Is this cheating? Really worried and stressed!

I was doing fine today until I asked ChatGPT if i cheated and they said it could count as emotional cheating if you are engaging in intense daydreams and looking someone up on social media to feed a fantasy about them. My partner and I already spoke about me fantasizing about this person and he said it was totally fine since it happened in my head and he has had crushes and fantasies on coworkers too. However I feel absolutely devastated and wrecked with guilt and anxiety and panic right now. I genuinely feel like a horrible horrible horrible cheater. I don’t know what to do. I have therapy scheduled for later this week but I really really need some advice right now!!! I feel like it could count as cheating since it did happen during a few weeks where i felt a bit distant from my partner and I feel like the daydreaming was excessive. I am so so scared. Do I confess? Do I tell him I cheated? He already told me once that cheating is a physical interaction (and I literally have not interacted with this person outside of surface level responses in a group server that my partner is also a part of). Do I have a moral obligation to tell him I cheated? I need to know.

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.

I’m so so so anxious right now, I got triggered really badly. My partner made a joke saying he’s glad all his coworkers are old and married because he “won’t develop feelings for any of them.” This sent me into a major spiral and I almost threw up and starting sobbing from the anxiety. It triggered me badly and everything was fine before that. I’m so anxious that I cheated on my partner. I’ve had an ROCD obsession with another person for a few months now, and I’ve told my partner EVERYTHING. I told him how I have a crush on this person, how guilty I feel about messaging a group server that this person is a part of (despite being very careful to never ever message them privately or even reply to their messages in the group server and instead message other people), how I have fantasized and daydreamed about this person. My partner was fine with it, and he said fantasizing is normal and that he has had crushes too. He said he has had a work crush and fantasized about her and that it was all fine and that fantasizing is fun as long as it stays a fantasy. I kept telling him that I am terrified that I’m having some sort of one-sided emotional affair by fantasizing about this person, and my partner kept telling me, “Okay so what? Now what? Let’s say your worst fears are true, now what? I’m not leaving you and you’re not leaving me so why worry about it?” I also feel like fantasizing about this person turned into a compulsion because I would spend months agonizing over the ROCD guilt, ruminating, throwing up, thinking, and then I’d try to fantasize in order to soothe the anxiety and “prove to myself” that it was nothing. I have talked to my therapist about this extensively and he told me that I should not confess as it’s a compulsion. He said if it were something wrong, my body would just “know” and I’d intuitively confess instead of ruminating over and over on whether it’s worth confessing or not. My partner told me he doesn’t want any more confessions and that he doesn’t need to know what goes on in my head. I’ve told him a lot already, about the crush, my fears, the daydreaming, and he said it was all fine. I know for a fact that I have never ever ever crossed a line with this person, I have been extremely careful to rarely ever interact with him. I’ve been careful to ensure that we’re not even FRIENDS at all, just barely acquaintances. Literally every single interaction has been just small talk the handful of times that I’ve seen him show up to a group event. He is also moving away and I’m never gonna see him again. I have been extremely obsessive and careful about not ever EVER speaking to him unless spoken to, never giving him attention, obsessively monitoring the frequency with which i pay attention, etc. But I’m so terrified that I’ve already done something wrong by having these thoughts and feelings. I feel like the feelings lasted this long BECAUSE of the OCD and guilt and anxiety. Because I became anxious and started ruminating on the feelings and the morality for months and months. I don’t know what to do. I need help. I feel like I’ve irreparably ruined my relationship. Did i catch feelings? Is there a difference between feelings and a crush? Is this a form of cheating? We are going on a trip in literally 12 hours and I’m so incredibly stressed I can’t take this. Do i confess?