Sexual|Lustful thoughts

you are the only one in charge of your actions. you don’t want to cheat, so don’t cheat. the more you’re afraid of being attracted to others or what that might make you do, the more the urge to cheat or the fear of your relationship getting hurt will grow. if it makes you feel better, i’ve been dating the same guy for tree years, and recently i have had my first “crush” of sorts on another guy. i’ve never fantasized about sex with another person until i met this other guy. but, this is something i’ve had a hard time coming to terms with, most people fantasize about others while in a relationship. attraction/ infatuation/ lust is VERY different from love. this fear of yours is a testament to how much you love your partner and love your relationship. there is nothing wrong with you if you are attracted to others, but also know that your fear of it is probably increasing the extent to which you get intrusive thoughts about others. try telling your brain next time, “thank you for taking care of me. thanks for trying to keep my relationship safe but being hypervigilant to threat, but i think i can handle it from here” or, some books recommend agreeing with the thought: “you’re right he’s SOOOO hot, i am so attracted to this guy and i just really want to have sex with him” you may or may not want to have sex with him, or you may or may not be attracted to him, but look! a thought is just a thought. you can agree with your worst fear and realize that your relationship is fine, and that attraction to others (fabricated or not) doesn’t threaten your relationship

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OCD wants you to do compulsions (like posting here for reassurance maybe?) to “protect you” from your feared self. You fear being a cheater, and OCD says “if you listen to me I’ll guarantee you won’t cheat!” But actually OCD just makes you miserable and, sometimes, convinces us to “test” that we are doing good by doing things out of our values. OCD is the enemy, not you! You are a good person, and OCD wants you to think otherwise so you’ll continue to follow its ideas. Your goal is to make these thoughts irrelevant. Like “oh yeah, that guy is hot but I don’t really care” or as mentioned “oh yes I totally would want to do it with that guy” just to get your OCD to scream and say “no I must protect you!” This is you showing confidence in yourself - you won’t cheat even with thoughts. It can be helpful to remember that your thoughts are not you and that they are not controllable. You can’t be judged for thoughts. If you saw a red car and thought “that car is red” that would be normal and natural. You thinking these things is involuntary. Don’t let OCD tell you otherwise! The best thing to do is to do the “next best thing” in your life. “That thought is scary! Now what was I doing? Maybe I’ll finish this up for work like I wanted to instead of worrying about that”

And note that you do not want to “get rid of these thoughts”. There is no way that humans can figure out to just get rid of thoughts. You can work with a therapist to make them less relevant!