Help fight with girlfriend

So I had a fight with my girlfriend last night and it was because of my ocd. I have rocd and friendship dynamics really trigger me. I have a very open friend community and outlook on friendships. When I invite my friends out there is a “more the merrier” mindset and we really don’t care who brings who even if we’ve never met them before it’s very inclusive. We’re all neurodivergent if that makes sense. I’ve also known I was queer my whole life and never played into the “girls night” “boys night” dynamic, My girlfriend is not neurodivergent and I’m her first queer relationship, and her friend groups are very exclusive. When we first started dating the idea of me joining in on her friend hangouts was alien to her. None of her current friends ever brought their partners or invited new people into the group. I don’t think this way of relationships is wrong but I don’t understand it and it’s not what I wanted for myself. We talked about it and we came to a good spot on how we navigate friendships in our relationship and we now have some good mutual friends. ( we found out we were more compatible then we thought) We’re both happy with it now. The problem comes down to the fact that my girlfriend doesn’t make plans. I planned all our dates for a while and it was a bit of a burden. I was struggling to come up with ideas and we just kept eating out over and over. Then her friends who I didn’t know yet would invite her out to cool shit like concerts and piercings and escape rooms ect. It really triggered my ocd and I didn’t understand why I was upset at first which led to a couple of fights. She thought I was trying to control her and not let her hang out with her friends without me, but I was just feeling left out because l struggling to plan fun dates. Eventually I figured it out and we talked, and I had her plan a couple dates. We also made a list that we add too and pick from when we want to go out. I thought it was resolved until I realized it wasn’t. Because I still planned 90% of the dates and contributed to 90% of the list. I was missing a core part of why I was upset and it was that I wanted to feel validated and loved, like she wanted to include me in her life. Also she would mention in passing she wanted to go somewhere and instead of planning it so we can go, and I could experience the things she’s always wanted to do with her and receive the validation of her putting in the effort of sharing it with me, I would have to plan it. And sometimes her friends would happen to invite her to it first and I would miss the opportunity to go because I hadn’t gotten around to planning it yet or I planned it after them. It felt like she didn’t care whether or not I was there for her important life goals and experiences. We fought about it a little bit but I had gotten better at figuring out the root of the problem through the “I’m dying” feeling ocd gives me. And I told her that I needed her to show more initiative. At least occasionally I really don’t need much. 30% would thrill me. I said she can start with my birthday weekend and she’s done an amazing job. But I still had the lingering fear that after my birthday weekend she’ll stop planning things. Because I always asked before. This comes to the fight. So we hadn’t fought in a long time and we’re in a really good spot. She got invited to this casino by her coworkers (mutual) and I couldn’t go because I’m not 21. This triggered me because she mentioned she has always wanted to go to a casino just once in her life for the longest time and it felt like a really big deal that she didn’t want to include me in. She threw in that we can just go again but she didn’t know I wanted to go but this felt half assed and we had talked about it briefly before and I said I would take her and teach her how to play black jack. It also hurt to watch her come to me so excited about these plans she had that don’t include me, when she’s never approached me super to excited about a plan she made that included me ( that I didn’t ask her plan). But I let it go ( this is when we talked about her planning more stuff and my birthday ect.) anyway 2 months went by and nothing happened. Now I just turned 21. I can go to the casino now and I was holding on the hope that she would include me now because originally the reason was because I’m not 21. And you know I didn’t want to plan it because that would defeat the whole point. I hear her phone blowing up and I asked her what’s up and she said the group chat was finally planning the trip. I was like oh you know I’m 21 now, and she was like yeah? Which hurt like hell. Now I was a bit passive aggressive and it led to a fight. She said the casino was never as important as I thought it was, just like going to the movies for her, and she didn’t do any planning, someone just through up a date and everyone agreed to it before she could respond and I wasn’t available and she said she might be busy to so she didn’t mention it to me. But it just felt like hashing out old stuff we already solved. I feel like instead of talking about why I was triggered by it she just kept saying that’s not what happened I don’t understand what you want from me. I wanted initiative from her to include me in something important and I thought she missed an opportunity to do that after we just talked about it. I realized it was a misunderstanding and I apologized and explained it but it was difficult to get to that point. she got upset because she thought I just didn’t want her hanging out with her friends without me, which isn’t true obviously and we had already talked about how we want friendship dynamics to work and we’re both happy with it. This was an original point of conversation when we were first hashing out how we feel about friendships and it was very important to me she didn’t feel that way. We were both happy with the friendship dynamics we established. I wasn’t trying to change that now. It felt like we were having 2 different conversations, she just kept shutting down and saying I don’t know when I would ask her questions to try and figure out if she was truly happy and comfortable with the friendship dynamic we picked. This made me keep thinking she just didn’t want to include me and that’s why she didn’t invite me to the casino and it hurt even more. She was saying it’s healthy to hangout without me and I was like yeah but the why is important, so why? What situations do you think it’s healthy for me to step back? And it was just more I don’t know. She was saying she feels like she’s right but maybe she’s wrong and that made me feel like I was pressuring her and I don’t want to do that. She finally said some of her side and I was finally able to realize there was a miscommunication and explain it and apologize. And then she said we were good and she was happy and she felt everything was resolved and our current friendship dynamic was fine and she thought I was upset about her going out without me, not the underlying fear i had or the assumption I made. The whole conversation was very difficult to engage because my ocd was telling me she was gonna break up with me the whole time. It makes it hard to advocate for I want and think clearly about what’s fair for both of us becuase I just want to bend to her side and move on. It also makes the situation very painful and sometimes I revert back to old compulsions like asking for reassurance or being slightly passive aggressive. It’s difficult because sometimes half way through she gets frustrated by the conversation and says fine we’ll just do it your way and I have to be like please don’t do that that’s not what I want and your obviously lying. (Communication was something she had to learn because she lied to avoid conflict a lot even if the thing she was lying about wouldn’t have caused any conflict) I want her to understand my side and want to come to a compromise. I don’t want to have to keep pushing for what I want or feeling this way. i feel like it also takes time to implement our compromises which leaves room for ocd to scare me into thinking she’ll forget about them or ignore them and I’ll continue to feel this way. But she’s usually good about it. But I also don’t know what’s my ocd and what’s healthy for a relationship ( I was in a toxic one before this which definitely skewed my perception of what a healthy amount of affection looks like). Even though she said everything’s fine I still feel she’s lying to appease me. I’m scared I’m asking for too much affection. I’m scared I’m pressuring her and she’s going to leave me because I’m toxic or something. I absolutely do not want to do that but I also want to feel loved and validated. I’m scared it will never be enough and it’s all my ocd. Is my ocd the reason I give so much affection and want “ a lot” of affection in return? Is my ocd the reason we keep having this fight or is it because the issue was never really resolved and my ocd is making a normal issue hard to navigate? I just want to have some mutual friends with my girl, have her plan some dates without me asking and feel like she’s actively sharing her interests and passions with me. I know she’s already shared some of her interests with me but I ended up planing them and making them happen. And when that happens it feels like she could take it or leave it ya know? Maybe I’m being too much and I should be grateful for what I have and asking for more is too much?

username0192...

Date posted: 16h

Can I ask you how the idea of breaking up with her makes you feel? I honestly relate to a lot of what you’re saying. Relationships that feel lopsided are incredibly draining to uphold for me personally. But it becomes especially difficult when OCD is at play—I know that sometimes I get hyper fixated on certain things that seem really important and hurtful to me and it turns out I just misunderstood something or OCD was exacerbating the way I felt. So in this way I have found it awfully hard to know what is OCD and when i’m supposed to actually advocate for myself (which I think is essentially what you are wrestling with too). This is my perspective from what you’ve written. It seems like the underlying message of what you are saying is that you would like your girlfriend to show up in ways she hasn’t. Your fear is what if it’s just OCD making you feel this way and you don’t want to ask too much of her. This is clearly causing a lot of anxiety so that tells me you care a lot about her and you also care a lot about being a good partner. It’s good to establish those as your morals because OCD works against your morals. I also hear you explicitly write what you want in a relationship and how that does not align with your current experience. To be perfectly frank I would feel exactly the same way you do in this situation. You have repeatedly told her what you value in a relationship and she is doing nothing to indicate that she cares about that. At this point for me it is less the issue of how exactly you plan date nights and more that you are clearly asking something from her that is not unreasonable and she is not acknowledging the importance of that. It is not wrong to want to feel affection and to want to be loved. You are not feeling these things, have communicated as much, and she still hasn’t done anything differently and also tries to undermine how you feel. You deserve someone who will listen to how you feel and why you feel that way and not weaponize that against you. Maybe it’s also worth saying that this post hits a little close to home like I said and I feel myself getting worked up about it because I really understand how painful it can be to feel unloved by someone you love and who says they love you. So that also makes me question if i’m overreacting to the situation and giving bad advice. So I won’t pretend to have an answer for you and I do think it’s best to sit with uncertainty on this one for a bit to see how you continue to feel, but I can tell you that you are not being unreasonable and you should not feel poorly about advocating for yourself.

Anonymous

Date posted: 13h

@username0192837456 Yeah I’m really struggling to figure it out because she is so amazing and caring in so many ways. It’s just this one thing quite literally. I have hope it will get better because she’s gotten better about other things. And I feel like I’m part of the problem in a way that I have a hard time getting to the real root of what I’m feeling,it can take me a few days, and she thinks it’s just about the situation that triggered it. And sometimes it does feel that way with ocd but I know it’s not because the idea of being upset over her hanging out without me makes me feel like shit. But also that’s what ocd is making me feel? I know it’s deeper then that but it’s like digging through mud to find the real reason I’m upset sometimes lol. I’m getting better at it but it still leads to miscommunication sometimes. my last toxic relationship did not help these feelings at all because they gave me absolutely no affection and would gaslight me into thinking they were 💀. She’s not like that but it is a big reason why I’m having this problem. I know what I want in a relationship but sometimes I have a hard time believing that’s what I deserve. I feel like if I ask for anything I’m being too pushy because she technically doesn’t ow me anything. And that makes me feel bad for even wanting those things in the first place but I know that there is someone out there who will give those things to me and not feel like I’m being pushy or burdensome. Because I give those things out freely so I can’t be the only person in the world who loves like me. I really hope that person is her and she just needs time to figure out how it be in a relationship, I know I’m still figuring it out im literally going to therapy for rocd. But it’s good to know that when we get to the other side, and she’s still making me feel unloved, that I’m not invalid for that and I’m not destroying a good thing.

Dream2026

Date posted: 18h

Instead of waiting for her to plan dates why not suggest having 2 set date nights a month. One you plan and one she plans. ie every second Saturday we spend the day together and you can pick things other than eating out to do. It gives her the opportunity to also plan for a specific day without having to worry about confirming schedules (just an idea). She’s right in saying friendships outside of each other are important and quite frankly she doesn’t need to justify that to you. It seems she likes concerts and escape rooms etc. I take notes about my partners interests and have my own list of ideas for dates. He still goes out with friends without me and that’s genuinely very normal and healthy. So if you know she likes those things try and pick stuff in alignment with that. Start focusing on the quality of dates yall have and bringing fun into the dynamic rather than how often she spends time with friends with or without you. Being excited about plans with friends and coming to you, try and get excited with her “that sounds awesome! Tell me all about it!” Because you can still share that experience without having to be there. Just some ideas

Anonymous

Date posted: 17h

@Dream2026 I think the issue is that she doesn’t have a list because she doesn’t plan dates. She’s never come up to me and said omg I saw this new restaurant in town I’ve always wanted to go to and I really want to take you and experience it with you. She waits for her friend to plan it and then is like omg there’s a really cool restaurant in town I really wanted to go to. I’m going without you because you didn’t read my mind and plan it. And it sucks because even if she did mention she wanted to go there she doesn’t show the initiative that she wants to go with me and it makes me feel that she could take it or leave it whether I’m there or not when she finally goes. I have to plan it and make it happen. Which is fine for somethings right like a new restaurant isn’t that important. But it’s everything and it builds up. And when it builds up like that it feels like everything she does is a personal exclusion. That she doesn’t value experiences with me. Like I said I made a list so that our dates weren’t boring and I asked if I can meet her friends and introduced her to mine so that we can experience group activities together, and I plan all the dates. Like even asking to come over and watch tv, I do that. I have asked her to plan dates but I so badly want the validation of her initiating that planning on her own. Thinking of an activity and thinking wouldn’t it be great to do that with my girlfriend and then making it happen. It’s not that I feel like she doesn’t like hanging out with me. I genuinely believe she enjoys the things we do and that it doesn’t matter who plans the date or what the activity is. But I value experiences and I value initiative. And maybe that’s ocd? Firsts are very important to me and making sure my girlfriend is at activities that are meaningful to me is important to me. Initiating I love yous, and kisses, and dates is important to me. And I do all those things. But am I expecting to much for wanting it back am I looking at it the wrong way? Should I just be happy with the fact she enjoys or dates and loves me? Like when she goes out with friends and I’m at work or something I do like hearing about it and supporting her. I think the pain of her not planning things with me or putting effort into sharing her interests with me is bleeding over. Which I know is my problem. And I want her to understand, Like it’s not about the fact she’s going to a casino with her friends without me. It’s the fact that she’s always wanted to go and didn’t include me, and this is like the 8th time that’s happened, and she’s never actively included me and I’m still sensitive about it because we’re still working on it and It builds up.

Anonymous

Date posted: 17h

@Anonymous I’m also scared that when I finally do get that from her it won’t be enough so I’m also trying to figure out what is enough? 50%? Because I feel like I would be happy with just occasionally hearing omg I really want to see you can I come over today are you busy? I saw this pumpkin patch near my house you wanna go? instead of her waiting for me to do it. Like how much is reasonable and how much is ocd? Because when we solve a problem I’m usually good about it. Like I’m not insecure about how fun our hangouts are anymore because we fixed that issue. And I don’t feel abandoned by her anymore because we agreed on that we want mutual friends and when we like inviting our partners to thing and when we don’t. It’s just this one thing that won’t go away and I know it’s because it hasn’t been solved yet but I’m nervous it’s just ocd and there’s nothing to solve? Or it will get solved and it won’t be enough for me?

Be a part of the largest OCD Community

Share your thoughts so the Community can respond