I feel defeated

It’s completely reasonable to ask where things are going and want to meet one another’s families in order to make an informed decision about how much more emotional energy and time to put into a relationship. There will always be uncertainty in relationships and you will need to learn in treatment how to sit with the uncertainty. But having OCD and anxiety doesn’t make wanting commitment unreasonable. It doesn’t preclude you from asking for what you need and reevaluating the relationship when the other person won’t meet those needs.

I was in a relationship with someone who traveled a lot for work, and struggled with fears big time, ROCD related and other fears as well. When I managed the ROCD symptoms and let things be as they are and didn’t act on any of the intrusive thoughts, it allowed me to actually be at a good spot to analyze my needs and wants in a relationship and if I was in the right relationship, because I wasn’t actively trying to change the relationship or push my fears and anxiety away, just be more of an observer of the relationship patterns. I also journaled about my doubts and the things that were causing the doubts, so I was dealing with any rumination on my own, and it allowed me to spot any discrepancies if they occurred and address them. It also helped me realize I was in an abusive relationship and that we were going through the abuse cycle. Sometimes we look to see if we’re being treated abusively as an indicator to stay or go, but it’s totally okay to leave a relationship if there’s a conflict in basic needs. With ROCD, it’s easy to gaslight yourself too, or feed in to unnecessary doubts, so building self trust is super important! Maybe try making smaller decisions that seem difficult but not too difficult, and deal with the consequences, because really you’re dealing with a fear of choosing a safe partner and the right partner, and being able to handle disappointment if it arises. Maybe use smaller disappointments as an exposure? It will build the self trust that you’ll be able to handle it if anything comes up. Intuition will feel less fear based too, and more so of a knowing what to do and the solution, and it will bring peace, even if the solution seems like a difficult transition. I’ll say this much too, people who cheat and do abusive things in relationships tend to not allow their partner to have hardly any influence on their decisions, and there will be a great deal of gaslighting and manipulative behaviors, and those are better to measure for relationship health than how much they reassure and call, because you can still be cheated on while having their location and them checking in often, but what will always be there if they are betraying the relationship in any form is the gaslighting and manipulation. John Gottman has a really good description of all this in his book the Science of Trust, if you need more guidance in this area.

Thank you, you’re super sweet! I appreciate your kindness as well! I have a tendency to displace my experiences on others as well, and I probably did that here, so I can improve too! Especially since I tend to have responsibility OCD as a more common underlying theme, so I shouldn’t be commenting anyway, since it’s a compulsion of mine 🫣

I'm so sorry to hear that you are going through these struggles with your partner. Just the other day, my therapist shared a couple of articles with me about ROCD vs true relationship concerns. I'm still processing a lot, but I've found these articles to be really helpful, and it has made me realize that a lot of what I thought was ROCD actually isn't. https://www.treatmyocd.com/blog/relationship-doubts-sign-of-relationship-ocd-symptom https://www.treatmyocd.com7/blog/five-signs-relationship-ocd