Long story short I caved today and gave into my compulsions in my rel yet again and my bf keeps saying how toxic I am in this rel. (making him miserable/ depressed/ bringing up old arguments/ and that I’m controlling bc of how I react to things) and I know I am toxic and have been for years bc of my ocd , but not because I’m a bad or heartless person. I’m just extremely overly sensitive and get offended and triggered by everything which causes ocd to spike. how to control myself with my obsessions of my insecurities without being “toxic” ? I don’t want to keep ruining a 5 year rel even more ? (please be kind?)

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

Try to think of it objectively, how would you react if your bf was doing the same to you? Maybe try to think of the beginning of your relationship and what brought you together, the happy times. If you’ve already forgiven him for past arguments it could be very frustrating for him when you continue to bring them up. It depends on the reason for the argument, how serious it was (if he cheated, etc) because that can understandably make you more paranoid. In that case if you don’t trust him then that’s a whole other story.

Ocd_istheworst

Date posted: 5y

(He has never cheated or wronged me badly in the rel) my ocd stems from my personal insecurities / ruminating jealousy, etc. I try to control it best I can to not bombard him with questions or ask for too much reassurance but it seems like I keep failing over and over again bc ocd feels too strong to keep fighting most days . I tried making an erp script today tho :( I hope it makes things easier

Anonymous

Date posted: 5y

@Ocdaim I understand where you’re coming from. I think about a year and a half ago I fought my own relationship OCD. I can’t tell you when it stopped, maybe when we got engaged. But I have trust issues from being cheated on in the past by an ex-bf. I also have low self esteem. I spent so much time agonizing over my relationship and wondering why my now husband was with me, I doubted the relationship a lot and felt horrible for it. I also deal with jealousy. I used to ask my husband why he never got jealous (bc I did and I thought maybe it meant he was t worried about losing me) but his answer was because he trusted me. I know I still drive him crazy sometimes but I was able to explain it. I had to learn to slowly stop wanting to check his phone and stop looking for reasons for us not to be together. I started looking at the good parts of our relationship and asking myself if he had ever given me a reason not to trust him. I believe you will get there, the good thing is you are aware of it. The reassurance we seek is part of the OCD we are dealing with. Maybe try writing it out when you feel that way instead of bringing it up to him? Maybe you only need to get it out to make yourself feel a little better. Sometimes what you write can make you look at it from a different perspective. Rather than saying out loud to him what comes to mind and upsetting him further.

Fathomable

Date posted: 5y

ERP. Clearly following your compulsions to ruminate, interrogate and control things is hurting your relationship and harming your partner. Scripting is a good start. You need to build up your tolerance to getting anxious and letting that happen without trying to get rid of the anxiety using thoughts and compulsions. You can survive anxiety. Lock yourself in a room while you do ERP if you struggle to stop yourself from acting out at your boyfriend when you're anxious. When you feel a strong emotion there is no need to blame it on the person who triggered you. There doesn't need to be any blame, it doesn't mean they're rude or insensitive. Remember that ruminating is also a compulsion. There is no point in preventing yourself from starting arguments with your boyfriend if instead you're just going to sit and ruminate. Both of those things make your OCD worse. You need to allow the anxiety, guilt, anger and all other triggered feelings to happen and let yourself feel them, without trying to push them away, work out what they mean, argue with them, etc. Just feel them, go out of your brain and into your body where the physical feelings are. They don't have to mean anything. Feelings don't dictate what's true about you or the situation. But you need to start feeling your feelings in order for them to stop running your life and causing outbursts and conflict.

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