Rocd is destroying my life

Hello there, I just wanted to chime in and share that you are not alone. I felt the same way about my current relationship. We’re not married, but we have two children. We come from different upbringings. I come from a lot of family trauma and divorced parents. He comes from a very traditional family with parents married over 40 years. I was his first everything, so I felt a big pressure to be perfect. I didn’t think I was worthy of his love, feeling like a broken person constantly trying to maintain a facade. It led to severe withdrawal and depression after I had our son. I felt stuck. How could I keep this up forever? How could I break up our life to regain my freedom? I gradually shared the pieces that I didn’t want him to see, wincing at the prospect of being rejected after every shred of truth I brought to light. He didn’t run. The freedoms I craved, I was afforded. I went back to work and finished college. His patience and flexibility helped me reach my goals. I realized that I only needed to talk about the things that weighed me down in order to decompress and not feel alone. Feeling alone with your thoughts is a heavy feeling! Many times, we keep our thoughts to ourselves and it makes them fester. Verbalizing them helps create thought partnership. If anything, it helps to create transparency. In regards to the feeling of forever: the anticipation anxiety is overwhelming. There are so many unknowns. How long will this last? What if we drift apart? What if one of us passes away? Etc… just take it one day at a time. Start the day and end the day with appreciation. Set aside some “worry time” in the middle of the day or whenever you have some free time. Build up some mantras that help you de-escalate. Write down your worries and then respond to them the next day as if you were giving a friend some advice. We’re often kinder to others than we are to ourselves. I wish you harmony, communication, and understanding in your relationship! I

As someone who is in their first ever relationship I’m experiencing this too which is also why marriage scares me because foreverrrrrr sounds soo scary what i learned is you have to accept uncertainty, forever is uncertain, forever also means you are deeply afraid of losing something valuable so think of it as I’m really scared of losing him and it’s a lot of pressure so i tell myself my forever could be tomorrow, take each day as its last. Love is also not a straight path, love means change and changes and ocd absolutely hates change, when i find myself in a panic state with my rocd i remind myself i can be scared, afraid, worried of mistakes and still love.

^this!!! I experience rocd too and am in my first relationship. It can creep up out of nowhere and makes me question what I’m doing in my relationship even though I know how much I love my partner. Grounding myself in the now and not thinking too ahead has been essential for me