ROCD Recovery Question!

I am feeling like I am not attracted to my spouse at all and like I need to break it off before we have kids (we’re thinking about it in the next 2 years). I’m worried I’ll keep feeling ROCD relapses when we have kids and that would be hell to deal with both that and raising kids. I’m wondering whether I would actually feel relationship uncertainty and anxiety as much with someone I’m more naturally attracted to. If you’ve had similar break up urges, how do you know what you truly want and make values based decisions? How do you ride the wave during a particularly bad doubt storm, where you feel none of the positive emotions you felt before? Has anyone had ROCD with kids and can give advice or share experiences?

sea_sky26

Date posted: 1y

I haven't really dealt much with ROCD, but have you tried considering what made you fall in love with and decide to marry your spouse in the first place? We all know that feelings can come and go. But love isn't based on feelings alone. Idk, relationships are important to me, I hate divorce personally. I would think that even if you did decide to divorce, you would still feel this way with someone else because you didn't deal with the root issue, which is the ocd and any other life factors which could be influencing your feelings/decisions. Is your current spouse loving, supportive, patient, would they be a good parent? Do they know about your struggles with this or are there walls built up? Do you guys take time to still get to know each other intimately (not just sex but like as people-thoughts, behaviors, dreams, fears, etc.)? Somehow you've got to figure out the facts and find what is true, beyond what you feel. Feelings lie. As we all know, OCD loves to manipulate our feelings and lie. If you want to fight for your marriage with this person and your future family, the feelings will come back in time. Surround yourself with people who will support and champion you and maybe even do counseling together. Maybe you could even look up stories of people with ROCD who overcame something like this for encouragement! I'm not a therapist, sorry I wish I knew exactly what you need to hear but I hope this helps in some way. 💜

Rocd-friend

Date posted: 1y

@sea_sky26 Thank you so much for your thoughtful response! You bring up good questions and suggestions I’m going to think about and work on. I waited a few days to answer since I wanted to stop myself from seeking reassurance/ checking/ etc. I posted an update below in the comments! I’ve noticed that I am very triggered by comparison to others (weddings, engagements, romantic movies, or romance centered events especially), interpersonal disagreement in the relationship (tricky bc it is a natural part of any relationship but my brain turns it into “a sign”), or my feelings of attraction (like folks have said, come and go, and also are influenced by lifestyle factor, hormones, work life stress, etc). The good thing, I suppose, is I can keep a keener eye on these triggers, and do more exposures around them to help me become more comfortable with discomfort. I think what I’ve re-learned this weekend (for the nth time) is I’m truly in need of resilience when it comes to dealing with feelings of discomfort. OCD can have a hey day when I’m trying to run from discomfort — because it can try to convince me I can find certainty. I’ll need to practice being comfortable being uncomfortable and uncertain — and making values based decisions. Thanks again!! It helps to know people are listening and here.

Lost-

Date posted: 1y

I would say there is a big difference between love and attraction. It’s extremely reasonable to expect that you won’t be attracted to your partner all the time, but you should love them all the time. OCD obscures clarity in regards to both so it would be really difficult to get a grasp on what your feelings are, but at the end of the day, kids are the biggest commitment you can make, not just to your partner but more importantly to them. I think it could be helpful to work with a therapist to gauge if you’re ready for it and just air out some of your concerns. Hope u can find some clarity soon.

Rocd-friend

Date posted: 1y

@Lost- Thank you! I’m working on getting a new therapist :) This inspired me to act on what I’ve been postponing

acobrion

Date posted: 1y

Very helpful thank you!

Rocd-friend

Date posted: 1y

UPDATE: I feel the exact opposite — very attracted and very grateful we are married… so I feel confident that WAS an OCD trigger (I had a big one this weekend plus more stacked on top: trigger stacking). It’s a good lesson to me that OCD has a habit of making things seem so absolutely real in the moment and even if that lasts for a few days or week, it’s not permanent and I need to use my tools to ride the storm. What seemed to help was doing a couple of exposures while I was feeling triggered (strange right?) and then seeking common humanity by letting a support group know I was facing depressive symptoms from an OCD episode and then going on a very long nature walk and talking with a friend who also has OCD (not compulsing).

Croissant

Date posted: 21w

Rocd & depression. Feeling no love or attraction?

I struggle with rocd, and a big intrusive thought that I have is that I’m no longer in love with my partner. I am going through a depression right now, and I am struggling to feel any kind of passion towards anything at the moment. I am withdrawing from the people I love because I just feel like I want to be alone. When I’m with people I just feel exhausted by it. I guess my question is, has anyone ever felt like this from depression? Does it take feelings of love and attraction away? I can’t tell if this is my ocd or depression or a combination of both. But it’s starting to impact my relationship which makes me panic because losing it is my worst fear.

Relationship OCD

bmaria

Date posted: 15w

Rocd?

My psychologist tells me because my thoughts are based off of facts/ broken boundaries which is why I am having thoughts of am i in love , am I settling , and feeling guilty I should let him go to find someone who wouldn’t doubt him that I do not have rocd. She states rocd is intrusive , irrational thoughts not based off of real facts and I may have ptsd not ocd. He kissed someone else before we were official and he finds a certain type of female attractive that I find disgusting . So I spin about these issues all day long to the point I’m so unhappy with him and had to break up . It’s been over a month now but I’m still severely anxious and depressed The thing is I can’t stop thinking about this 24/7 with severe anxiety and depression and nothing is helping me . Can someone please tell me their thoughts

shopgirl

Date posted: 12w

New relationship and OCD spike

I’ve been really struggling the last week and I need some help. I’ve been seeing a guy for about 2 months who checks a lot of my relationship boxes. He’s so kind and we have a lot of fun together. The first few weeks I was totally smitten but had moments of fear about being committed. We talked about it and decided to take things slowly, and then I would have days of feeling like every thing was perfect with some fearful feelings in between. Two weeks ago now my SO-OCD and ROCD started to come back a little as well as my more anxious-avoidant behaviors. I started to get more scared of the future and it was more intense. At the end of last week, he asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes. He is exactly the type of person I see myself marrying and has great values and is so secure about me. Until last week, he generally made me feel so safe and secure. Ever since saying yes, I feel so scared and anxious and my SO-OCD and ROCD is on max. I also find myself getting more annoyed and irritated about things that were minor annoyances or non-issues before. I’m having intense physical responses to both OCD themes, and the nagging thought and feeling that I need to end things with him because we aren’t right for each other. It makes me feel so sad and guilty. Sex is becoming harder because of the thoughts too, whereas at first it was perfect. I don’t know who I can talk to about this without them telling me to just break up with him. Everything is so new so I think they’d chalk it up to my intuition. But I do want to be in love and have less fear around relationships, so I don’t want to give into the fear. I think it could help me to set boundaries and have space for myself more often. I think I need some advice or insight. I know I shouldn’t ask for reassurance, but having some around how other people have felt at the beginning of a relationship would help. Why is it that the label is freaking me out so much? How do you guys set boundaries to prioritize yourself when you feel this way?

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