GUILT Hey everyone, first of all, My ROCD journey stemmed almost two years ago from my previous relationship with my ex. In the end, she cheated on me and left me for someone else. In January, I got into a new relationship ship with my amazing girlfriend. I literally can’t describe how much I love this girl. She literally does everything to make me happy. We have the best bond and relationship ever which obviously OCD loves to destroy. Lately I’ve been dealing with the obsession of “wanting others” feeling. So basically this is where my mind latches onto other girls and convinces me I want/ would rather be with them instead of my girlfriend with no actual reason given. It doesn’t matter how ugly or how unlikely that chance could even be it will literally give me the feeling of wanting another girl. Unfortunately, it has latched onto my ex who bare in mind I hate the guts of which obviously makes it a bit more difficult as I’ve been fighting against the feelings even more than other girls because I know what type of person she is obviously because I had a past with her and she showed me her true colours. OCD is now making me feel guilty and trying to blame me for why she cheated. It could literally be the tiniest things. She cheated on her other ex partner who she was in a relationship for 5 years with him so I know that’s bullshit. Then it goes to “yeah well she never cheated until she met you” so tries convincing me it’s my problem instead of hers. Anyways, the other day I was on tiktok and noticed when I was seeing my current girlfriend before we made it official that I had liked some other girls tiktoks which is making me feel super guilty because for some reason I don’t do it anymore and would find it an issue if I did but why didn’t I back then. This is making me feel like a cheater and like my ex girlfriend and is giving me thoughts like we must be compatible if we both cheat even though I didn’t even realise at the time I was liking other girls tiktoks until now and is giving me false memory OCD making me believe I liked it for other girls to talk to me. I was also talking to another girl before I met my girlfriend on tinder who bare in mind I had never met nor dated just talked and she found out I was talking to other girls and went mad at me so it’s making me believe that I’m sort of cheater and is making me feel guilty for it. Please help all I want is to spend the rest of my life with my amazing girlfriend without having OCD and being manipulated into getting back with my ex when I prefer my current girlfriend who treats me right. It makes me feel like I’m a cheater or that I will cheat on my girlfriend which I believe is totally wrong and then it says you didn’t think it was wrong to like other girls tiktoks when you first started seeing her

I suffer with a constant worry of what if I’ve cheated. You name it I’ve thought I’ve done it. I’m quite flirty at nature and also insecure. Sometimes hand in hand I don’t think they balance each other out as the constant need for attention to validate myself can backfire. Although I have the best partner ever and she makes me feel nothing less than beautiful I still crave validation from others. That being said someone I used to work with left over half a year ago and when they worked at my current place of work we were very close. Text everyday, phone calls you name it. However looking back I was extra flirty as I wanted him to fancy me. I wanted the power to turn him down to make myself feel better. Awful I know. Now all I can think about is what if I’ve done something. What if I kissed him. What if I’ve slept with him etc. I’ve kept our whole conversations from the minute I got his personal number. I constantly search key words to see if my intrusive thoughts are real. I can except the uncertainty my therapist tells me about as if I have done the worst and cheated I would loose my partner and our 10 year relationship. I love her so much she is my life but I can’t stop thinking what if I’ve cheated. Does anyone else suffer with the same theme? If so how do you cope?

Despite the fact that I have never once acted flirtatiously with someone else over the course of my 3-year relationship, never talked to anyone inappropriately, never touched or interacted with anyone inappropriately, I have been battling constant ROCD obsessions centered around cheating ever since my partner and I got together. I am constantly worried about whether certain things are cheating: daydreaming about another person (already told my partner about this and he said it was okay and that he does it too), talking in a group chat with someone, sitting next to someone, speaking to them in person. I question my intentions. I worry that I cheated by wearing my hair a certain way in an attempt to look more attractive or by jokingly poking someone with a fake sword (despite doing it to other people too), looking through someone’s social media, etc. I have confessed so many ridiculous things to my partner and he’s always told me that none of them are cheating. I feel so guilty for being attracted to someone else, despite the fact that my partner said it was fine and normal. I have made a very very conscious effort to limit my interactions with this person. I never ever ever ever message them privately, I make an obsessive effort to NOT reply to their messages in a group server (constantly keeping track of the ratio of my replies to their messages compared to other people’s), to ignore them when I see them in person and hardly ever speak to them or initiate conversation with them. Yet I still feel like a disgusting dirty cheater who is hiding a big secret.

I am so incredibly terrified of betraying my partner. I love him so much more than I can even describe. He is such an amazing and supportive and kind person, he truly deserves the world. I have been dealing with an ROCD obsession with another person for the past 6 months. This obsession has completely wrecked my mental and emotional health and has caused me to feel physically ill. I have taken every possible measure to ensure that I do NOT cheat on my partner. I’m constantly checking and ruminating on interactions, I make sure to ignore this person whenever they send messages in a group Discord server unless absolutely necessary, I am obsessive about keeping track of the ratio of the number of messages I send in response to them compared to the messages I send in response to other people / the amount of messages other people send in response to them. I am literally considering making a spreadsheet tracking each person in the server’s reply frequency to other people, in order to analyze if I reply to them at an excessive frequency. The few times that I have seen this person in real life (group events), I have made sure to not initiate any conversation with them, to ignore them and not speak unless spoken to, to ensure that I am NEVER alone with them (even when one time they asked me to help them do something really quickly at a party, I made up an excuse because I was worried that going to help them would be cheating). I make sure to sit with other people and not them, I make sure that I never ever ever engage in a conversation in the server where they are sharing “deep” things, and I make sure I NEVER message them privately outside the server. The ONE time they messaged me privately (in response to something that happened in the server), I just sent a gif back and nothing more as the thought of having a conversation in private DMs made me feel like I was cheating. I make sure to talk about my partner frequently in that server (he is actually also in the server). However, I still feel like I am cheating mentally. I have confessed to my partner so many times. I asked him if an interaction was cheating and he laughed and said no. I have confessed to fantasizing about this person and to looking through their social media. He said both were fine. I am constantly wrecked by guilt no matter what I do. If I am just taking part in a group conversation, I analyze every single message and wonder if I have “intentions to cheat” before/after sending it, even when any normal person would just see that message and laugh and wonder how that could possibly be cheating. I have just grown to feel like such a despicable horrible and deceptive cheater. I have confessed so many times, I have told my therapist, and both my partner and my therapist have told me that I have the right to just move on and stop feeling the moral obligation to confess. But I just don’t believe it. It’s so hard for me to believe. I feel horrible. I have a trip coming up with my partner and my family. This is a once in a lifetime trip, taking my partner to my parents’ homeland and visiting my grandma for quite possibly the last time. I am so so so scared that OCD will ruin this trip for me.