Anxiety has always impacted my intimate life since the beginning and it makes recovery in soocd so much more difficult. I am ashamed of myself and I feel broken in that department, like there is something wrong with me. At times it feels like I am forcing myself to like intimacy with my partner , but I Do want to be intimate with my partner. I miss the beginning when sparks were flying and his very touch made me feel electric. When I ruminate on it , it feels like something isn’t right or something is off and it terrifies me. When I say I enjoy pleasing my partner it feels like a lie, but I don’t want it to be a lie at all. My partner’s pleasure is important to me but I’m too afraid of intimacy at the same time to the point where sometimes it seems off-putting, gross, funny, boring, which is what causes the feeling of something missing which just makes me spiral more and more. I’m terrified I’m not good enough for him, I’m terrified I’m not aroused enough, what if I’m doing something wrong, is it supposed to feel like this? I know that a lot of these feelings stem from false standards I have about my body and my partners, low self-esteem, anxiety and ocd revolving my intimate life, trauma from past partners who made me feel used, etc. It doesn’t make sense to me, I love fantasizing about him and I, it’s so much better than porn or any other fantasy. But I read somewhere that a girl who was lesbian would fantasize about only rough scenarios with men and I do this as well. I often use rough scenarios in my fantasies and now I’m scared. I do it because when we’re slow and intimate, I feel all the anxiety creep in and all the fears get so loud and I get scared about what is happening. Unlike this girl however, I deeply crave soft moments with my partner , I just can never relax enough for them thus why I lean on rough scenarios. In real life, slow kissing is so much better than anything and I wish I had the confidence to carry that feeling to the bed. Additionally, my partner arouses me on a level I can not accomplish on my own. Even when I’m alone thinking of him I still feel much more aroused in his presence. But yet when I see his body I tend to hyper focus on his flaws or if im not instantly aroused by his body I worry this means I’m not attracted to him. I love his body, but to me intimacy is about so much more than that so of course the body alone isn’t always enough. I have absolutely no problem when he is pleasuring me, I love it and just want him closer to me. When it is time to reciprocate however I start to panic once again, I worry way way too much about what I’m doing and if I’m doing it right or enjoying it “enough”. This panic makes me want to not do anything and is why I feel like something is “ missing “ because I really want to be able to do that for him and the idea really does arouse me but I can’t it’s so scary and anxiety provoking that I’d rather not. Its not that I don’t care about his pleasure or that I’m repulsed by him because everything about him outside of intimacy draws me in and I want him to want me and I want to want him but it’s too much fear to truly let go and take in the moment. It’s always been like this even before soocd which makes me feel horrible. I’m scared that I’m using all this as a front to hide that I’m lesbian, but unlike how I enjoy fantasies with men, the idea of being intimate with a woman seems like a loss, a chore, a punishment and not something I’d ever want. With my partner I want to work through these issues and have a fulfilling bedroom life even if it means working through heavy trauma and fear and having to learn new things about myself , but if these issues were to happen with a woman I’d much rather never be intimate again or sneak off with men. I don’t know what to do to be better and it makes me feel hopeless. Last night I had an amazing moment with my partner over the phone, it was so good but of course my thoughts have attacked again to say something is missing. I don’t want to go through this anymore , I want my partner and I to have good intimacy.

I’m struggling with something I’m afraid to even admit out loud. I’ve been in a long-term relationship with someone I love deeply. He’s kind, safe, and emotionally close to me — and we’ve built a life together. But I keep obsessing over the fact that I don’t feel much sexual attraction anymore. Or maybe… I never truly did? At the beginning, I felt butterflies, excitement, connection — and I assumed that meant I was also attracted to him physically. But now, after reading so much and reflecting more deeply, I’m starting to wonder if I ever truly felt sexual desire in the way I was “supposed to.” Maybe my feelings were more about emotional longing, comfort, and romantic closeness — but not sexual chemistry. And now I don’t know what that means. OCD makes it so much worse. It constantly tells me: – “If you really loved him, you’d want him.” – “You’re leading him on.” – “What if you’re lying to yourself?” – “If you try to fix this and fail, you’ll have to leave.” I feel stuck between wanting to fight for this relationship — and being terrified that trying will just prove it’s hopeless. Has anyone experienced something like this? Can OCD really make you question something so deeply personal? And how do you move forward when even trying feels terrifying? Any thoughts or support would mean the world right now.

Hello! I just needed a place to vent.. Me and my boyfriend are having a hard time right now because of my anxiety and because I have had vestibulodynia for 3 years. If you have a flare up of relationship ocd then this might trigger or something but I don’t know. Anyway, my vestibulodynia has made me afraid of intimacy a lot and my partner also in fear of hurting me has withdrawn a lot too. I still want him, it’s complicated. This year, things have been tougher with finding a cure, and that’s when I’ve started to have the thought ”what if it would be different with someone else?”, but I don’t want anyone else. I have had these urges to stare at attractive men, which I don’t really know why, a lot of fantasies come up in my mind, just popping in. About two times this year, I have been staring at an attractive guy/or just a guy a few times without really knowing why. I take it as a sign together with my withdrawal that I no longer want him, and is cheating. The thing is, I don’t like what I’m doing, and I don’t know why it happens, it’s like I can’t physically look away. I have to control myself to not stare. I know I can’t ask for reassurance here, but I would really like to know if this is ocd. I also had a fantasy of flirting but not leading to anything more, I think I wanted more chemistry with my boyfriend and it manifested into someone random that can’t hurt me. I don’t know what I just said meant but when I had it, I think I was clear with that I knew I only wanted those feelings with him, my boyfriend. The times I can’t stop staring, what usually happens in my mind is that I see that they are attractive, then I kind of take in their features but then I remember not to stare, but it’s weird cause it’s not like a calm ”oh so beautiful” it’s like my head keeps being turned and I physically cannot stop. I have heard of stare ocd but I’m not sure. It’s complicated because yes I feel sad because my vulvodynia messed up for us, because I was in heaven with him, before this relationship anxiety, and that was like one year ago still. When I don’t feel shame and when I allow myself, he makes me so so happy. But right now I feel like I don’t deserve him. He would never do anything like that. It feels like I have cheated, because it feel unloyal what I did. I wouldn’t want him to do that and I don’t know what I would do but I think I wouldn’t want to be with him. I’m so afraid that I have messed up. Sometimes I feel like I need to tell him, but I don’t know. I’m so scared because my dad was a cheater, I NEVER want to be like that. The fact that I’m doubting so much of I should be with him makes me feel like I’m cheating and he deserves better. It’s strange because it came from nowhere it feels like, it started when I started to give up on my vulvodynia for real, and when I felt like he seemed to care less. I never looked at guys like I have this year before, I feel so horrible. I wanted our relationship to be pure and loyal.

This is going to be long and all over the place. To give some context I’ve dealt with SOOCD for a long time now and it had very bad effects on my past relationship. I had a hard time being intimate with my past partner because I was always subconsciously checking if I was getting aroused enough, if I was attracted to him, if I truly liked him, or if I was lying to myself (yk the whole deal). I literally felt nothing but anxiety when we did things which made everything worse. I was also extremely depressed which made my libido and attraction towards men completely vanish (still have low libido and my attraction is kinda the same). Me and the guy broke up and a couple years ago we reconnected. When I saw him again I was extremely attracted to him, romantically and sexually. This made me so happy because I finally felt some confirmation that I knew who I was and my thoughts weren’t real after years of being tortured by them. We didn’t end up lasting because my feelings started to shift but I truly blame that on the fact that it was just a dumb old high school relationship, he was a terrible boyfriend in the past, and we had nothing in common. However while we were together, I had dealt with really bad relationship anxiety. I found other people attractive which gave me reassurance, but also made spiral because I thought it meant I didn’t like him anymore, I was lying to myself about my feelings, and I questioned everything about the relationship. Fast forward to now, I am now in a new relationship and I’ve known this guy for a long time. I developed a crush on him which again made me really happy bc I haven’t had a crush in a VERY long time. I made a couple of posts on here about how I started to overthink everything (pls read those to get more context I don’t want to make this even longer). I started to get really anxious and had more intrusive thoughts about lying to myself about my feelings/and sexuality, not really liking him, not being attracted to him, yk all that. I was able to manage it by watching a video about rumination where the guy basically just said “stop thinking about it.” He said to just let it float there, don’t engage with it, don’t try to solve or understand, don’t try to replace it, don’t say a mantra, don’t be mindful, just let it be there and move on. I also went on reddit and this guy said to stop hyper focusing on the attraction/ the “right” feelings bc the more you try to look for them the less you will feel it. Anyways, I took the advice and the next time we hung out I felt comfortable and just so much better. It was the sweetest date and I truly had a fun time. However, when we kissed I immediately started over analyzing and questioning everything. I had bad experiences with my ex because I kept trying to analyze my feelings like do I really like this kiss? Am I actually attracted to him? Why am I not feeling super excited right now? Why did all these good feelings just go away? It was so annoying and heartbreaking for me because I just want to be normal, I want to truly enjoy this relationship. I want to stop automatically checking and over thinking everything. We’ve discussed sexual things and it automatically made me hyper analyze everything making me feel more anxious and unsure about the relationship and my sexuality. There have been times where we talked about them and I’ve thought about it with no worry, and I even got turned on by it (tmi i’m sorry). But I’m worried that I’ll have the same bad experiences I did with my ex and it’ll ruin how I view the everything. I was so excited for this but now I feel so scared and anxious again. I really want to enjoy this, he’s truly an amazing person and I want to be with him without being bombarded by this shit 😭. Sorry if none of this made sense. Please give me advice if you have any!!!!