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?

Feel guilty for not giving into compulsions like rumination and confessing? I feel guilt for having an intrusive thought, trying to shrug it off or just giving it a few seconds of thought and moving along. This sounds like improvement but I still struggle with the anxiety and the guilt. The shame. I’ll be okay and then I’ll remember I have OCD and my stomach will drop and I just want to curl up and cry.

So, I know my capacity to get fixated on things. And it's normally something that's relatively remote but, my latest issue is really getting to me and I was wondering if people have any advice. I'm avoiding getting too into specifics, as I don't want this to get reassurance-y but, in essence.. I came to the realisation recently that people who I'd been "friends" (feels like the wrong term now) when I was younger were not very nice people, and normalized a lot of very unpleasant behaviour towards other members of the group. They really normalized it, sold themselves as figures of authority, as older and more responsible and grown-up than others, and looking back, they acted horribly. And coming to this realisation, that I'd been manipulated into just accepting their behaviour has just... broken me. My OCD has latched onto it and I can't stop feeling irreversibly tainted by it. I've talked to others about it, and they've reassured me, told me it's not a big deal and that I hold myself to too high a standard, but none of that sticks. I feel better for a bit, then think 'Maybe when you told them you were skewing it to make yourself look better' or 'Did you leave out a crucial detail'. I keep ruminating over and over, trying to remember exactly how everything played out, trying to figure out if I fed into the behaviour, if I did something bad myself (because y'know, I feel like I was accepting of it at the time, so what does it say about my own values?). I know I need to stop doing all this if I want to improve, but then some part of me keeps saying 'So, you're just going to let yourself off the hook then?' Normally, I can rationalize my own fears to some degree, assure myself something won't happen, but the realness of the situation, and the fact I only came to understand the reality of it because the thought had been bothering me means it feels so much more all-encompassing. I know confessing in itself is a compulsion, but I keep feeling that if I'm not I'm somehow concealing what I 'really am' from others around me, and any positive interactions are me deceiving them in some way. I feel like I can't enjoy anything in life right now, and a good part of me feels I should not enjoy it ever again. If anybody has any advice on it, I'm all ears. Or even hearing if you relate to these feelings, I might appreciate the solidarity at least.

I just got off my session today and after having a confession to my husband last night with a compulsion, he obviously is going to have more questions. My therapist says not to confess because I am growing my OCD . However, this is really OCD and is about something that actually happened. My husband said, that it sounds like I have someone in my life who is justifying withholding information or lying to him. Of course when I have my obsession compulsions, he makes sense. Can somebody help explain this to me? How is my husband not right or is he?