- Date posted
- 6y
- Date posted
- 6y
First of all, congratulations. Second of all - you basically have my exact story. We got engaged after 8 years ( have been married now for 6) and I’ve struggled the whole time... major changes kill me too... there are no red flags either - my rocd THINKS there are ( he’s not attractive enough, funny enough, we don’t “laugh enough”, yada yada. I have HOCD too so that’s lovely as well. I’ve been doing ERP for the last year... it’s not easy, but it has helped me slowly recognize and separate myself from the disorder. All I can really say is - I feel your pain. It’s horrible. But just plug through. Let the thoughts be there. Try to continue on with your day. Don’t avoid anything..don’t ask for reassurance...try not to compare yourself with other couples. Try not to “check” your feelings. These are all compulsions that only serve by offering you temporary relief while fueling the ocd monster. Hang in there!!!
- Date posted
- 3y
@OCDwarrior Hi how are you all doing? I’m going through this all now! Just got engaged after 6 years of being together and now all the ROCD HOcD POCD is all scaring me
- Date posted
- 6y
Oh how I understand both of you! 7.5 years into my relationship, and the thought of marriage feels like I can’t breathe properly, even though my partner is the kindest person I’ve ever met in my life (and also highly anxious and also suffers from a bit of ROCD, imagine that - 2 of us in the same relationship!). Have you heard of the website conscious transitions? Google it, Sheryl Paul is brilliant and her site is for rocd as well as anxious brides/grooms to be. One thing I’ve found I used to do was feel relief when I felt good and would think ‘oh wow all that bad stuff is over, I never have to feel like that again!’, then the cycle starts again, and I go through ‘I can’t live like this forever, I’m better off alone’. I think having the realisation I might bounce back and forth between both of those and trying to accept that takes some of the pressure off when I feel bad. It’s hard, but like XTina said just continue with your day. I also love listening to Oprah’s podcasts with Eckhart Tolle, he has YouTube videos as well.
- Date posted
- 6y
Queenvic: Congratulations! How did you all manage to stay in the relationship and make the best of it? I’m currently experiencing ROCD/HOCD and I feel like I’m going to burst and end my relationship. This is the first healthy relationship I’ve ever had and I feel like I’m trying to sabotage it.
- Date posted
- 6y
My story! Except I have hocd too.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 10w
I’ve dealt with ocd themes for as long as I can remember, POCD, HOCD, false memory, the feelings of having to confess something, washing certain body parts a specific amount of times, all of it I am still pretty young and I just got into my first relationship. I always knew ROCD existed I just never had the chance to have an experience with it 😭 and here I am. I really do think I have an anxious attachment style. But it’s also like I constantly worry if I’m too much or if i should not be in a relationship or if I rlly love my partner like I tell him. I am sensitive and very communicative so when things bother me I like to communicate them but then I worry that I do too much or I worry that it isn’t normal to find this many things wrong so early in a relationship. I also worry if he doesn’t like me or if he Will get tired of me, but those thoughts are easier to get by. The hard thoughts r the ones where I doubt my feelings for him. My mind feels like a MESS! And it’s harder because we only see eachother once a week. This may be heaven compared to other ppl who struggle with real long distance but for me the time in between gives me a lot of time to nitpick things that aren’t even real problems and create a sense of a toxic relationship that isn’t even real! The only times where I feel like maybe it’s all in my head are when. I see him and the days after, but when it gets long it gets rlly hard. I rlly do love him and he gives me reassurance when needed but I can’t help but focus on the negatives when little things bother me, especially when we are apart from eachother and jsut texting. Texting is hard because then there is the obsession over waiting to see how long he will take, not knowing the tone of texts, and being able to over analyze every conversation we’ve had. I also do mental checks to help me reassure myself that I love him 😭 like when’s the last time he made me laugh, what are some nice things he’s done that I rlly liked, and jsut trying to actively acknowledge everything he’s done so I can stop panicking abt the fear that I don’t love him. It’s literally only been 2 months of us dating so the fact my ocd is so early onset annoys me so bad because I rlly do feel like I am still in the crucial stages of a relationship where we are learning how to love eachother, so there should be some ups and downs and minor arguments while we get over this phase… but I can’t help but wonder what if these little things just mean I hate him? It’s extreme but I worry and the reels and tik toks I see about people realizing they don’t love their partner make it all bad!
- Date posted
- 9w
Hey, I really need your opinion – I think I might be struggling with Relationship OCD, and these thoughts are driving me crazy. I’ve been officially diagnosed with OCD, and I believe I also have ROCD. My obsessive thoughts often focus on one specific girl from my boyfriend’s past. She had messaged him a few times, and I think she liked him – but he never liked her back. He barely knew her, never found her attractive, and never wanted anything with her. She’s just a good friend of his best friend – not an ex or anything like that. He told me that he happened to be in the same group as her a couple of times – once at a birthday party and once at a fair – just because his best friend brought her along. He made it clear several times that she’s not his type at all, neither in looks nor in personality. He described her as someone who likes to go out and party a lot, and said that’s just not what he’s into. He also said he didn’t ask about her – these things were mentioned to him before our relationship. Almost all of this happened before we met – except for one thing: the fair. That was just one day before our second date, back when we had just started getting to know each other. She was with his friend group that night. He said he only said hi and bye to her, nothing more. The next day, when we met again, we were talking about his friends’ heights. He casually mentioned that his friend was the same height as that girl – 1.70 m. Ever since, I keep wondering: If she meant nothing to him, why did he even talk about her? Or did he actually talk to her that night, even though he said he didn’t? I know he said they barely exchanged a word, but somehow he still knew that detail. I just find that strange. Another example: He once said she was “kind of slutty.” Then, one or two months later, when I brought it up again, he said he didn’t know if she was or not, and that he didn’t care at all. That really confused me. I keep wondering: Why did he say something like that in the first place if he supposedly doesn’t care about her? I also notice this really frustrating cycle: When I talk to him about something that doesn’t make sense to me, I feel brief relief. But then, almost immediately, another thought or detail pops up that feels “off” again – and I feel like I have to bring that up, too. I can’t tolerate the uncertainty. It’s like an endless loop. These little “inconsistencies” – or what I perceive as inconsistencies – make me spiral, even though I do believe he’s being honest with me. I want to trust him. But I have this constant urge to bring up every little thing that doesn’t feel logically right. Every detail stays in my head for days, and it’s really hard not to talk about it. Does this sound like Relationship OCD to you? Do any of you go through this constant analyzing and doubt? I’d really appreciate your thoughts. I’m slowly ruining my own relationship.. Today, for the first time, my partner cried because of it .. I didn’t know how to deal with my thoughts, and seeing him like that made me realize that I really need to change something. Anything that doesn’t make sense to me feels unbearable. And as soon as I talk about one thing, the next thought comes into my head, something else that doesn’t make sense and leaves me feeling uncertain again. I honestly feel extremely helpless right now.. Just as a side note: I was officially diagnosed with ROCD in a previous relationship, not with my current partner, but in a past one.
- Date posted
- 26d
I am hoping for some guidance on how to move forward. For some time now I think I suppressed doubts and negative feelings towards my relationship and always found a way to be “excited” and plan for the future. A couple months after my engagement on a trip to Hawaii I spent a week very irritable and distant with my fiancée and it resulted in a fight that was very triggering to me (feeling pressure or trapped). I wonder if this is bringing up trauma of being around some nasty divorces as a kid. I then spent the next week spiraling emotionally like I never have before researching “gut feelings” “why am I irritable or not connected” and comparing and searching for answers on the internet and with people in my life until I stumbled across ROCD, read a book and found some level of relief because it felt like what was happening in my head. It’s been over a month now and my new obsession is do I really have ROCD or am I just in denial. It’s exhausting. I’ve had ocd tendencies in the past, such as health ocd that led me to tests and obsessive over sleep and the ruminating has significantly hurt my life. But I feel as though my rumination always comes from a real issue and my brain distorts the significance or the severity of it. It’s so hard because we do have some incompatibles (I am high energy and she is so chill, I’m more extroverted she’s more introverted) but I used to see our differences as complimentary and now they are scary and extreme. I also get so much anxiety when I notice things I don’t like or perceive as an incompatibility and it makes it hard for me to be around her. We are in a long distance relationship right now but see each other each weekend. I’m at the point where I’m ruminating a little less but underneath is a depression and apathy and when I stop worrying I start to get scared because I’m not obsessing but I’m still not feeling hopeful. How can I move forward? Obviously searching for excitement and stimulation isn’t the answer. How can I distinguish real relationship issues from my obsessive mind? I’m pretty lost and would love some guidance from anyone going through something similar. Thanks for making it this far and reading my post.
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