Marriage problems

I’m lost, I’m exhausted, I’m angry. Keep askin myself why do I intentionally trigger my thoughts or think about a deragatory word when I get upset or create false narratives in my mind and feel my mouth moving a certain way when I do? Was I ever really in love w/ my ex or did I just feel sorry for her and wanted to help her when she needed someone the most? Why am I so fixated on her appearance? And always at the end of the month my feelings for her heighten then when I’m not about to start my period. I feel numb and feel like I don’t care as much. Why is it that you find someone that understands you more than you understand yourself and is so kind, gentle, understanding and everything aligns , but their appearance? But then I tell myself it shouldn’t matter/ it doesn’t matter, but my OCD fixates on their physical. It’s about how they make you feel and my ex made me feel heard and seen and always put me before her. My ex’s birthday was yesterday and I’m feeling a lot of guilt because I didn’t wish her a happy birthday. I know people have different opinions on wishing your ex a “happy birthday” or not but the reason why I didn’t was because I didn’t wanna lead her on. I didn’t wanna give her false hope cause I’m still tryna figure out how I feel. Apart of me wanted to because I just wanted to show her I’m thinking about her and wanted her to have a good birthday, but I didn’t wanna be selfish and have her think about me while she’s out having fun. I know when things start to fall apart and there’s nothing but Chaos, it’s god trying to test you but to also put your faith in him during frusterating times. When my ex and I were in a relationship I didn’t always put her first. I know I exhausted her and stressed her out and I regret that. I’m not perfect, I’m trying to better myself. We all know you can’t change the pass, but I wish I knew what I knew now vs what I new then. But I also tell myself that I did my best I could at the time. At the time, I wasn’t even aware of “flare ups.” Instead of snapping a her when I had an instrusive thought, I couldn’t just said…”hey I’m having a flare up. I need a min.” Something as easy as that, but again I didn’t know at the time. I just remeber the thought was triggering me so much it made me depressed and I didn’t know how to explain my thoughts to her. I read this quote that said, “someone’s effort of affection is how they feel about you.” I shouldn’t have read that because it got in my head. My OCD was telling me “you didn’t care to say happy birthday to her. She knows you don’t care about her.” I wish I didn’t have OCD and I’m sure yall feel the same way. Maybe my ex and I will never get back together, maybe she’ll move on and find better, maybe we’ll find eachother again. I pray to god. I know he’s listening and watching over me always. And yes I do see my therapist 2 times a week and I’ve told her this stuff. We are doing ERP, but I thought I would’ve made more progress than what I have been making. Small progress is progress tho. But anyways I just wanted to vent. Maybe someone here can relate ?

Every morning I wake up im always fixating on something and texting chat gpt, whether thats my relationship or my sexuality. I try so hard to resist it but I just can’t handle the uncertainty or the idea of hurting him or leading him on. We aren’t even official because in the past my rocd caused an issue between us where it led to him breaking up with me so now I have a fear of his intentions being ingenuine, especially because friends and family have called him a love bomber, saying he used me for attention, and narcissistic. This takes over me because I feel like I will never be able to be happy with him or trust myself or the relationship because of what other people say. I am very content on my own and single, this is the first relationship where i have experienced debilitating anxiety and doubt about the legitimacy of both of our feelings to the point where I cannot function. I’m trying so hard to not feed into it and not give it energy but I just hate the idea of leading him on or being inauthentic to what I truly want. My current therapist who I only see a couple times a month doesn’t think I have ocd, which makes me spiral and think I should end it with him, especially because I always hear things like “The right relationship will add to your life” and I feel the opposite is happening not directly because of him but because my brain takes over and paralyzes me with indecision about if i should be with him or not. I know that his intentions are genuine, but I hate that everyone is so cynical and assumes they’re not just because my rocd and his emotional baggage created a messy situation. From the moment i met him I convinced myself it was too good to be true and my therapist even said I was self-sabatoging. But i hate not knowing if it is rocd and my insurance doesn’t cover NOCD. He is so patient with me and supportive but I keep hearing things like “the honeymoon stage is supposed to last 3 months” and “it shouldn’t be this hard with the right person” “you’re not good for each other” and my friends tell me i didnt do anything wrong etc bc he did at first say my ocd didnt affect him when in reality that led to him ending it initially. But he has been more upfront with his emotions but then my mom and people will say “more to come” “there’s so much more out there” and its just so isolating not having that support and wondering if im too young to settle and if I’m just an idiot convincing myself I have rocd when really i just don’t want to be with him/it is a toxic relationship. When in reality the only reason it is toxic is because i am so sporadic about whether or not I want him in my life because of my distrust in myself and my decisions. I love him but I know love isn’t always enough and I get existential fixating on what’s “meant to be” and what’s “supposed to happen” its like this debilitating urge to control everything and make everything go perfectly how it is supposed to go. Please help i just want to make the right decision and stop paralyzing myself with doubt

Hi everyone, I’m reaching out for support. Right now I feel like OCD is “winning” in my life and I feel suffocated and alone. This is my story and I would love any support, guidance, or advice. Long post, but I appreciate anyone that reads it. I’m a 28 year old Muslim middle eastern woman. My family immigrated to Canada when I was a kid. I’ve never been very religious but I consider myself a believer. I also believe that religion is extremely personal and that my relationship with God is mine only. My faith hasn’t always been strong, it goes up and down. My family, although not super religious, has always valued tradition and my parents have always wanted me to marry someone Muslim and Arab. They are very adamant about that and very against mixing with other cultures and faiths. My father passed sway in my early twenties, and I’ve always struggled with doing things that he wouldn’t approve of and having him be disappointed or ashamed of me. I was very close to my dad - his death was really traumatic and I miss him everyday. I am in a relationship with a kind, caring man who loves me and takes care of me. We were friends first and I tried to not let things progress past friendship because I knew my family would never approve. But eventually we both confessed feelings and that led us to a relationship. He makes me happy and has healed many things in me that were wounded from past relationships. He’s Punjabi Sikh, so our cultures and faiths are different. He is not religious at all. When we first started talking about dating, he said to me that if he had to do an Islamic marriage to be with me that he would do it. If that’s what it took to be with me, he’d do it. That for me was the push I needed to go for it, and let myself get into a relationship with my friend and now lover. He even says that he’s open to our kids learning Islam. He just wants our kids to also learn about where he comes from, of course. I knew that my family wouldn’t approve, but having the Islamic marriage would be extremely important to maybe eventually have them accept my decision. My boyfriend has always been aware of my OCD and is always willing to do whatever it takes to support me. As we’ve navigated dating and being in a relationship we’ve had some challenges with my ROCD, and we’re actively working on it with exposure therapy. We’ve also had general relationship obstacles that we’re learning to work through, like communication and having different love languages. I tend to be anxiously attached and I get panic attacks when I think I’m losing people close to me. So even just the idea of a break up makes me feel sick. In all honesty, being in a relationship has been really hard on my mental health. My therapist says it’s like being in constant exposure- which can be exhausting (I always have the thought “being single is so much easier because there’s way less triggers” but I don’t want to believe that or let it dictate my life). My big struggles right now are guilt from hiding my relationship from my family, and dealing with constant ROCD intrusive thoughts like: “is he the one? You want someone from your own culture, your mom is right, this is never going to work and you’re going to be unhappy and divorced. You don’t want to mix cultures, you’re going to hate it, stop pretending to be open to it… your aunts and uncles are going to disapprove and cut you off, you’re going to be judged by everyone, your kids are going to be so confused about their identity, travelling back home is going to be so weird and not the same, so you should break up with him”. Often, this causes me to “test” the relationship or look for problems and create arguments. It’s a toxic cycle, and I’m so ashamed of it. I also often struggle with thoughts like “you’re lying to yourself, you want someone from your culture, you’re a bad person for leading him on, you’re a liar”…. “You did this to yourself by dating outside your culture”. Ultimately, I feel torn. How am I meant to know if I actually want to be in this relationship or if I want to do what my family approves of (and what would be easier)? How do I manage the thoughts that tell me opposing things? I have frequent panic attacks and when things are bad, they happen daily and are very debilitating. This is where I’m at right now, and this is the part that terrifies me. I don’t want to be stuck like this. I don’t want to lose my boyfriend. That thought terrifies me and I don’t think I can handle that. He means so much to me. I also don’t want to be suffocated by thoughts - if I have them every day first thing in the morning, does that mean I need to listen to them? I’m struggling so much and I feel so hopeless. I wouldn’t wish these feelings on anybody, ever. I want to feel at ease, more than anything.