I want to be open with my partner about my relationship anxiety in the moment, but hearing about the heaviness of my feelings time and time again has pushed him away. How do I cope with my ROCD without pushing my partner away? He’s open to hearing me talk about it sometimes but not as often as I do.

Hi all! I was wondering if anyone being treated with ROCD and/or SOOCD has some advice on how they handle the things *with* their partner. For context, my ex and I were together ~7 months before we broke up a year ago, in large part due to my severe anxiety from untreated ROCD/SOOCD. I’ve gotten a lot better through NOCD treatment and we’ve been friends since then. But we’re currently in a “situationship” kind of stage, where I think we’re both trying to figure out if the relationship is still feasible, and I’m finding that I’m a lot more triggered as the relationship nears becoming “serious” again. We’re both really trying to figure out the healthiest way to handle when things get hard for me. Does anyone have input about what they’ve learned or found what has worked in their own relationships? Some specific questions: - I’ve found that when getting really triggered in my own head, I have no clue if I should explain how I’m feeling to my partner or how we should address it together. How do you differentiate between communicating versus falling into the confessing/reassurance trap? - Related to the above, my partner and I are both a bit lost on the best way for him to respond when I’m really paranoid (for examples, I have major I’m-being-cheated-on paranoia and overanalyze if I’m enjoying sex enough), or if I’m overreacting to feeling rejected/misunderstood (e.g. “he didn’t respond to my comment just now, he doesn’t care/he doesn’t get me/maybe we shouldn’t be together…”) - How much does your partner know about ROCD/SOOCD in general? How much have you shared with them about your thoughts and experiences? I’ve explained both subtypes and some of my thought processes to him, but definitely not all of it, and I’m not sure how much is helpful for him to know. Answers to any or all of the questions are very much appreciated. Thanks so much in advance! Hope you’re all well 💗

I am at a very difficult spot in my relationship. My boyfriend and I have been together for 6 years, and I have a history of cheating that for years we’ve been trying to work through. To me, it makes a lot of sense that my OCD has attached itself to this and for the last few years I’ve experienced intrusive sexual thoughts of others and relationship ocd. I have been open to him about the content of my thoughts and now, with a proper diagnosis of an anxiety disorder, I am able to reframe them and work through them with ERP so that my brain will *hopefully* get bored and stop sending them. But, things have not been easy. As a result of this and everything in our past, he has become anxious about all the scenarios where I could be having sexualized thoughts about other people. To him, if I am thinking something utterly different than what I am telling him or acting like to him, he can’t fully trust it. And of course, I can imagine how difficult it is to know your life partner is sexualizing others in her brain and to be able find a way to dismiss them as unthreatening, especially when past mistakes say otherwise. Is there anyone that has gone through this with a partner? And other than repeatedly explaining the egodystonic nature of my thoughts and providing reassurance, what are some things you did that helped them? Any advice helps! Thank you

for a few days now I’ve been super anxious about my relationship. I’ve been anxious about it before but lately it’s been worse than normal. I’m in a very healthy and loving relationship, I love my boyfriend so much and he treats me so so well. The only thing is that I’ve been having scary thoughts that what if I’m lying to him and don’t actually love him? What if I don’t find him attractive? And like what if the only way to stop being anxious is to break up with him? I don’t want to leave him and I am so scared. I feel like I’m lying to him by not telling him what’s going on because he might think I’m actually going to leave him, which I’m really not going to. I have had anxiety since before we started dating and incestual and sexual ocd, then I got into a point where I started having religious ocd, and now I have ROCD on top of that I think. I’ve never been diagnosed but I’m going to therapy and figuring things out but I’m so scared. Idk what to do and I feel like if I talk to anyone they’re going to say I have to leave him.