Cheating OCD Not Getting Better

I’ve suffered from this theme on and off now for years. And it’s focused around this one stupid event in the past. I’ve explained it in a previous post. Short story I feel I micro-cheated on my wife by putting on deodorant before going out the door to help a friend of hers who I find attractive. Her friend asked me. I didn’t go out of my way to ask her. I didn’t do anything questionable on that day besides put deodorant on and somehow my mind has latched onto it. My wife even knew who I was with and where we were going. I feel I was trying to gain attention because I know it smells good. I found an article online that emphasized “micro cheating”. A list item in there says “Dressing up or wearing perfume to impress someone” and now I equate that to what I did. I feel that this is cheating. It’s bad and I need to confess to my wife. I broke down and confessed to her last year that I wore deodorant to “impress” someone but didn’t specify who. I didn’t want to mess up their friendship. She seemed to gloss over what I said and wasn’t really affected by it. I keep going back to it thinking “If only you knew it was THIS person it would be 1000 times worse! You didn’t tell her the whole truth! You’re trickle-truthing!” I’m my mind she would be be devastated if I told her and divorce me so the fact that I haven’t told her is living a lie”. I hate this so much. I feel my entire life with her is riding on me keeping this inside and if I let it out it’s game over. Divorce. Homeless. Custody battles. Financial ruin. Everything. Any time divorce is brought up in movies or anything I am triggered. I just want this to go away. But the fact that it hasn’t leads me to believe it’s legit guilt and not just OCD and I’m using OCD as an excuse. Has anyone successfully conquered this type of theme? Or does it only really end in a confession.

angel.ring

Date posted: 2y

Hi! I want to start my reply off by saying that there is absolutely no need to “confess” to your wife because there you have nothing to confess to! I struggled with this same issue about a month ago…I have a friend that I find attractive, and when I went to go see him, I put on my perfume and dressed all nice. I felt guilty about this for so long and my OCD told me that I did this because I was in love with him, that I wanted to be with him instead of my lovely boyfriend, and that I ultimately cheated on my boyfriend by dressing this way. First off… no. I decided to sit with the idea, and this solved the problem with me. Because I was scared to tell my therapist about this issue (I was afraid he would tell me that I had, in fact, cheated on my partner), I sat in front of my mirror and did a mock therapy session. Through this, I reminded myself that it is completely okay to think that other people other than your partner are attractive. It’s human nature - we are supposed to pick out the most attractive people for the best succession of our genes - but it becomes cheating when you act on this attraction. You didn’t do that! Neither did I. I also told myself that this behavior was not out of the ordinary for me. Every day I usually dress up nicer, and I always put on perfume. I did not put it all on to “entice him or get his attention” like my brain told me I did. I put it on because it was normal for me, and I wanted to smell good because I always do, no matter who I am around. I’m sure it is also normal for you to put deodorant on because you don’t want to smell bad, right? What you are feeling is guilt spurred on by OCD. Your OCD has convinced you that your behavior is not normal or acceptable, but it is. All of it is normal, from the attraction (which you did not act on, and never have from the sounds of it) to the wanting to smell good. You are just looking at what happened through a catastrophic lens. I know how this feels, and I also know that you did not cheat or micro-cheat on your wife. You didn’t do anything wrong, so there is no need to “confess” to her.

SaraLM

Date posted: 2y

I am going through almost the exact same thing. While I can’t give too much advice because I am struggling too, I can tell you that from my perspective your situation is absolutely OCD and you have nothing to confess. I have been struggling with the fact that I tried to look good too while in a relationship - wanting to look pretty or attractive to other people is basic human nature. I believe everyone does it sometimes, but people without OCD don’t even think twice about it. Things that are as abstract as thoughts and intentions are perfect for OCD to latch onto, because it’s impossible to find certainty around them. Just wanted to let you know you aren’t alone and it will get better.

.Anonymous

Date posted: 20w

ROCD/False Memory

I suffer with a constant worry of what if I’ve cheated. You name it I’ve thought I’ve done it. I’m quite flirty at nature and also insecure. Sometimes hand in hand I don’t think they balance each other out as the constant need for attention to validate myself can backfire. Although I have the best partner ever and she makes me feel nothing less than beautiful I still crave validation from others. That being said someone I used to work with left over half a year ago and when they worked at my current place of work we were very close. Text everyday, phone calls you name it. However looking back I was extra flirty as I wanted him to fancy me. I wanted the power to turn him down to make myself feel better. Awful I know. Now all I can think about is what if I’ve done something. What if I kissed him. What if I’ve slept with him etc. I’ve kept our whole conversations from the minute I got his personal number. I constantly search key words to see if my intrusive thoughts are real. I can except the uncertainty my therapist tells me about as if I have done the worst and cheated I would loose my partner and our 10 year relationship. I love her so much she is my life but I can’t stop thinking what if I’ve cheated. Does anyone else suffer with the same theme? If so how do you cope?

Anonymous

Date posted: 18w

Relationship OCD- fear of cheating

I have this deep fear I’ll accidentally cheat on my long term partner. This fear was initially triggered a couple years ago after being at a bar with my friends where I enjoyed the attention of being flirted with by a stranger. Because of my enjoyment of receiving verbal attention, I began spiraling about what if I accidentally cheat. Since then I have made multiple confessions to my partner to seek reassurance, replayed events over and over in my head, spent hours googling/looking at reddit threads, and now I dread “bar like” situations where I know my partner won’t be around. Today I was triggered and have wasted about 4-5 hours of my day ruminating. Does anyone else with relationship ocd struggle with this fear and have any tips?

DannyO507

Date posted: 15w

I need help

So I have been struggling with the same theme of ocd for 4 months now. My ocd centers around past events/false memories that ocd skews to make seem bad or it twists my thoughts on what my intentions were. this is related to cheating or being weird while I have been in my amazing relationship. I have never cheated on my partner and never will and I believe it is wrong. But my ocd is telling me other wise. I love my partner so very much and I would never want to hurt him but my brain is getting to me. I was getting better. I was trying “maybe I did, maybe I didn’t”, I have been back on meds and in therapy and I stopped confessing random interactions from years/months ago about 1.5 weeks ago and it really helped. But now I woke up this morning and feel the pit in my stomach again. I feel extra critical and like why would you do this? What does this say about you? What was your intention with this? And I’m just stuck mentally reviewing and ruminating on everything you could imagine. I know my personality and I know in the moment maybe I did find them attractive but mainly I was just being nice or funny or even just a good friend, but looking back now I’m like “was it flirting?” “Why did I still snap this person” “why would I even talk to them” and stuff like that. I feel this intense sense of guilt. I have told my partner everything that I keep getting stuck on and he didn’t care, he said he understands or “that’s a little weird but it’s okay” and hasn’t missed a beat. He said eveything I’ve told him is normal and I’ve heard that from my friends too. I just really need help. I don’t know what to do anymore. I am so disappointed because I thought I was gonna be done with this, so why am I still so worried and caught up in this.

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Cheating OCD Not Getting Better

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