Can’t move past guilt

I have been with my bf for a year and a few months. I started to get symptoms of ocd in February. It started with the random need to confess things. One of these things was that I’m convinced I cheated over a year ago (Before I was with my current partner). Basically when I was 16 I ended up talking to 2 people at the same time and sending lewd pictures to both without either knowing. I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time and didn’t really think about it. The first dude seemed to like me but then got confusing and I took it as him just playfully joking around eventually, then another dude messaged me and seemed serious. With the serious dude i wouldn’t say it was 100% a proper relationship more like a situationship there wasn’t really any boundaries or anything “official” set, more just sexual stuff, flirting and nicknames type stuff. Eventually the jokey seeming dude found out about serious dude and shouted at me a bit and I stopped talking to him, and not even a week later I stopped talking to serious dude because unfortunately I found out I was being groomed by him. I didn’t really think about this situation at all up until February when I confessed it to my bf. I confessed to him but he was fine and wouldnt say it was exactly cheating. I have asked for reassurance that he’s okay with the situation over 6 times since confessing. My ocd is trying to tell me he is trying to convince himself I didn’t cheat 😞. There was another situation right at the start in the talking stage with my bf before we were together. A diff guy liked me and wanted to start going into a talking stage. I sort of said yes/maybe but I just couldn’t get myself to like that guy to be in a relationship with him. The guy found out about my bf and that we started talking and got mad so I blocked him. My ocd is trying to tell me if that didn’t happen I’d still talk to that guy too aswell as my bf 🥹do I need to tell myself “look, he’s blocked! Nothing happened and you are loyal to your boyfriend. “ I had a scenario that set this overthinking off, it involved something like “I am a loyal person” then my ocd shut the thought down immediately and shoved the 2 scenarios in this post in my face…. It won’t let go of it I can never call myself a good person I’ll always have guilt and feel like I don’t deserve good

asiaf

Date posted: 1y

Not only you deserve good, you deserve even better! Girl, a talking stage IS a talking stage. What if your now boyfriend suddenly ghosted you? You didn’t know him back then as you do now, it was fair to have options. Options are wrong after making the thing official. That is 100% not cheating, rest assured and sleep well my friend! I noticed there are a lot of “what ifs” in your post. In my country, there is a saying that says “If won’t make you hungry”, it means that “what ifs” are empty sacks, it’s like trying to feed yourself with a plastic bag. There’s no content in the “if”, it doesn’t exist. You’re a good person, the sole fact that you worry about this makes me understand this. Don’t worry, none of the things you did is cheating. I myself talked to other guys during the talking stage with my now boyfriend and I’m very much loyal 😂 I just considered myself single until he made it clear that he wanted me, I wasn’t going to get played lol

Puddingpigeon

Date posted: 1y

@asiaf Thankyou for this :) However I do actually think the guy who I was trying to talk to but couldn’t like him said I played him 😭😭 in my mind I was like “I feel bad for him… maybe I could talk to him???” Even though I wasn’t rlly attracted to him. I’m not sure if he was just angry or what.

asiaf

Date posted: 1y

@Puddingpigeon Don’t let yourself be gaslighted by this man! Men will say literally anything and then move on the next day. Trust me!!! What you need to keep in mind is this: you did what the boundaries with your boyfriend allowed you to do at the time and it is not cheating and you played no one, you simply made a choice as you do in all the other areas of life. You don’t get played when you’re doing job interviews and they choose another person, do you? 😂 You seem like a very sweet person even because you’re worrying about this other guy, it just shows how good of a person you are. However, it is not your responsibility to pay attention to his mood. It’s in the past, long buried.

asiaf

Date posted: 1y

I’ll tell you a story that’s very similar just to show you what you did is normal. November 2023, I download Tinder to get over my ex and start talking to a bunch of guys. Eventually, it gets cut down to two: one we’ll call Random Guy and one who’s my current boyfriend. Random Guy and I talk a lot, and I was talking to by bf as well. Random Guy asks me out first, but then we end up rescheduling and I go out with my bf instead, the rest is history. During the talking stage with my bf, Random Guy did hit me up and I straight up ghosted him. Do I feel guilty? No, if he showed enough interest he’d be in my boyfriend’s shoes rn. When I was seeing my ex we had a complicated talking stage, he’d disappear for days. One time I got so mad I decided to go out with another guy I was talking to — again, this girl ain’t getting played 😂 I actually went out with this guy and did not like him at all, ended up going back to my ex and ruling the other guy out. There was no guilt whatsoever, it’s not like I promised him my hand 💀 and also, that was not cheating on my part. So rest easy, you’re not alone 😂

Puddingpigeon

Date posted: 1y

@asiaf Thankyou so much!!!

Puddingpigeon

Date posted: 1y

@asiaf There was also a time my OCD convinced me my boyfriend was a cheat because he was talking to another girl while in the talking stage with me 💀😭 he saw her as a fwb and they sent nudes to eachother, but after 2 weeks in taking stage with me , just around 3-7 days before we were official, he cut her off but my ocd made me question him a million times over it😭 she also commented on his video while we were together and he blocked her. He didn’t tell me about her straight away because he was still building trust with me

Puddingpigeon

Date posted: 1y

@asiaf Also I can’t exactly tell if all of your comments are about the second situation, where the guy said I played him. What is your opinion on the first situation I talked about? My brain is trying to convince me I cheated because it was more like a relationship with the serious guy and I’m having possible false memories that we said we were actually together 😭is neither cheating?

asiaf

Date posted: 1y

@Puddingpigeon Girlll this is literally my OCD theme right now 😂 while I did talk to other guys, I could not accept the thought of knowing that my bf talked to other girls on Tinder. Back in the day it didn’t bother me as much, it just came back randomly five months later 💀 and just like you, I questioned him 200 times. We did take a bit more to make it official because the dating culture in my country tends to have longer timing. But imagine the poor guy being constantly questioned by me and when he showed me the texts it was the most basic convos 💀 like “hi” “what’s your name” and then ghosting — and yet you know my brain just has to turn this into a big deal

asiaf

Date posted: 1y

@Puddingpigeon Totally neither cheating. Where I come from, either the man steps up and tells you explicitly you are his girlfriend and acts upon it, or girl you are single AF Do not trust your brain, the more you think about things and the more it’ll trick you into thinking that OCD is right. From what I read, you were far from being in a relationship, don’t care what the man has to say! No talking stage is that serious, I chose home decor for my ex and even helped him build his bedroom stuff and he was still seeing other women :))) and that was not cheating, because there were no boundaries!

Puddingpigeon

Date posted: 1y

@asiaf My ocd literally bullies my partner😭atm a bad one is where it latches onto his dark jokes/opinions. I form my opinions of of random TikTok comments instead of forming my own opinion. And when he’s saying something dark it’s obviously a joke but my ocd is like “omg ermmmm people wouldn’t like that joke tell him off!” Or my ocd goes crazy if he has a different opinion 💀💀

Anonnnnnm

Date posted: 22w

Please help (ROCD)!

I have been battling ocd for over a year now and it likes to switch themes. Currently, it’s attacking my relationship with my girlfriend who I’ve been with since I was in high school over 10 years ago. It first began as an intense feeling that I have to leave or break up with her over dumb little things. Then it changed into a lot of guilt for having any thought about another girl. And the worse is feeling this intense guilt for past things I’ve done in the past while in this relationship. We were so young and I was teenager, but I often found myself watching porn, fantasizing about real other people in my life, and getting off to other girls that I may have known. When I was younger I didn’t think it was bad and that it was just a normal teen boy thing, but 10 years later I have so much guilt about it. And yes I’m with the same girl now. We’ve had our ups and downs, but I know I love this girl and I’m ready to propose to her soon. Anyway, these past mistakes I did when I was younger make me feel like a cheater and I can’t stop ruminating about it. I feel like I have to admit every detail and person I’ve ever had a bad thought about. I feel like if I propose to her and don’t tell her everything, that I’m a lair and didn’t give her the full picture. And the other day one of the girls I thought was hot when I was younger, came up in convo and I just went downhill. Now she knows I deal with OCD and she is very supportive, I’ve told her before that I did some bad things, but never all the details. And that’s all my brain keeps telling me to do. I have so much tightness in my chest and just want to be able to breathe again. But everyone says to not admit or it’ll reinforce the cycle, I’m just not sure how everyone else does that. And at the same time, maybe I am a cheater and just simply a bad person. Idk! I never cheated physically or anything like that, but my past mistakes feel like I did. But again I may just be a bad person! Please if anyone has advice or is dealing with similar things, I’d appreciate the help!

Relationship OCD

bkelp213

Date posted: 22w

Can’t function for all my guilt

I’ve done things in the past few years that I’m not proud of - only a couple of things I can think of and they didn’t directly hurt anyone at least with is relieving (but maybe indirectly they sort of did or could’ve which makes me hate myself because why did I do that… *how* could I do that…) If I could back and stop those things from happening, I would. I may not have thought about what I was doing at the time, so I didn’t really recognize that they weren’t okay, but that doesn’t excuse them, and I would smack some sense into my past self if I were able. I feel like if anyone knew what I‘ve done, they wouldn’t want anything to do with me. They’d write me off as worthless. And maybe they should to be honest. Now yet another thing has come up - I haven’t done anything, but I had an intrusive thought pop up that made me *think* about doing something and this would be unforgivable in my opinion. Though, to be honest, the things I’ve done before are also somewhat unforgivable in my opinion… 😞 Regardless, I don’t want to do it because I don’t think it’s okay, but I worry deep down that I do. Or that I’m looking for an excuse to make it okay to do. I don’t know, it’s complicated. And I’m upset I even thought about it. I wish I had never seen the thing that triggered that intrusive thought. Yet another thing I would stop if I could. I’ve tried to not think about it or focus on it, but it doesn’t work. Even if it goes away, it just comes back again. I just keep thinking about it and it’s overwhelming. Anyway all of the guilt of this is killing me. I feel like an irredeemably terrible person and it makes me want to give up. I can’t get on with life because it’s paralyzing. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, and at this point, it feels like I don’t deserve to just move on. I can’t live with myself and I feel like I don’t deserve anything anymore. I know a lot of this is probably OCD, but I’m not sure all of it is and I don’t know what to do… if I spoke to a therapist about it, I don’t think I could bring myself to say what I’ve done or what thoughts I’ve had. But if I was told to move on by someone who didn’t know the truth, I would worry they wouldn’t really say that if they knew. Agh, it’s all just a mess 😞

anonymous737...

Date posted: 21w

i need some advice

So i had really bad pure ocd but recently it’s been sooo much better but i’m in a relationship and me and my bf dated before about 2 years ago then we broke up and now we are back together but i’m having an issue where i will try to go back years and find something i did wrong and i really do not want to find anything to feel wrong about or guilty specifically something i may have done wrong to my boyfriend but the thing is i’m a good girlfriend and i’m very loyal so i don’t want to ruin something for me because of my past if that makes sense like i can’t remember doing anything wrong but my brain keeps going are u sure let’s look at all your interactions with people and it’s so annoying i just wanna live my life in the present does anyone have any tips

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Can’t move past guilt

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