Hi! I relate to a lot of what you’ve posted about. I wanted to share a few insights that I’ve gathered about my own experiences and OCD patterns that may be useful. Please take what resonates with you and ignore the rest, haha.
In general, the more I have learned to rely on myself for dealing with compulsions, the easier it has become over time to let go of the need for reassurance and the healthier my relationships have become. It’s not bad or wrong to seek support, and trust me I have been in very deep pits of despair with OCD, but sometimes it can become unhealthy. My relationship with my fiance has improved SO much as I’ve learned to cope with my symptoms and fears, hopefully Rogers will be helpful with that. Learning to sit with anxiety and uncertainty is SO hard and SO uncomfortable but it has been crucial for me.
Secondly, I have realized the urge to compare my partner with someone else comes from the feeling that my needs aren’t being met somewhere. In the past, I couldn’t even recognize that was happening. So it would look like this: spinning about “inherent” parts of my partner, wondering if I would be happier with XYZ, not feeling that the love is “enough”. Etc.
What was really happening was I have OCD and I was looking for my needs to be met by a magical “perfect” situation. I didn’t realize this at the beginning of my recovery, I just started learning how to meet my own needs slowly. I needed emotional regulation, and I learned lots of tools over many months and years that helped me regulate myself when I’m feeling panicked. I needed emotional validation, which meant I started learning to say “hey, I see how upsetting this situation is, It makes sense why I feel this way.” The more I can meet my own needs in these ways, the more loving it feels when someone ELSE helps me with this. It’s like the cherry on top. I also communicated with my partner that when I’m feeling upset, it helps me when he also validates my feelings instead of trying to fix them. But, I’m not relying on him to validate it FOR me. I hope that makes sense.
Here are some needs I was missing from my partner. Again, once I was able to learn to regulate myself and tap into my own needs, these became more clear.
I needed him to show me affection in public. It helps me feel more connected to him.
I needed intimacy in a slightly different way.
I needed him to communicate with me about certain logistical things more often.
I needed more quality time with him like going on a trip or spending a holiday together.
Luckily, he is able to work on these things and has clearly shown over the past year or so that he CAN meet these needs and he wants to. I can’t tell you how healing that has been.
There are also some desires that I have that he can’t meet, and part of my recovery has been realizing I have these desires, and instead of punishing myself for them or trying to get certainty, I accept them. And as an adult, I get to decide whether these tradeoffs are manageable or not. And honestly, welcoming these wants with acceptance has made them much less scary. I want to emphasize that none of these changes or realizations happened over night or all at once. It was a very slow process.
At the end of the day, every human being has to make choices that are best for them. The beauty is we get to make these decisions and take ownership of them. My life has become much more precious to me since I started taking responsibility for these things. My relationship has improved in ways I could not have even imagine. Learning to recognize my needs, accept my desires, and trust someone I love to meet my needs has been a very important and rewarding life lesson. OCD still pops up on bad days and it’s something I will probably deal with lifelong, but it doesn’t control my decisions anymore.
I wish you the absolute best going forward and please let me know if you have questions or want to know more.
