Thank you so much Anita for getting back quickly. I know all these thoughts are normal but somehow they seem to freak me out. and I think it’s not OCD and that I just have an inuition that I want to be alone and I’m forcing something. Do you think there is a reason that EVERYTIME something really good is happening or is going to I freak myself out? Thinking that my OCD is going to ruin my happiness. Like this is all happening because I’m going on a trip with him and my mind doesn’t want me ENJOY it. Why does OCD do that??

its just scary to think what if I don’t want to be with him and I’m forcing it??? I start panicking. And then I really start panicking when I notice that like I enjoy flirting… and I want guys to want me. NEVER do I want to cheat ever I could never I would panic, but I want them to like WANT me and flirt with me and be just be able to say oh haha sorry you’re not getting me, I miss doing that lol. And then when my boyfriend interpreted my OCD as wanting to break up…. And he single… and that he wasn’t good enough for me, it broke me. I couldn’t even sleep last night.

Ive always thought about therapy and started it at one point with a specialist but I feel like I’m always so good with just a couple of bad days a month that it sucks because I always think I’m fine. I hate that he can’t really understand what’s happening in my head.

Anita,

How have you been? I have taken a couple of weeks offline so I can stop resorting to googling almost as a compulsion of mine when I am feeling anxious about my relationship.  I would say that these last three weeks have been very good in our relationship! I have officially really stopped constantly asking about the incident with the other girl. I honestly feel good about that situation because I officially feel that I know everything and have no other questions to ask about her because I got what I wanted to hear, so I would say we have really moved on from that. The only thing, which is extremely normal after being lied to for such a long time (I understand he really didn’t HAVE to tell me because we were separated) but at the end of the day I did ask him for so long and he always lied to my face about it, so now I of course have trust issues. I find myself asking him occasionally is there anything else? someone else? I know this is annoying him and he constantly reassures me that it was not.

But I think my OCD has really attached to this situation and I don’t know how to UNattach it. I find myself going date by date that we weren’t together in our past making sure there’s nothing I’m not missing. A girls number, an uber trip, a message, text, anything. I go to my photo-albums and his to make sure I know which days we were broken up and if anything happened those days. All of this, and I still haven’t found anything. NOTHING. It has become a compulsion of mine to check everything and ask him all the time to make sure were in the place we need to be.

I also find myself freaking out over the stupidest things. I recently had a friend that her boyfriend confessed to her a year later that he had been with over 5 girls in their relationship (of course this got to my head and traumatized me that maybe my boyfriend is doing the same), at one point in talking about this with my boyfriend, he said something like “oh her boyfriend was TOO honest, poor girl” and my heart sank. I automatically freaked out thinking my boyfriend believes there is such thing as TOO honest. When I talked to him about this, he told me he thought her boyfriend was too honest in the way of being BRUTALLY honest to purposefully hurt someone. The guy told my friend how he danced with other girls etc and my boyfriend just said that is unnecessary when you’re telling a girl you slept with 5 girls.. dancing should be left out instead of being added to make this worse. Which I get, fine.

I just find myself constantly asking stupid things like “are you sure you didn’t even just get a NUMBER?” “buy someone a drink?” like I constantly just want there to be more thinking thats going to satisfy me, does that make sense? Not like if he told me any of those things I would break up with him, why I am obsessed with wondering if there is more?

Another thing my boyfriend does, that I think many people do, I even find myself doing it sometimes, is he laughs when I ask him questions. But previously, he has laughed and HE WAS LYING. So now everytime I ask him something and he laughs I think he’s lying and I obsess about it. He says he just does that, and that the questions are ridiculous and annoying and he just laughs sometimes but that doesn’t mean he’s lying, but my OCD makes me think otherwise. I know he’s asked me questions and Ill laugh and I swear I am being truthful, so I understand that.

Overall, I just feel like my OCD is really obsessing about this situation and making it so much worse. I find myself maybe twice a week being REALLY not in the present and drifting off, reacting to my OCD, asking questions, and just not having a good day. I know trust isn’t earned over night and this is a process that is going to take time to get our relationship exactly where we need it to be, but it really is like I just want it all to happen in one day and start enjoying life.

Another thing I feel is that I have a  lot of resentment and haven’t really FORGIVEN him for lying and doing what he did, which is why its constantly bothering me. How do I find myself to forgive him, fully forget the past, who HE WAS, and just focus on WHO HE IS. Our relationship really was a mess I would say in the beginning, just because of the age, the environment, college for the first time, everything just made it a BAD time. So I find myself just focusing on how our relationship WAS and not how it is now and has the potential to be in the future. He seriously still till this day, has been amazing I could easily say every single day since the December. That is 6 months.. of no issues. I see him opening up more, us fighting less, no stupid break ups, drunk fights, anything. He admits he’s changed and he is never going to leave me again and he just feels so different about everything. I wish we could’ve started dating now instead of our freshmen year of college… or maybe just broke up for a month and just started ALL over, clean slate. But I really just CANT leave him now over how our relationship WAS it just seems like I would regret that for the rest of my life because he is everything I want at the current moment.

I just really think I need to learn how to trust, accept the process, not give into my OCD, and live in the present moment. But so much easier said than done? Any tips?

*leaving my boyfriend is never going to be an option because I love what we are now and the man he has become and I just want to fix myself and my anxiety and truly enjoy what he is currently giving me*

Wow thank you Anita, even for the short post itself.

I wish you understood how every couple of months I have a doubt that I doubt myself STILL about that topic… I’ll go around in circles “am i forgetting something?” “did i purposefully take it out of my memory?” “oh I remember I showered with my biological dad once, maybe it was then and I can’t remember?” “omg what if its when I used to sleep with my grandparents?” I seriously have doubted myself for long thinking that my OCD developed because I was triggered… I never even thought that at such a young age my mom MAKING me doubt myself, would be the cause of this. And its true. This is was really the first time I was doubted about something that was so detrimental. I do feel for her though, I know it is a natural mom’s response to be open with your kids and ask questions and assume the worst considering many kids never talk about it when it is happening to them. One time she even told me she would get divorced if I told her… like do you know what that does to a 10 year old? Like that I was capable of making up some lie (my ocd made me think this way) and that my whole family would be torn apart? Crazy to even think back on it and it was so much scarier in the moment because I have NO CLUE I had OCD and what it even was, I literally thought I was crazy for thinking my thoughts. But just wanted to say that itself just made me feel so much better…. I was tossing and turning at night wondering what your response was going to be, and it was great to wake up to that.

Anita,

No I would say that was when it REALLY triggered me and really effected me the most.

My mom was a young mom, 19, she thought this movie was going to be Rated R for language….its called Georgia Rule. It had Lindsey Lohan, one of my favorite childhood actresses, and my mom thought it was about a young girl who was a rebellious high school student who gets sent to live with her grandma… which is was about, but she was rebellious because she was being raped. It was so out of the blue I remember that film like yesterday and I was like HOLY COW what??? I was in shock and traumatized. Wonder how my life would be if I never watched that. Would my OCD have developed eventually? I would say that was one of the most self confusing parts of my life, I was so young and did not know anything. I was so innocent minded and that made me learn about the real world, too soon, before I was ready to learn about those things. But yes please answer, I have been waiting for you response hesitant to see what you have to say 🙂 thank you so much and hope to hear from you in the morning.

Anita,

Thank you a lot for your response. I can start off by saying a LOT happened in my younger childhood that I can tell you about and maybe you can connect it to you? But let me start off by saying why I feel like I do. I was single for 18 years, I felt very independent, i always felt that i was very worthy of an amazing perfect guy because I knew a lot of men wanted me (not to be cocky), so this made me someone that wanted really high standards. So when me and my current boyfriend started dating, I had only the highest expectations, so the moment I didn’t think he treated me like a first priority, I wanted out. Idk if I really wanted out, or if I just wanted to show him that if you don’t make me a priority I don’t need you, I can easily leave. With the lying, idk how that relates to childhood lying because when we first got together, I trusted the guy with my entire life. I never questioned him, we lived in different cities and I never once doubted him, but once I caught him in his first lie, all that trust went away. I hate that this happened so long ago, but I guess I’m caught up on it because I recently just really found out what happened and I obsess that there must be SO MUCH more he’s lying about if he was capable of lying about that one incident and he only told me the 1st time because I messaged the girl and the 2nd time because I brought it up. What if there is an incident that I don’t know about and I don’t ask about SO he doesn’t tell me?? That’s my worry. And it’s an everyday worry of mine.

Now to my childhood, my parents had me very very young at 19. My dad was involved in growing weed, and at the age of 5, he fled the country after breaking his probation. He disappeared from my life on an off for the last 15 years. But…. my mom got remarried when I was 6 and I LOVE my stepdad, HES treated me like his own, has paid for everything for me, adores me to be honest, loves my boyfriend, would do anything for me, he just paid a trip for me to Mexico, he’s been there to back me up and support me through everything. So I wouldn’t say that my biological dad even had a big impact on me… I understand it’s hard to deal with at 5 and it probably was the original cause of my anxiety (but my family has anxiety it’s very genetic SO I wouldn’t blame my anxiety and OCD on anything tragic).

I have currently been texting my dad, he has a phone in the prison apparently and we’ve been talking a lot and I’ve been giving that relationship a chance to form. For a while, i didn’t talk to him, and I did hold a grudge, but I really at this point in time, don’t think I hold him accountable for anything, it’s not like once he left I had a horrible childhood and didn’t have anything. I honestly have more than what he could’ve ever given me. At a young age I was lied to where my dad was, they told me he was working in Europe in a car business, so I was lied to. But idk… i REALLY don’t know IF that causes anything. I’ve never been someone with trust issues, i trust very easily actually. It’s just one you break it, i can’t believe anything. And it sucks that i can say that i haven’t done anything in our ENTIRE relationship to betray him, so it sucks to FEEL betrayed by him. That’s my big issue, the constant question, “do I deserve someone that was perfect from the beginning?”

I have noticed that I wasn’t that nice to him, but when I get angry I tend to just say things that I don’t mean and I just wanted to hurt him so show him how mad I was. So when he told me that first girl pop kissed him, I screamed called him stupid gross disgusting an idiot etc… which is so wrong and I have apologized and haven’t done that in a LONG time, and maybe that’s why we’re so happy at the moment?

Anita,  you helped me a lot last time so I’m going to answer you first! Sorry it’s been days, I completely forgot I posted on here.

My first initial post was discovering in November because I messaged the girl and my boyfriend finally confessed that they just “made out” the Wednesday after us really really really breaking up. But, since November. Our relationship has been SO different and we’ve been so much better than we have ever been. Last weekend, I asked him like oh are you sure nothing happened with this girl that’s more serious? I always just found it odd that they had sex previously in life multiple times, and that he slept at her house and really didn’t do anything more. He then confessed that they did have sex (Saturday which is the day after we had a really big fight but we were still broken up. *just in case you are confused, I had broken up with him October 17, for two weeks we were separate but trying to see if we could work things out, October 30th we got into a very big argument I said I wanted nothing to do with him etc ignored him when he came and talked to me, and THAT night he admits that he got drunk and that’s when he had sex with this girl) and he knew he had to tell me and was just waiting for the right moment but didn’t want to ruin things now that we have been so great and that he’s proved himself to me that he’s changed so much etc.

so technically of course, I know he didn’t cheat, and I guess I am glad it was the same girl and it was a mistake he said made once etc. but I guess my major issues are that he lied for so long.. as these past 5 months I have really tried to start trusting him. Which it’s weird to explain because I trust him SO MUCH at the current moment I know he would never do anything now he’s such a different man, but I don’t trust what he’s telling me about the past because he’s lied about it for so long. Like what if there were more girls and he’s not telling me because I don’t have the slightest clue? That’s my biggest worry. How do I get over this.

I really don’t want to leave him over how he was 2 years ago, especially since I am so happy with the man he is now and how he treats me. I seriously could see myself marrying him. But how do I move on with the past? How do I accept that was the old immature him? The HIM that wasn’t completely in love with me yet because at the time we had only been dating for 5 MONTHS…. How do I just accept that he handled things differently than I wanted him to at the time but that he wouldn’t handle it the same way now? He’s made it so clear to me that he is so in love with me and has really realized what he wants and how much I mean to him, and his recent actions have really proven that. Just help me move on from the past, I hate that it’s 2017 and I’m stuck dealing with 2015 issues…  issues that only happened 5 months after dating, and technically being broken up…

So question, it’s obvious that i haven’t been feeling myself and it’s affecting my relationship. But should I refrain from compulsions which i believe is constantly talking about it. Like right now, I’m with him and we’re great watching tv but it’s like inside in my head it’s nagging me that something is wrong, should I mention something? He’s constantly saying that I’m ruining the good days by talking about my feelings, the past, and anxiety for the future and his future behavior. How do I deal with this?