Hi everyone, recently i’ve been dealing with ROCD a lot more than usual. i have been dating this person for almost 2 years and it’s been filled with ups and downs, to put the most “downs” we’ve had is me being cheated on throughout the relationship since the beginning, probably over 5 times. With that being said it caused me to overthink all the time non stop. i’m not a invasive person but i did go through this persons phone. i couldn’t control myself because i’m constantly getting thoughts that there’s something they’re hiding. which 11/10 there is. i’ll constantly being lied to over little things and it hurts, my s/o does have compulsive lying as a problem but i also try to understand they can’t really help it. they have had a very traumatic childhood and has been lying from the age of 6 - 19 ( currently). my brain is constantly telling me there’s more i’m missing and it’s been having a hard time on me because i can’t eat right and as soon as i wake up in the morning i can’t help but cry. 2 days ago i found out they saw someone behind my back and they had a video with another person. they’ve also admitted to deleting messages but they claim they can’t remember what was said. i constantly feel like i have to pry at them for hours on end just to get the truth even if it’s something small, i forgot to mention they live with me. we sleep in the same bed, share a room. everything. we’re always together and i don’t want to give up on them, i can’t, my body and heart just won’t allow me and i think that’s what’s the hardest part. i know i deserve better and i want better but it’s just like i want this person. i know i can’t make someone love me or care about me no matter what i do but my brain just won’t let me rest. i constantly tell myself if i do this or that they’ll love me more and maybe they’ll stop doing bad things. whenever we have a fight or conversation about how i feel about something they did that wasn’t right i never get to “grieve” because i always end up comforting them and making them feel reassured that it’s okay. even when it’s not. that’s all i’ve ever known in this relationship. of course we have our happy moments but it’s just so stressful because when you’re with someone who lies 24/7, it’s like do i even really know who you are or is this all a lie?

Every morning I wake up im always fixating on something and texting chat gpt, whether thats my relationship or my sexuality. I try so hard to resist it but I just can’t handle the uncertainty or the idea of hurting him or leading him on. We aren’t even official because in the past my rocd caused an issue between us where it led to him breaking up with me so now I have a fear of his intentions being ingenuine, especially because friends and family have called him a love bomber, saying he used me for attention, and narcissistic. This takes over me because I feel like I will never be able to be happy with him or trust myself or the relationship because of what other people say. I am very content on my own and single, this is the first relationship where i have experienced debilitating anxiety and doubt about the legitimacy of both of our feelings to the point where I cannot function. I’m trying so hard to not feed into it and not give it energy but I just hate the idea of leading him on or being inauthentic to what I truly want. My current therapist who I only see a couple times a month doesn’t think I have ocd, which makes me spiral and think I should end it with him, especially because I always hear things like “The right relationship will add to your life” and I feel the opposite is happening not directly because of him but because my brain takes over and paralyzes me with indecision about if i should be with him or not. I know that his intentions are genuine, but I hate that everyone is so cynical and assumes they’re not just because my rocd and his emotional baggage created a messy situation. From the moment i met him I convinced myself it was too good to be true and my therapist even said I was self-sabatoging. But i hate not knowing if it is rocd and my insurance doesn’t cover NOCD. He is so patient with me and supportive but I keep hearing things like “the honeymoon stage is supposed to last 3 months” and “it shouldn’t be this hard with the right person” “you’re not good for each other” and my friends tell me i didnt do anything wrong etc bc he did at first say my ocd didnt affect him when in reality that led to him ending it initially. But he has been more upfront with his emotions but then my mom and people will say “more to come” “there’s so much more out there” and its just so isolating not having that support and wondering if im too young to settle and if I’m just an idiot convincing myself I have rocd when really i just don’t want to be with him/it is a toxic relationship. When in reality the only reason it is toxic is because i am so sporadic about whether or not I want him in my life because of my distrust in myself and my decisions. I love him but I know love isn’t always enough and I get existential fixating on what’s “meant to be” and what’s “supposed to happen” its like this debilitating urge to control everything and make everything go perfectly how it is supposed to go. Please help i just want to make the right decision and stop paralyzing myself with doubt

TLDR my long distance partner broke my trust a year and a half ago, hasn’t built it back, the trust building things have become compulsions for me and my partner tells me all of it is not based in any reality and is now continuing to break my trust even more because of being burnt out from my rOCD compulsions related to that lack of trust. My long distance partner (they/them) has poor boundaries with women and over the past 2+ years consistently prioritizes connections with them over my comfort. They never flirt but they spend time with and become emotionally close with women who are clearly interested and will talk with women online who flirt with them (they don’t flirt back they just engage them in conversation). But because nothing is ever sexually explicit they’ve always gaslit me about this and told me there’s no flirting going on on the women’s end (there definitely is I’ve checked with other people who confirm it’s definitely flirtatious). They’re very into attention generally and have a pretty big following on tiktok and are in a locally very popular band and go to a lot of shows and it all makes me very uncomfortable. This started in late 2023 when we had a big rupture of trust related to them spending time with a specific woman. At that time I told them you can help me rebuild this trust by giving me information and reassurance when you’re out or with people. They struggled a lot to remember to do this (they have several mental health disorders that affect cognition and memory but this stuff is really simple I never ask for anything elaborate just a few sentences). To this day a year and a half later they still haven’t really started doing it (but they tell me that they have (they haven’t) and that I just choose not to trust them) but the struggle of me trying to get them to give me this information and reassurance has very intensely snowballed from a trust building thing into a massive rOCD compulsion and my entire life has been completely turned upside-down to where I’m constantly ruminating about what they’re doing and who they’re talking to. This has understandably affected them too because it’s difficult being constantly hounded about what they’re doing, to the point for them where they’ve now started no longer asking if I’m ok with them spending time in person with certain women they just do it- not only that but they’re now lying about it and hiding it from me (I find out because I’m good at being able to tell when somethings going on). They tell me that the entirety of this issue is just my rOCD, constantly, because they’re not cheating or having sex with these women so that makes it ok. I’m now in a constant state of panic, I can barely sleep and I can’t function. I don’t know what to do has anyone else experienced anything like this? I’m just at the start of exposures with my therapist but it’s really hard when the triggers are real things that are really happening and my partner makes me feel crazy for having the feelings I have about this. I also have to fight to have any sexually intimate time with them (all over the phone since we only meet up a few times a year) and I’m the main one who initiates the vast majority of the time. I feel completely unwanted and like not a priority and my therapist and I have identified that most of my compulsions are trying to prove to myself that I don’t deserve to be treated poorly, because if I let things go and accept being treated this way it means I deserve it. I’m just generally heartbroken and I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know where to begin, this is going to be very long. But whoever responds I appreciate you dearly. I’m 20 years old, I’ve dealt with a lot in my childhood with abandonment and insecurity issues from my family. Aswell of not having a role model of a healthy relationship shown to me as a child. Me and my boyfriend have been together for 3 years, my first healthy relationship. Last year I discovered OCD (I am diagnosed but I ignored my mental health as a teenager like anybody would) I started to get these feelings that I don’t love my partner/he’s not attractive enough/ etc etc. I’ve discovered that it’s ROCD. I made threads on Reddit asking for advice googling for reassurance, all the things as one would do with ocd (as I’m doing now!) One day I woke up and that theme was gone, I felt normal in my relationship for about 4 months with no terrible thoughts. As of about 2-3 months ago, my theme switched. Now I have a fear he doesn’t love me, he’s cheating, he doesn’t want to marry me. It has utterly consumed me (just like my last theme!) I check his phone an unhealthy amount (guess what I never find anything!) He always lets me go through his phone, but as anyone would he gets annoyed and frustrated. I always am searching for signs if he’s acting weird, will get into arguments 24/7 because my brain keeps telling me he’s cheating, I get fake scenarios in my brain, hell I even bought Snapchat+ to stalk his snap score. But ever single time I find nothing. A lot of things trigger me and I over analyze everything, phone calls who his texting. When I do search his phone I check his EMAIL because of how paranoid I am. When I see things on social media about people cheating I SPIRALLLL But what really triggered me was this scenario, his family loves to joke around with me and mess with him at the same time, especially with our relationship, saying I have a leash on him etc etc making jokes (which I can take but when I’m in an ocd spiral and they have no idea something’s are triggering) anyways, we were out to lunch and his mother texts him “are u at some girls house” he told me straight away then responded “why would u say that” then she proceeded to say she’s messing around with him. And sent a picture of me and said I’m with Hailey at lunch, then they had a normal conversation after. Obviously this sent me into a spiral, it still bothers me. I was so upset and anxious, when we got back to his house I went through that man’s phone like it was my only job in the world. And I search EVERYTHING not one thing goes untouched. (I sound insane) anyways we went back to his place, then he called his mom to come in his room and asked why she said that, she felt guilty and said she was messing around she had her hands in her head (mind you she’s been drinking probably just messing around with him when she texted that) she told me not to worry ever about that kind of stuff because her son is not that type of man, she proceeded to leave the room then texted me about how sorry she was and didn’t mean to freak me out and felt like shit about it. Ever since then she’s been acting kind of weird towards me (not really) maybe she’s uncomfortable or there’s another women idk LOL. Anyways yea what the hell do I do I literally can’t function properly.