Anybody have or heard of something called “Retroactive Jealousy”? I have suffered for quite a while … but no therapist (and I’ve had many) has heard of it. I get lots of strange looks and “well everyone has a past” I’m aware! Mine is rather deep and colorful lol. It mostly looks at an obsession with your partners past. Many compulsions look like social media stalking, verbal reassurance seeking from partner and self assurance seeking from yourself. I’d love to hear from anyone who has this or understands!

Very brief mentions of pocd and nsfw jokes,id like this to be adults only . Repost bc i had to edit something Does anyone have experience with real event ocd attached to your online footprint etc? I keep checking old messages,trying to find old people i knew i used to talk to etc. To find out every problematic thing I did and if I've ever been unfollowed or blocked by anyone I used to be friends w online/atleast on good terms w. I am particularly concerned abt doing something bigoted,esp racist bc i have racism ocd,and doing something predatory bc of my pocd. I remember hanging around people who could use 'edgy' or offensive humour in my teens and i remember a lot of sex jokes and that i would join in on sex jokes sometimes . i dont remember details w the offensive humour as much,i feel like i didnt join in on it as much but i was definitely WAY passive abt things and prob let a lot of bad stuff slide i shouldnt have bc i didn't speak up it was wrong,I remember one friend in an online community would say slurs and horrible jokes when i was 16. I dont remember my response to it as much but i feel i didnt speak up abt it aside one time i found in the dms where he made a bad joke on a thing i shared for social justice. I cant stop going thru old messages and stuff or trying to find ppl from the past. I feel like if I don't check it now,that eventually it'll come to haunt me or that I'll stumble across it eventually. I worry what if someone messaged me on one of these apps I un-installed or on one of the accounts I don't have access to,confronting me abt all this stuff I did. I had an obsession w this back in 2020 and did check in depth on all my accounts,but now that it's been 4 years the obsession is back in full swing.

I’m new to the app and wanting to know who else experiences this form of ocd. Some background I was a therapist for over 10 years now I am out of the clinical space. So I have background knowledge of ocd but never knew much about relationship ocd. I realized over the last several years with my now fiancé, that I have a hard time just letting go in general, whether that’s an argument or statement or feeling. I want to be able to just accept things at face value and move on (and talk later if my partner is ready as needed). But when conflict arises I can’t disengage till there is a clear resolution. It’s causing serious strife as he can feel trapped and it escalates the argument. I am reading more and this sounds like relationship OCD. Anyone else experience this? Curious on what others have done to work on this for themselves. I do have a therapist but we are not doing work in this area yet as I am realizing this is an actual concern.

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