Companionship vs love

Does anyone else worry and obsess over whether they desire companionship w their partner or if they actually love them? This is a fairly new obsession for me and before this I was so sure and willing to move toward, but now with this I’m feeling like this is my truth.. that I just want companionship with him and I’m not actually in love with him :( and this hurts man I don’t want just companionship I want him for him and I want to grow with him and have a deep meaningful relationship but the feelings ocd gives me feels like that’s a lie and I don’t actually love him deeply, but it’s so weird because I don’t experience that feeling of knowing deep down that it’s true the way I do with soocd. With soocd now I know deep down being with a woman isn’t what I want, and I don’t feel that certainty now with feeling like I don’t love my bf, but it feels like there’s no other option and all this trouble I’m going through to be happy with him is proof I don’t love him

issphra 🫶🏻

Date posted: 24w

Love isn’t just about the intense, constant feeling of infatuation. **Love is a choice**, and it’s an action. Just because you’re struggling to feel that same passion or connection doesn’t mean you don’t love him. In fact, the very fact that you’re worrying about not being able to reciprocate those feelings, or that you’re putting effort into trying, is a form of love. Love is often about showing up, even when it feels difficult. It’s choosing to be there for someone and choosing to make the effort, even when the emotions feel distant. Wanting companionship, wanting to be with him, is part of what being in a relationship means. Love isn’t always about feeling “in love” all the time. It’s about the commitment to be there for someone. Your worry, your effort to show up for him, and your desire for companionship are all pieces of love that OCD can make harder to see. OCD wants you to think that your desire for love and companionship are separate, but in reality, they are deeply interconnected. It may make you question if wanting closeness and affection is the same as truly loving someone, when in fact, both are completely compatible. The need for companionship doesn’t invalidate love; it’s a natural part of it. OCD distorts these feelings, making you doubt that both your desire for connection and your love for him can coexist, but they **absolutely** can. Love and companionship are not at odds. They are both essential to a healthy, meaningful relationship.

Anonymous

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 24w

@issphra 🫶🏻 Thank you so much for your response 😢 I’ve been struggling so hard with this obsession lately along with this too - since my rocd started I realized I’ve relied on him for comfort to the point where I neglected other parts of my life, and now that I’m trying to separate the attachment and see him as his own person again and not just a means for my comfort for my ocd, I feel disconnected from him at times, I still feel care and affection for him and wanting to be close to him but those moments feel super muted sometimes. So now that I’m trying to make this change in perspective it feels like more proof for this obsession of companionship vs love yk? Like “if you really loved him, it would be easy to see him as his own person and you would easily be able to see him in your future with out anxiety”

issphra 🫶🏻

Date posted: 24w

@Anonymous I’m actually going through something similar. By trying to not rely on my bf for reassurance/confessing, I’ve found myself more distant from him. Almost numb to him and a bit more irritable if I’m being honest 🙃. My OCD has actually managed to convince me at times that I do not love him and I’m only using him as my emotional crutch for my OCD spirals 😃. I completely understand where you’re coming from, trying to form a healthy separation is making the OCD louder because you’re cutting off a compulsion essentially (that comfort you sought from him). What I’ve learned about OCD in the past few months (since the start of this awful ever-switching episode of mine) is that anything can backfire with OCD, but that’s because you’re trying to take power away from it so it grasps at anything that will give it some power back. Even if it seems unrelated, it’s all still OCD regardless of the theme and obsession. We’re not perfect. It would be ideal for all of us to see ourselves as our own person and have zero anxiety about our futures with our chosen partner. That would be wonderful and perfect but insanely unrealistic. It’s hard to see your partner as someone separate from you especially when this disorder has made us to much more strongly bonded to them. There’s a reason people like to say “we are one” that connection is so common, but we need that separation to be emotionally healthy. It’s hard to be individual when you’re in a relationship. It’s talked about so much in entertainment and media. It’s so easy to lose yourself and REALLY hard to get back to being you and seeing your partner as him and not just an extension of you. Also, anxiety about a future with your guy, is so so so so so SOOOOO common. It’s rare for there to not be anxiety, and some people just don’t like to talk about it or shake it off because they’re not obsessive like us lol ROCD has so many ugly different heads. I swear it’s like a beast with 35 different personalities and faces. Goodness. It’s hard, but you’re not alone. A lot of what you’re experiencing is normal and your OCD is just latched onto that like a leech sucking everything it can out of it. You’re not alone 💕

tanya_nocd

Date posted: 24w

I relate so deeply! I’m in a fairly new relationship with my girlfriend (after two years of friendship) and this is a constant worry of mine. I struggled first with SO-OCD, which still persists and has spurred ROCD. Admittedly, I don’t have a sense of “knowing deep down” with either. I’m just trying to hang on until things get better!

issphra 🫶🏻

Date posted: 24w

@tanya_here I want to mention, that “deep-down” knowing feeling isn’t that common. I don’t have that feeling at ALL for any of my themes. Harm, pocd, ROCD, morality, real event, etc. None of it. I freaked out to the point I panicked asked my NOCD therapist and she told me a lot of people with OCD rarely have that deep down feeling. It’s what makes it feel even more real.

tanya_nocd

Date posted: 24w

@issphra 🫶🏻 Thank you for sharing this <3

Anonymous

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 24w

I feel like I don’t love him sometimes 💔

I realized I’ve depended a lot on my boyfriend for comfort through my ocd, and I’m starting to feel like even before my ocd I was paying more attention to the relationship itself more than him, or the attachment: even though I remember distinct feelings of me wanting to be with him forever, and feeling so happy and complete with him, time didn’t exist, I felt like my most authentic self. So now I’m trying to create a healthy attachment and see him as his own person, which was helping at first, but now it feels as if I’m seeing that I don’t actually love him for him, the thought of moving forward in life without him breaks my heart and I don’t want to but my mind keeps telling me that I want it because of the attachment. He’s the exact type of person and partner I would want but it feels like whatever I feel is not enough.. But I DO experience moments of affection and care and admiration for him but they don’t last long..before I started making this shift in perspective even with the ocd I was still so sure and confident in moving forward with him, I felt so much like I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life. But now that I’ve made this shift it feels like I’m seeing him from a whole different place. Like all those good and happy feelings I had for him are gone now and I don’t have any confidence in what I want anymore. Before I did feel confident that I wanted to be with him but now it feels like there’s this wall between him and me :( I want to be with him I know I do, because even now I still feel the desire to keep going, but I can’t see the future anymore or the confidence to keep going. I was never much of a future thinker, even in my personal life but this feels like added proof I feel like I’m alone in this like no one else has this situation and the chances for me to realize after I recover that I don’t actually love him are so much higher 💔

e2222

Date posted: 21w

Relationship OCD?/am I just evil

I am in a relatively new relationship (around 2 months) and it has been completely virtual due to varying circumstances. I have never been in a serious relationship before and my past “exes” have never been this serious or brought up any of these feelings. About a month in I started having tons of symptoms and thoughts I figured were due to an SSRI change (i eventually went back to my original med/dose) however, it has remained quite bad since. Thoughts include: -I don’t actually like my partner, I just like the feeling of being wanted -I have crushes on other people, including my partners friends who I barely know -I don’t feel butterflies so I must be losing feelings for him -I think he’s ugly/im just not attracted to him -I’m secretly a lesbian and I’m wasting his time by being with him -a general feeling of dread, wrongness, or needing out of the relationship -not being able to believe him when he reassures me about everything -all of the above is just my genuine feelings and I’m using ocd as an excuse These are obviously crazy things to think, however one of my biggest compulsions is confession and self sabotage so I have told my partner all of these things in detail. He’s really great and patient about all of it but I can tell it weighs on him. Hes even recently expressed feeling like it’s his fault and that he wonders if it wouldn’t be this bad if I was with someone else. I feel so miserable but i feel like I’d be miserable in any relationship but im scared that’s not the truth and my ocd isn’t real. When it’s good i feel the most romantic love for him I’ve ever felt toward anyone ever. He’s an incredible person but I just feel so alone and lost on what to do. I’ve literally tried to break up with him like five times and each time we’ve ended up wanting to stay together. I’m really really scared I’ll never get better or this is simply the wrong relationship for me.

polish_germa...

Date posted: 16w

Can it still be OCD if I don’t feel sexual attraction to my partner anymore?

Hi everyone, I’m a 30-year-old woman, and I’ve been in a relationship with my boyfriend for 5 years. I’ve always felt emotionally close to him — he’s caring, supportive, and we planned a future together, including having a family. I don’t want to leave him. He means so much to me. But for a while now, I’ve been obsessing over the fact that I don’t feel much sexual attraction to him anymore. It’s not like I never felt anything — when we first met, there were butterflies, excitement, emotional connection… something real. He was never “just a friend” to me. But the physical side of the relationship feels like it’s slowly faded, and I’m panicking about what that means. I keep thinking things like: – “Maybe I chose the wrong person.” – “You can’t be in love without sexual desire.” – “If I was truly in love, I would still want him.” – “What if I’ve been lying to myself this whole time?” Sometimes my body reacts — I can feel physical closeness or even arousal — but my mind shuts down and says: “no, this isn’t right.” Other times, I feel tension, resistance, or even disgust during intimacy, and I can’t tell if that’s anxiety or if something is fundamentally wrong. What makes this even more confusing is that I truly believe that real love includes sexual attraction. For me, it’s all part of one feeling — not separate. So if the attraction is gone, does that mean the love is too? Is it possible that this is still OCD — that my mind is obsessing and disconnecting me from my real feelings? Has anyone experienced something similar? Any support would mean so much. I feel so stuck between my mind and my heart.

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