Having more good days than bad ones. But still currently feel guilty i get these thoughts of my ex, and i feel like im lying to my partner. I already cause him a lot of pain with all this. Sometimes i just want to be normal again, and enjoy things. go out with him without having these random thoughts that make me so anxious.
I can just say from experience, I understand. I have horrible intrusive thoughts all the time about ex’s/people from my past… they are draining and confusing and scary. The reason they scare you so much and make you so upset is because you’re a good loyal partner, you love your partner. That’s why ocd does this, it knows your morals and values and that you have found the love of your life, so it tries to rewin that… for about a year I spent almost every day “confessing” to my partner about all my intrusive thoughts, and there was a day he woke up and couldn’t handle it anymore as much as he loved me and knew I had ocd, he could not handle hearing the intrusions, and we broke up. That month of us broken up was one of the most painful, it didn’t make the ocd go away by telling him all the intrusions, it actually made everything worse… I got to the point of realising that I can’t put that on him, when they are literally lies ocd tells you, it is so seperate from you or what you want. You just need to remind yourself that when you want to “confess” an intrusive thought, that he will always have the same reaction of “it’s okay babe I know you don’t mean it, I know you have ocd” etc, just reassuring you, but in reality that’s fuelling the ocd and tearing your relationship apart. Please take it from me, You do not need to tell your partner things that OCD is telling you, because that’s not who you are…. At the end of the day it gets on top of them, they don’t have ocd so they can’t understand it the same way as we do, they have intrusive thoughts too, it’s just they would understand what they are and be able to ignore UNWANTED thoughts, where as our mind gets stuck on them, because we are fearful. If a thought was really true you wouldn’t worry about it or second guess it. Just try and out yourself in their shoes, as much as you want to be there for your partner and would always support them, imagine if they were confessing these UNTRUE thoughts to you 24/7, it would eventually get on top of you… Please please listen, it took me till we broke up to realise the impact it had on him, and I’m telling you right now their reaction will always be the same, they aren’t going to suddenly stop loving you, because you’re having intrusive thoughts… if they aren’t wanted thoughts they aren’t your own. OCD is very convincing and it lies and makes you doubt everything. Don’t give importance to them. I wish I could take my own advice sometimes because believe me I struggle and get caught up in the ocd all the time, but these are just things you HAVE TO remind yourself…. Clearly if you have a partner who you love, then any thought about your ex isn’t what you think now…
@Anonymous And I can tell you aswell. My ocd is to do with relationship, sexual etc… But I’ll tell you something. Even when my partner left me and we were broken up, I was single and could do what I want, but did I? No… I just wanted my boyfriend home. I didn’t want to act on any of those thoughts and didn’t want any of those thoughts even without him being with me. So that kind of was the proof in the pudding, that I know I am totally in love with my partner and wouldn’t ever do anything Disloyal even if we weren’t together… so I already knew how much I loved him, but that just proved to me even more how these thoughts are literally nothing to do with me and my morals and values, it’s OCD.
Thank you for replying! It’s very hard. Even harder because i made some bad decisions in the past while being with my bf. Now i feel like i didn’t even know myself back then, or knew why i made those decisions. So now my mind is attached to the why, or what ifs. I just want to be happy again, he’s totally moved on from that but im still stuck, and doubt about our future, and its scary
@Anonimo05 Everyone has made mistakes, I’m sure your partner has too… we are human and fuck up at times. But as long as you learn from your mistakes and actually put in the effort to show that person you’re sorry for whatever has happened, atleast it shows you love them enough to try. If your partner is still with you they’ve obviously forgiven you for whatever mistakes you’ve made, if they didn’t forgive you they wouldn’t be with you, just remind yourself every single person makes mistakes. The doubt is caused by your mental condition, it’s known as the “doubting disease” so try and just ignore anything your ocd throws at you. That’s the key to recovery is to retrain your brain that these thoughts don’t matter because they aren’t you
Ive been having terrible irrational thoughts that Ive cheated and don’t remember. Like the guilt made me repress the memory and im actually an awful person and someone’s gonna expose me. I know it’s not true and I love my boyfriend more than anything but i feel so guilty for something ive never done. its been making my life so difficult and i dont know how to explain it without sounding like im covering something up :( Its making me think that I need to break up and i don’t want too, but the guilt and anxiety is eating away at me. I feel like I need to get better before I continue on or i’m going to permanently ruin everything with my mental illness
i saw my ex yesterday unexpectedly on the bus on the way home and it triggered me, we stopped talking abruptly and it didn’t end well, i felt immediately guilty for feeling like that and i told my boyfriend. today i thought about it too and felt this strange unsettling feeling, i feel guilty even thinking about it, i just want to stop thinking and ruminating, i was like “what if i wanna go back with him? why do i keep thinking this?” and i felt horrible, i just want some rest, what do you suggest? does it happen to you too?
I had a life before I was with my partner, that involved having girlfriends and one night stands, etc. That's a lifetime of memories that I now feel guilty for having. Something as silly as watching a TV show with my girlfriend will make me think "I used to watch this show with an ex, is it ok to watch it with my current girlfriend?" and I will feel real guilt over it and need to seek her reassurance. There are other memories, about "intimate" times, that sometimes come into my head and I have urges to share them with my girlfriend to alleviate the guilt I feel for having the memory. Fundamentally, I feel guilty every time I have a memory of an ex, often regardless of the content. I feel like I shouldn't have thoughts of anyone else other than my current partner and it's wrong to have memories of exes. When I do, I feel guilty, ruminate, then have the uncontrollable urge to share the memories with her. She gets upset, I get upset, but also feel relief that I've shared. Does anyone have any similar experiences and/or tips around this sort of issue? Thanks.
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