotional flashbacks and OCD. I don't want to live like this. I want to work on my relationship in productive ways. I want to be able to use my own time while my husband is gone. Even if he lied to me and is somewhere other than he said, I don't want to lie in bed just thinking and thinking and thinking for entire days and nights. I'm not sure what I'm really asking here. This is just the only place where I feel like I can share this without people thinking "wow she's crazy".