I can't stop confessing

Hi everyone, My boyfriend and I have been together for four months, but we were close friends for 2.5 years before dating. Lately, I’ve been struggling with intense Relationship OCD (ROCD) and the constant urge to confess things to him, even though logically I know I haven't done anything wrong. He’s very understanding and reminds me that it’s just my OCD talking, but right now it feels overwhelmingly real. My brain has hooked onto a friend I used to be very close with. About four years ago (when I was 17), we used to playfully flirt, and I felt like I might have liked her. At the time, I was feeling really lonely, so I’m not even sure if those feelings were real or if I was just gaslighting myself into thinking I liked her because she liked me. Before my current relationship started, I even told her I used to have a crush on her, but I was just messing around and trying to be transparent. Now, my OCD keeps pulling me into a spiral: The "What Ifs": My brain keeps telling me, "What if you still have feelings for her?", "What if you want to be with her?", or "What if you're missing out?" Chat Checking: I keep re-reading old text conversations with her, constantly analyzing every normal friend interaction. I get terrified thinking: "Would my boyfriend hate this?", "Was that text weird?", or "Did I mean that in a flirty way?" Guilt & Anxiety: I feel so much anxiety about texting anyone because I’m terrified of accidentally cheating. I have this overwhelming guilt that makes me feel like a cheater, even though I love my boyfriend deeply, I’m constantly talking about him to my friends, and I have zero desire to be with anyone else. I’m trying really hard not to confess all of this to my boyfriend because I know I’m just seeking temporary reassurance. But the urge is so strong, and I can’t stop checking my texts and trying to analyze what I felt in the past. And I'm like scared I flirted with her during the past 4 months even tho I'm so afraid of cheating. Has anyone else dealt with this specific mix of Real-Event OCD, ROCD, and the urge to confess past interactions? How do you stop yourself from checking chats and analyzing past feelings?

QuietMinds

Date posted: 14h

Hello, I have dealt with a mix of real event OCD and ROCD in one of my past relationships. I had the exact same issue as you. I was petrified by my thoughts and overanalyzed every interaction to make sure I didn’t cheat on him physical or emotionally. Here are some tools I picked up at Roger’s that helped me navigate real event/relationship OCD. - Adding more uncertainty to the situation helped me a lot. If I felt anxiety flare up I tried to create more uncertainty about the event in my mind. I would think things like “maybe I did cheat on him, or maybe I didn’t” or “he could think I’m unfaithful and leave me, or maybe he won’t.” When I added this uncertainty I would resist checking/reassurance seeking and sit with the increased anxiety from that uncertainty. Remember that anxiety will not flare up as high over time the more times you sit with the anxiety. - Setting relationship boundaries. When my OCD started I relied on my partner for a lot of reassurance think that it would help. Unfortunately, all that did was strengthen the OCD cycle and burn both of us out. I was exhausted from the thoughts and my partner was exhausted with providing constant reassurance. So we set up boundaries to combat reassurance seeking, if I asked him a reassurance seeking question he was either supposed to ignore me, refuse to answer, or tell me that I was reassurance seeking. When he did this it helped me disengage from the conversation to sit with my anxiety. - Making a pros and cons list. If I feel like doing something like researching, checking old messages, or seeking reassurance I create a pros and cons list. This helps me gauge whether what I’m about to do will help or hurt my OCD recovery. There are some OCD pros and cons templates online that you can use. - Finally for the old text messages I would either delete them to keep yourself from checking them or talk to your therapist about some exposures you can do with them. These personally worked for me and can hopefully help you out too.

lizisdizzy

Date posted: 14h

@QuietMinds thank you so much for taking your time and writing this. i appreciate it a lot. i eventually confessed it to him today and I told him to just not give me reassurance which made me feel so anxious but eventually i need to learn to just yeah sit with it. i just hate the feeling of feeling like i did something wrong.

QuietMinds

Date posted: 14h

@lizisdizzy Good job establishing those boundaries! It does genuinely suck, but the more you work on sitting with it the better it will become over time. Also, I meant to mention this in the original post, but if you choose to keep those messages with a friend and are having trouble resisting checking them, try to loop in your family, friends, or partner to help. When I was really struggling with this I spent hours on my phone checking. Something that really helped though was giving my device to a friend for 10-30 minutes whenever I got the urge to check. Having someone to hold me accountable and refuse to give my device back for a certain amount of time really helped me.

lizisdizzy

Date posted: 13h

@QuietMinds This is really good advice! Thank you so much. I'll definitely have another conversation with my boyfriend about this!:)

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