Has anyone overcome Retroactive Jealousy? It’s ruining my life and hurting my relationship

I'm 18, and been in a relationship with my man for nearly 2 years. I started living with him around 2 months ago, and all I do is think about if he's cheating. We were long distance for a year and a half of our relationship, maybe seeing eachother once every month or two. I decided to move in with him, and ever since all I can think about is if he's cheating or watching porn. When he's in another room I think he's doing something wrong, I have to check on him every ten minutes to ease my anxiety. I didn't have this problem before moving in. Granted he has talked to some girls on his phone, even having his ex on his phone (didn't do anything bad) and he is porn addicted though he is getting better for me. It's gotten so bad I want to leave him. A couple days ago I broke up with him and it absolutely broke my heart, I couldn't bare it so I gave him a month to show me he can do better, and for me to work on myself. If I'm still unhappy with us I'm going to leave. I love this boy more than anything. I'm scared to be without him, this is my first real relationship. At this point I refuse to even sleep until he is sleeping. I don't want to start over, I don't want to leave him, but I really can't take this pain it's causing me. It's all I think about. I've convinced myself so many times that he's cheating, but I know he wouldn't. I question whether it's anxiety or intuition. Maybe I just know deep down he really is cheating and I just don't want to believe it. I don't know. I don't think he would do that, but at the same time he's really into women. I hate that he looks at other girls in a sexual way, it bothers me so much, and we talk about it often, but with it being an addiction it's difficult. He has gotten a lot better since we have talked about it. He understands I have an issue and is usually happy to talk about it over and over and promise me over and over that he's not cheating. He allows me to have his phone whenever I want and everything, I have no reason to think he's cheating, but I can't get over it. It's not fair to him either. How do I deal with this? How do I stop hurting so much?

Hello, I unknowingly have lived with ROCD or OCD (not sure what one. I’m new to this). It has ruined so many amazing romantic and platonic relationships and I am so sad that just now I am finding out what the hell is wrong with me. Maybe life would be different if I have known. My OCD and anxiety is at an all time high (ATH) due to some horrible events that have happened in the recent months. I am at the point where paranoia has taken over my life now. I had my first panic attack a few weeks ago where I fainted. My anxiety attacks are so extreme I go thought cognitive distortion that has lasted days. My girlfriend of 3 years is my emotional guardian and she no long has the energy to be that and honestly it’s not her responsibility to be that. She is bi and wanted to have an open relationship and for someone who has OCD this has not been good for me. She also was assaulted in my own home by a good friend of ours when I was out of town but it’s not a clear situation because it sounded consensual at first. I just left my very high paying job. I am financially secure but the job was emotionally abusive and looking back made my OCD worse. I am taking some time off to get my head right…but now, all I have to do during the day is live in my OCD. I’m very happy I finally figured out why I act the way I do but I don’t know if I can get better quick enough to save my relationship. I have never been so worried about myself (M 28 years old). I am a confident young professional and never thought I would be writing on a page like this. Anyway…I hope it gets better.

Hey everyone, First time posting here! Wanted to share my story for some support but also to hopefully make others feel less alone. In short - my ROCD has made such a mess of my personal life. I was in a great relationship until spring of last year, at which point we separated mainly due to my ROCD. I struggled heavily with OCD about 10 years ago (harm based intrusive thoughts, sexual orientation ocd, etc). It took a lot of work but I was able to mostly overcome my struggles and truthfully, hadn’t given ocd much thought since then. I thought I was cured. And then 10 years later I am in a very fulfilling relationship with a girl I really love, but at about the year mark in my relationship things really changed. She wanted to have a conversation about next steps (moving in, marriage, kids, etc) and at that point my brain just went into panic mode and the ocd took over. From that point on, I was constantly scanning for red flags, felt very reserved when it came to any sort of statement or commitment and tended to avoid anything that would indicate I was committed to a long term future. It was not that I didn’t love it was just that my ocd was doing anything to keep me from making a big commitment. It eventually got a point where we had a big conversation about breaking up or staying together and my OCD convinced me that it was safer and that I would do less harm to her if we ended things, which was incredibly devastating to me. At the time I felt like my obsessing over small red flags were normal and that I needed to protect myself. I just had no clue it was ROCD. I spent the next 8 months missing her and kicking myself for my mistakes, and I eventually got the courage to reach out and see if she’d be willing to talk again, which she was. But the problem is, at this point I still didn’t know it was ocd. So when we talked again I was still plagued by ROCD as all the same thoughts and feelings came flooding back. We tried to talk through things but once again I was unable to make any sort of commitment to the future so it went nowhere. Once again, I am feeling very sad and angry at myself for not being able to handle ROCD. I feel like I let it control me twice and has robbed me of a lot of happiness and hurt someone I care very much about. I understand it’s probably not best to just look at ourselves with anger and guilt all the time but it’s hard not to when you feel like you just caused so much harm. Anyone feel like they can relate? Or if anyone is going through something similar I am happy to chat as ROCD can really be tricky. Thanks