it feels like im drowning. i feel trapped. ***rocd vent*** my rocd has made things difficult in my relationship with my boyfriend, and i’m frightened that it’s the end i cant breathe without thinking it’s the end of him and me, i cant eat at all and i cant stop living with fear it’s been rocky lately with him, but i’m determined to keep going i want to because i truly cherish him, and love him yet my brain keeps asking me if i really do want to keep going, if i really do love him, and if i’m really okay with spending my days just dreading the end im obviously not, i want things to be okay again, but my ocd keeps haunting and haunting me and i’m so scared that these thoughts are my real ones, that these are my true feelings ive been open about my ocd with him, and this has contributed to the rocky patch it doesn’t help that i’m not formally diagnosed, and it also doesn’t help that i’ve been doubting whether or not i have ocd. (i have what i believe are a lot of the symptoms, but even then i doubt myself) i just feel like i’m drowning. i want peace in my head and in my heart. i want things to be back to normal with him and me, and i want to be happy. it just doesn’t feel the same, and i feel like it’s my fault for starting us on this rocky path. the last thing i want is a breakup, yet my thoughts tell me that i’d like freedom. they chant that i need to escape and run far far away. they make me feel like the only way out of the way i feel is by ending it, and i don’t want to end it. the only things moving me forward is the knowledge that i’ll get to speak to a professional soon (in two weeks), and the hope that things get better in time. thank you to whoever reads my rant, and i’m sorry if this is triggering. i just needed to write how i feel somewhere. reassurance has been driving me downhill, so please don’t reassure me. if possible, just give me advice on how to cope with feeling this way.

I’m currently engaged and up until recently, have been so so happy. I know I love him and that he makes me happy. I’m trying to remind myself that this could be OCD when these thoughts and doubts pop into my mind. He’s the biggest part of my life… and the best part of it. I hope we both get the help we need to overcome this.

Oh man I feel this in my soul. I had such a difficult time with this. You’re not alone. My path to marrying my wife was not much like most people, and that is OK. It was very much a conscious choice, and had relatively little with how I felt all the time. I knew that things were good when I was not anxious and that when I was, things were bad. She was not the source of my worries. I was open with her about my worries. It caused her some discomfort but she was supportive and understood the best she could. That’s how I rationally knew that letting her go would be just the dumbest mistake of my life. Of course rationalizing it like that doesn’t make the worry go away, so again it was a conscientious choice I had to make. I had to sit with the possibility that I was committing to someone I didn’t love enough, or wasn’t attracted to enough, all that BS. I didn’t get to rely on the “head over heels, butterflies in the stomach, twitterpated” feelings everyone else takes for granted. In those moments that you are overanalyzing how you feel about someone, it makes it impossible to feel those positive emotions. I will tell you that making a firm choice (getting engaged) did not remove the anxiety entirely but it did reduce it. And then once I “locked in” that choice and got married, it reduced even further to where it was much more manageable day to day. Been married 7 years now with a beautiful daughter. Still have intrusive thoughts I’m working through here but please know, ending your relationship is not the only way to get relief. I can tell you that from experience.

I feel like I don’t love my husband of almost 18 years and I feel like I don’t want to be with him. It’s scaring the living daylights out of me. I just think about it all day and dream about it as well. It feels torturous. I wish I would feel differently.

Just to clarify, when I say I was open with her, I don’t mean that I constantly sat there bringing it up to her (aka acting on a compulsion.) just that she was aware that I had a lot of anxiety about these certain themes, but that it didn’t mean I don’t like her or something, it just is how my brain works.

one of the worst parts, is that my brain makes me believe that i’m lying about how i feel. that i really wouldn’t be that devastated, and that what i just wrote down is just pure bullshit. as soon as i write down how i feel, it all feels like one huge lie, and that i’m playing it all up so i don’t have to confront the “truth” of the matter: that i’m “doomed”, “stuck in a rocky rocky relationship” , and that “the only way i’ll get relief is ending it”.

We have to not inform our partners of our ocd thoughts. It's a compulsion. They don't understand ocd so they're just going to view it as harmful and clearly it makes the rocd worse for yourself. No more telling him . Start off with a clean state and go to enjoy the day