Trying my best to word this without asking for reassurance- I am really struggling with the thought that I may have lied about something to my husband 2 years ago and that it was something important. I don’t remember feeling like I was lying at the time. I believe I probably left out certain information because I did not think it was relevant to his question, but now my mind is trying to tell me that I thought I was lying at the time and/or he would think it’s a lie. I am trying to remind myself that this is a very gray situation, and that someone can say something is a lie, and someone else can say it’s not a lie, and that’s it’s a matter of opinion. My main compulsion is confession and I’m really sitting through the urge right now because I know if I confess this something will just take it’s place. Any feedback on dealing with obsessions around lying?

I have false memory real event ocd, I’ve been married 13 years and I used to constantly bring up past mistakes from when we were dating and it RUINED our marriage, but I got medication and therapy and things got better untill a few weeks ago where everything crumbled. I have a memory that is 13 years ago of me being intimate with my husband (than boyfriend) while being intimate I have a memory of sending a text to a male who obviously liked me but I didi not while my husband was under the covers . And I keep thinking over and over how disgusting and inappropriate it was to do that especially doing it in the middle of being intimate 😞. I have confessed this to my husband last year and he didint believe me saying it’s probably a made up memory and would are not a slut and wouldn’t do that. Now i have guilt all over again for weeks and it’s taking such a toll on me it’s all I think about and try to remember every detail I’ve thought about it so much I don’t even know if it’s 100 percent true. But I can vividly see it when I close my eyes. How do I get over this guilt without confessing? Confessing would absolutely destroy my husband.

My husband told me recently he was going to hang out with a local friend he often goes to see. It got very late and I heard nothing from him. Tried calling and texting. Stayed up all night thinking maybe he was dead or injured. Logged into our cell phone account to see if I could find any recent location and discovered he had talked to someone on the phone that night but he was like 2 hours away from home at that time. And also saw a phone number he was spending hours on the phone with every day. I had been confronting him about his secrecy prior to that and he kept telling me it was this friend or that friend, or he was just taking the dog on a long walk or having a fire out back. He finally called me back in the morning and I yelled at him. He told me he was randomly with two friends from longer ago and had gotten drunk and passed out, and hadn't told me about these plans because I had a heart surgery a few weeks prior and health concerns and he didn't want to stress me out. He told me the phone number was a girl that he related to on trauma factors and that he views like a little sister. He said he didn't tell me because he was caught up in his trauma spilling of events he didn't share with a single person since they occurred to him 35 years ago, due to feelings of shame and anger, and that he thought I would view it as emotional cheating. I told him it really could be viewed as emotional cheating and in principle, honesty shouldn't be dependent upon the outcome... lying isn't justified because I would be upset by the truth. Since then, he's been more open with me and tells me when that girl is calling, talks to me about their conversations, answers her calls when I'm present. I talked to him about boundaries and things I'm uncomfortable with or bothered by and he changes those things. Especially because I have trauma from an emotionally abusive ex, having him lie to me when I directly questioned him about what I was perceiving or experiencing and telling me those experiences weren't real, when they actually WERE real, has really messed me up. Now when he wants to hang out with a friend, I don't trust it. But I'm handling these feelings in destructive OCD ways. I spend literally the entire time he's gone thinking and thinking and thinking about what if he's lying or what he might be doing instead of what he said. I call and text him intermittently and feel like all of my obsessive thoughts are confirmed if he doesn't answer right away. I'm always checking the phone history. The driving toll history. Scrutinizing everything. I cannot get out of this mindset. It's like this horrible mixture of emotional flashbacks and OCD. I don't want to live like this. I want to work on my relationship in productive ways. I want to be able to use my own time while my husband is gone. Even if he lied to me and is somewhere other than he said, I don't want to lie in bed just thinking and thinking and thinking for entire days and nights. I'm not sure what I'm really asking here. This is just the only place where I feel like I can share this without people thinking "wow she's crazy".

Does anyone feel the urge to confess secrets even though they’re not yours to share? My husband told me about a traumatic event he had and trusts me to keep the secret. It has NOTHING to do with me at all. And my brain is making me feel like I need or want to tell someone. I want to be trustworthy and my brain is making me feel like I’m not because of this obsession. It’s so confusing because I know I don’t need to but I feel like I “want to” because of the OCD anxiety? And the feeling of wanting to makes me feel more anxious and like a terrible person. I have confessed literally everything to my mom about my thoughts so she’s my safe person. And I had an emotionally abusive dad (probably how I got OCD at a young age - like 8 years old) that has now passed away. So confiding in her even with intrusive thoughts and messed up shit was safe for me. Does my brain feel like I need to tell her just because she’s my safe person? I hate the feeling of me “wanting” to tell at all too and can’t tell if it’s real and it’s making me feel like a horrible person. I literally have no secrets myself. His mom knows and so do I. So I’m not the only one that knows. But why is my brain doing this? It’s spiraling me out and has been for a few days. But I want to keep the secret because it’s HIS and it doesn’t affect me in any way. I mean sure I feel bad for him - but it’s from his past before we even met? Someone please help me rationalize why I feel these things and why it’s so confusing to know if you actually “want” to do something or if it’s OCD? It’s causing a deep anxiety pit in my stomach and has been for days now.