Really really struggling with my ROCD today. I’ve been touring grad schools and I keep thinking if we broke up everything would be easier. How would I be able to differentiate actually wanting to break up from ocd?? I’m so stressed.

My brain keeps comparing how I felt then with the same thoughts to now and how it is diff now to prove it had changed. I’m feeling like I know it isn’t right and that maybe I’d pair better and I want to be with someone who is good for me but I also don’t want to break up and can’t tell if that’s the ocd using his faults against me. I feel like if I were to tell someone I have no feelings at all for him anymore I’d know I’d be lying and doesn’t feel right but when I say the opposite it doesn’t feel right either. I’m also worried that this time it is real and it’s the guilt of not telling him that’s making the ocd worse not that it’s just ROCD. My thoughts are also saying so many diff things I’m confused. It feels like I can’t connect to him anymore or like I don’t have empathy which scares me cause I know I did before and I felt it but is it just that I’m frustrated w some of the issues? But it’s upsetting it feels like I don’t have the endearing feelings and love I felt and I want it to come back but then I also think I don’t cause then it will prevent be from seeing what else is out there And the thing is looking back on how it was I feel like I could def see how that was ocd but this is different… and like I at least felt I knew I loved him or wanted to be with him and i had thoughts of wanting to be with someone who this or someone who this but I didn’t actually want it and now it feels like this time I rly do mean it like I want to find better qualities but I still don’t wanna move on from him and my brain is like wel that’s how everyone feels when they breakup regardless…it rly doesn’t feel like ocd anymore 😭 and my thoughts keep saying if you don’t you don’t like this or that and it most likely won’t change cause you have been with him so long why are you with him and then I feel guilty like I need to tell him

Lately I’ve been having moments where I want to be single and explore other possibilities, like new relationships or flings. Sometimes I even feel like I do not want to marry my partner. Those moments honestly scare me. In the last two days alone, I almost broke up with my boyfriend three different times. I love him, and I want to love him without these moments/urges to leave. I’ve been feeling especially numb and distant this past month, and while my OCD has been quieter, my connection to the relationship feels like it’s slipping. I feel like I might be glorifying the idea of being single, like the freedom and exploration seem so idealized. I’ve been looking for posts that sound similar to what I’m going through (yes, I know that’s a compulsion), and I’ve found a few that made me wonder if maybe OCD is more involved in this than I initially thought. I just really don’t understand how. Could it be a mix of my numbness and OCD? Could the urge to explore or the emotional flatness around the relationship be OCD showing up in a different way? One other thing I’ve noticed: whenever my boyfriend is sweet or romantic, I feel this deep guilt or just nothing. Like I cannot say “I love you” back without feeling like I’m lying. It makes me feel like a bad partner. I just want to understand how OCD might be playing a role in all of this.

Ocd sucks. I’m at a stay away multiple days long event for school rn and ran into someone I used to talk with. We had a will they won’t they kind of thing for years and knew each other all growing up. I knew when we were really young that he had a crush on me for a while. And then when we got older there were times I had a crush on him but I don’t think he liked me anymore at that point. I never fully knew where he stood because he often was in a relationship or living somewhere else. Because we never dated or kissed or anything, only hung out on ambiguous date-like occasions, there has always been that what if sitting there for me and I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since before I met my current partner years ago. Well they happen to be at this place I’m staying at, where we are in the same places everyday, and I ran into them, said hi and caught up for a bit. It has totally triggered my ROCD in a way I’ve never experienced. I feel guilt and shame and keep having intrusive thoughts that are so extreme and catastrophic like what if I leave my partner of 8 years for him, what if I find him more attractive than my partner, what if I cross a line while I’m interacting with him this week, what if I’m a terrible girlfriend to my partner and a fraud??