My boyfriend and I were talking about different parts of the hospital that nurses work in and he threw out “yeah like the “infant toddler floor” - literally the one floor where his ex worked and my ROCD and retroactive jealousy is so triggered . there are so many departments in the hospital and you have to go with that one? I’m disgusted and mad that he’d make that connection. I’m disgusted and mad that he remembers. I guess the question is why does he think about her subconsciously, like even to relate something like that. I’m on the hamster wheel right now. Talking to him didn’t really help but he’s in the other room journaling thru his side of it to work on himself and I’m in here focusing on how I handled that wrong too. I don’t know how else to have responded to that trigger. I think I should’ve “done nothing.” It would have sucked ass, I would’ve had racing thoughts all day & night if I didn’t say something to him about saying that.. But I took it to the extreme, what does it mean that he thinks about her/ references her? My OCD has me very confused and I felt very angry at him. I feel like I need all this reassurance now that he doesn’t still think about her. Yet that’s like, the opposite of what we need I guess. UGHHH I feel mad at him

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?

Hi everyone. I’m having a really hard time today in my relationship. I am just feeling so frustrated by my back-and-forth feelings about my relationship. One day I’ll feel so good, and then the next I don’t at all. I think my biggest trigger in the house is the chores that the two of us have to do in the house. I’m much more of a clean person than my boyfriend is. I’m also thinking that he has ADHD and struggles to remember when to do specific chores and I have to remind him pretty often, but he will usually do it when I ask. Today, I’m on a huge spiral of telling myself that he is never gonna be able to learn to do things on his own, he’s not gonna be able to take care of our kids in the future If we do get married, he’s not gonna be able to help take care of our house when we do have one one day, And I am just exhausted. It’s so hard fighting these thoughts all day and then I feel like I have to sit down and talk to him about chores and obviously that doesn’t go well when I’m not feeling good. Definitely a compulsion… It feels so much better when I can just relax and just let him figure things out on his own, and I can just take care of myself. I also come from a household where I was constantly criticized and controlled in certain ways, so I have that to carry too…I’ve gotten much better at doing that most of the time but today is pretty bad. It always feels a little bit worse as well when I’m on my period and feeling very hormonal as well… Can anyone please shed some light on if they’ve experienced this before and any support they might be able to offer in relation to this? Anything would be helpful and please be kind!

I’m gonna try to make this make sense, and any support or advice would be great. I have a beautiful girlfriend, who I’ve been dating off and on for a year. We were really rocky but got our shit figured out 4 months ago and have been strong since. I truly love this girl more than I’ve loved anyone. And I know based off the sheer amount of ocd that has come up on our relationship, that she means a lot to me. Me and her were in a friend group in 2022 and we never liked each other. However she had a sexual relationship with one of my old friends. Fast forward to now I haven’t talked to him in a long time and I don’t see it as an issue. However… I keep having this vivid flashback to him touching her some kinda way in 2022. I can’t remember exactly what happened or the details but it’s running through my head. I guess this is retroactive jealousy but it’s really almost hurting my feelings. I wish it would stop but I know ocd doesn’t work that way. I just wanna be happy with my girl and not upset at her past experiences