Hello dear friends. I hadn't been on this app for a while, I've been getting by. Today I just need to vent and to feel validated and understood. I have OCD, I consider myself in permanent recovery. It is an everyday job. I am ina relationship with a wonderful guy. I deeply love and care about him, but he doesn't understand anything about OCD. I've explained it to him a million times. I've directed him to online resources. I've talked him through what to do to help me get out of a loop without giving me reassurance. And yet, he never knows what to say or do when an episode appears. It is tiring to pull myself out of the loop and then having yo explain to him what just happened to me, over and over again. I think, in general, he lacks empathy for other people's feelings, but, when it comes to me, I can see that he tries but achieves nothing. I think I don't have ROCD, I have diverse thoughts. But the last few weeks this thought got into my mind: what if he has met someone else and they are texting each other and flirting and he's gonna leave me? (He left his girl to start a new relationship with me). And he are apart due to the covid-19 epidemic, so we didn't see each other almost at all during last year. Of course, I had been able to keep this particular thought to myself, buy yesterday, it just came out of my mind after him not picking up the phone. He was in shock. He reacted defensively (which I completely understand), replied that he had nothing to explain to me as to why he couldn't answer the phone when I called him and that we was surprised that I asked him such a thing (if the reason why he didn't answer me was that he was talking to someone else). I knew it was just an OCD thought of mine, but I just couldn't keep it to myself any longer. Of course, I apologized to him and had to explain it had been an OCD thought. He was supporting and understanding and told me everything was ok and to forget about it. This morning I feel sad that he couldn't recognize this for what it was despite all the explaining I have done. I have dealt with my ocd on my own, despite being in a relationship. I just needed to vent and would like to read your thoughts about this whole thing. Thank you in advance for reading and replying.

Longer post, but please, I need some guidance. I thought that my thoughts relating to relationship OCD were taking over. But, my bf started treating me differently. I tried to have a conversation and communicate this worry. He then texted me that he had actually been feeling distant for a month and has been meaning to tell me. But “we’re fine now.” I spiraled. Later in the week, he went quiet after a disagreement. After he promised we were okay and he was okay, I found later he was texting a mutual friend (female) that I was crying again. She said that it was fucking insane and other hurtful things about me. He said he lost his trust with me because I looked through his phone and saw that message even though during the whole relationship we had a mutual understanding that we had nothing to hide from each other and he always assured me that I could look through his phone at anytime. It’s ok for boundaries to change in a relationship, but it wasn’t communicated and I was harshly reprimanded. During the texting chain with the mutual friend he also said that “she just has no idea.” When I addressed this, he then said that for the past month, he actually felt he didn’t want to be in a relationship, but still loved me. I’m ruined. I had the same thoughts in January and knew I loved him. I found out it was ROCD (through this app) and told him the day after the realization because it was eating at me. So him saying I wouldn’t understand and telling other seems unjustified. I would’ve been the most understanding. Any help would be appreciated greatly.

My husband told me recently he was going to hang out with a local friend he often goes to see. It got very late and I heard nothing from him. Tried calling and texting. Stayed up all night thinking maybe he was dead or injured. Logged into our cell phone account to see if I could find any recent location and discovered he had talked to someone on the phone that night but he was like 2 hours away from home at that time. And also saw a phone number he was spending hours on the phone with every day. I had been confronting him about his secrecy prior to that and he kept telling me it was this friend or that friend, or he was just taking the dog on a long walk or having a fire out back. He finally called me back in the morning and I yelled at him. He told me he was randomly with two friends from longer ago and had gotten drunk and passed out, and hadn't told me about these plans because I had a heart surgery a few weeks prior and health concerns and he didn't want to stress me out. He told me the phone number was a girl that he related to on trauma factors and that he views like a little sister. He said he didn't tell me because he was caught up in his trauma spilling of events he didn't share with a single person since they occurred to him 35 years ago, due to feelings of shame and anger, and that he thought I would view it as emotional cheating. I told him it really could be viewed as emotional cheating and in principle, honesty shouldn't be dependent upon the outcome... lying isn't justified because I would be upset by the truth. Since then, he's been more open with me and tells me when that girl is calling, talks to me about their conversations, answers her calls when I'm present. I talked to him about boundaries and things I'm uncomfortable with or bothered by and he changes those things. Especially because I have trauma from an emotionally abusive ex, having him lie to me when I directly questioned him about what I was perceiving or experiencing and telling me those experiences weren't real, when they actually WERE real, has really messed me up. Now when he wants to hang out with a friend, I don't trust it. But I'm handling these feelings in destructive OCD ways. I spend literally the entire time he's gone thinking and thinking and thinking about what if he's lying or what he might be doing instead of what he said. I call and text him intermittently and feel like all of my obsessive thoughts are confirmed if he doesn't answer right away. I'm always checking the phone history. The driving toll history. Scrutinizing everything. I cannot get out of this mindset. It's like this horrible mixture of emotional flashbacks and OCD. I don't want to live like this. I want to work on my relationship in productive ways. I want to be able to use my own time while my husband is gone. Even if he lied to me and is somewhere other than he said, I don't want to lie in bed just thinking and thinking and thinking for entire days and nights. I'm not sure what I'm really asking here. This is just the only place where I feel like I can share this without people thinking "wow she's crazy".

Hi all. I’m writing this because I can’t stop spiraling and I don’t know who to talk to without feeling judged. I (27F) have OCD, so emotional safety and perceived red flags are something I hyper-analyze. My boyfriend (24M) and I are in a long-distance relationship, Im just on vacation right now . We’ve had our ups and downs, but overall, it’s a loving connection. That’s why this particular moment is bothering me so much. Last night, we were on a video call, flirting. At one point I said, “Go to the bathroom first,” before things got more intimate (he has a roommate and wanted privacy). After a few minutes, he came back and said, “Okay I’m alone.” But I hesitated. I was acting playfully shy and holding back. That’s when he said something like, “You said if I went to the bathroom, you’d show me something. This isn’t my (my name)—she’s not shy with me.” He said it smiling, and I was smiling too, but later it started to gnaw at me. My OCD kicked in. I started spiraling: Did that cross a line? Was that pressuring? I brought it up to him, and while he tried to be supportive, I could tell he was caught off guard. He said something like, “I’m trying my best to support you, but I feel sad that you would think I’d ever pressure you like that.” And then, in what he admitted later was a “dumb joke,” he said: “I’m not like your dad—I won’t get mad if you say no or disagree with something.” (For context: I’ve told him before about my father’s anger issues from my childhood. It’s a very sensitive topic.) I got upset and told him never to bring my father into things like that. He immediately apologized and said, “I realized it right after—that the thing I said as a joke to get you out of overthinking was serious. I’m so sorry again, and I feel really bad right now. I respect you and I respect everyone in your family.” After that, he was very gentle. We stayed on the call for a while longer, I felt heard, and we ended things with “I love you.” But today I still feel emotionally sore. Not because I think he’s abusive or manipulative—he isn’t—but because I felt something shift. He saw me cry like that for the first time, and now I feel exposed and over-analytical. My OCD brain is stuck on what if this was a red flag? Even though he apologized and explained himself, I still feel unsettled. What’s making it harder is that I haven’t even told my best friend. I usually tell her everything, but I’m scared to bring this up. I know she already has reservations about him (she’s very protective of me), and I feel like if I share this, she’ll just add it to the “reasons he’s not right for you” list. But I don’t want her judgment—I want clarity. I’m scared that sharing it will make things worse instead of better, and that’s an isolating feeling. I want this relationship to work. I don’t usually cry like that in front of people. I don’t usually feel safe enough to. And he did show up in the end. But now I don’t know how to trust myself—is this a moment to work through together, or am I ignoring something important? Would love some kind, grounded perspective. Thanks for reading.