Do you ever have interactions with people and fear that during the interaction you may have cheated on your partner and can't seem to recall it? Sometimes when interacting with people I fear I cheated on my spouse with them afterwards. Mainly fearing I've kissed them and somehow instantly forgot. Just wanna know how common this specific fear may be
this is something that i recently started to have obsess over too but mine mostly has been about online stuff. its suffocating but we can get through it :)
For sure! I'm no stranger to this stuff...I was diagnosed like 5 years ago or so, but think I've had it all my life. The past year or so all of my themes seem to really revolve around false memory, memories, or doing things I don't want to do and not remembering. No matter what the theme is, they seem all revolve around memory in someway lately haha. If you don't mind sharing, what sort of similar stuff have you recently experienced like this? And we will get through it!! It definitely likes to attack what means the most to us, and my wife and family are my entire world. So it totally makes sense it's been trying this off and on for a little while now
@OoOcCdD66 False memories of me messaging people romantically or sexually and that the only reason theres no evidence is because i deleted everything. That im actually repressing all my memories because of guilt and shame and thats why i have no memory. I know its not true cause frankly I quite literally have no time to do that aswell as no desire. But the doubt sits and lingers
@sunbear28 While I haven't experienced that exact situation (actually I could have...idk I may be making a false memory right now lol) I can relate! It's such a crazy disorder. Sometime you can even know with almost 100% certainty it is false (like you have some proof, you asked someone for reassurance and they tell you it didn't happen, etc) and you can still feel intense shame/guilt/depression anyway. OCD really is a wild beast.
Hey there! As a therapist, I have heard similar fears from many members. It’s difficult when OCD also plays tricks on our memories like that, so we feel that we can’t even trust ourselves. Here is a video about this topic that might be helpful for you: https://youtu.be/oE-TTegAOQE
I suffer with a constant worry of what if I’ve cheated. You name it I’ve thought I’ve done it. I’m quite flirty at nature and also insecure. Sometimes hand in hand I don’t think they balance each other out as the constant need for attention to validate myself can backfire. Although I have the best partner ever and she makes me feel nothing less than beautiful I still crave validation from others. That being said someone I used to work with left over half a year ago and when they worked at my current place of work we were very close. Text everyday, phone calls you name it. However looking back I was extra flirty as I wanted him to fancy me. I wanted the power to turn him down to make myself feel better. Awful I know. Now all I can think about is what if I’ve done something. What if I kissed him. What if I’ve slept with him etc. I’ve kept our whole conversations from the minute I got his personal number. I constantly search key words to see if my intrusive thoughts are real. I can except the uncertainty my therapist tells me about as if I have done the worst and cheated I would loose my partner and our 10 year relationship. I love her so much she is my life but I can’t stop thinking what if I’ve cheated. Does anyone else suffer with the same theme? If so how do you cope?
I have this deep fear I’ll accidentally cheat on my long term partner. This fear was initially triggered a couple years ago after being at a bar with my friends where I enjoyed the attention of being flirted with by a stranger. Because of my enjoyment of receiving verbal attention, I began spiraling about what if I accidentally cheat. Since then I have made multiple confessions to my partner to seek reassurance, replayed events over and over in my head, spent hours googling/looking at reddit threads, and now I dread “bar like” situations where I know my partner won’t be around. Today I was triggered and have wasted about 4-5 hours of my day ruminating. Does anyone else with relationship ocd struggle with this fear and have any tips?
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.
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