I feel like I cheated but I’m not sure.

I have confessed to my partner multiple times about a person who is kind of on the fringes of our social circle who I have a crush on. I told him that I fantasized about this person and scrolled through his social media out of curiosity to learn more about him. My partner reassured me multiple times basically that as long as my actions aren’t physically cheating, I am free to do whatever I want in my own head and fantasize. He said he’s had his own crushes too at his workplace and he fantasized about them. We both agreed that it’s okay. He told me to stop fixating so much on intentions and internal cheating and realize that my physical actions are all that matter. This person happens to be in a Discord server with me, my partner, and like 15 other people. Whenever I speak in the server, I take great care to ignore this person’s messages and ONLY directly reply to other people’s. I take great care to ignore them, not give them any attention, and not give a single hint that I care about them at all. Even the times where they addressed me, I keep my responses to a minimum. However, 2 days ago I met him in person (he ended up coming to an event that we were having). I went to dinner after the event with the group of people that I normally go to dinner with, and the person came along. I don’t know if he was planning on going, but I could tell he felt excluded and I asked him if he was coming with us to dinner. I also sat next to him during a part of the dinner (it was a fast food place and we went with a group of 10 people, all of which I am wayyyy closer to). I was ignoring him for the most part, but at one point I did ask him if he liked this place and I made normal small talk with him. I am worried that I cheated because I admittedly did have certain thoughts like: - I felt excited to sit next to him. - I was hoping I looked good. However, I intentionally didn’t shave my mustache that night because I didn’t want to seem like I was just trying to look good for him. I knew the mustache would make me look worse, and I wanted to prove to myself that I was okay with looking worse and that I wouldn’t try to look good for him. - I did however wear my hair in a way that I often do, but sometimes don’t, and I did do this to look more appealing. I took very very good care to NOT give this person any special attention, to ignore him and talk to other people, but I am worried that sitting next to him intentionally was cheating.

Despite the fact that I have never once acted flirtatiously with someone else over the course of my 3-year relationship, never talked to anyone inappropriately, never touched or interacted with anyone inappropriately, I have been battling constant ROCD obsessions centered around cheating ever since my partner and I got together. I am constantly worried about whether certain things are cheating: daydreaming about another person (already told my partner about this and he said it was okay and that he does it too), talking in a group chat with someone, sitting next to someone, speaking to them in person. I question my intentions. I worry that I cheated by wearing my hair a certain way in an attempt to look more attractive or by jokingly poking someone with a fake sword (despite doing it to other people too), looking through someone’s social media, etc. I have confessed so many ridiculous things to my partner and he’s always told me that none of them are cheating. I feel so guilty for being attracted to someone else, despite the fact that my partner said it was fine and normal. I have made a very very conscious effort to limit my interactions with this person. I never ever ever ever message them privately, I make an obsessive effort to NOT reply to their messages in a group server (constantly keeping track of the ratio of my replies to their messages compared to other people’s), to ignore them when I see them in person and hardly ever speak to them or initiate conversation with them. Yet I still feel like a disgusting dirty cheater who is hiding a big secret.

I was at a house party a month ago and everyone was taking photos of silly moments. I took two photos that had an attractive person in them. I deleted the photos a few days later because I felt guilty and anxious that I had taken them. I keep ruminating and thinking about my intentions. I do believe I took them because they had an attractive person in them. I worry that this makes it count as cheating. I am very very open with my partner and I tend to constantly confess things like this to him. I have confessed so many things to him, and he always holds the same stance: he believes that fantasizing and crushing is okay. He said he has had his own crushes and he said “fantasizing is nice as long as it stays a fantasy.” I agreed. I told him about my crush and how anxious I was about it and how I was afraid that it was emotional cheating. He told me that it really doesn’t matter and that it’s only wrong if it’s physical cheating. I should note that I have taken VERY VERY good care to never even attempt to become friends with this person. I’ve seen them a handful of times at group gatherings but I never ever message them on my own, I ignore all their messages in a group chat because I don’t want to give them special attention, I never even speak to them in person unless they speak to me first. We are barely even friends. He said he doesn’t need to know what goes on in my head and as long as an action seems innocent to an outsider, it’s not cheating and he doesn’t need to know about it. One time I confessed an action where I also felt like my intentions were wrong, and he told me “Who cares about intentions? It’s outcome that matters.” My therapist also told me not to worry about these actions. He said that if I keep ruminating on whether an action is right or wrong, I should just try to sit with the discomfort and not confess. He told me that if an action were really wrong, I would KNOW it intuitively and “my body would push me to confess.” I’m just so worried sick about this. Do I confess or not?