Dear Unloveable:

You shared that you may be suffering from OCD, not diagnosed yet, that you’ve been obsessively regretting mistakes you made in the beginning of your now 1.5 years relationship. You’ve been so distressed over this that you went on antidepressants.

You met your boyfriend in 2017, when you were 17. After your first date with him, his ex messaged you saying that “he was still messaging her telling her he was still  in love with her”. You then argued with him and the two of you didn’t speak until 2018. He then ghosted you because he was “struggling with his mental health pretty badly”. In the start of 2019, he messaged you, apologising, you forgave him and the two of you started a relationship.

During the start of 2019, when your relationship with him was just beginning, before you and your boyfriend were official, you communicated with another guy you knew before, sending him (naked, I assume) pictures of yourself. After you and your boyfriend became official, that other guy messaged you, flirting with you, asking if you “wanted to see a picture of his.. you know”, and you answered that you “kinda miss (his.. you know)”.

Three months later, you met a guy at work who you found attractive. One day, you and that guy “ended up speaking all day at work”. This guy told you sexual jokes,  you “haha-d” his jokes and told a friend at the time that this guy made you horny. Your boyfriend knew of this guy and was jealous. You accused him of being overly jealous and had a huge argument with him.

Over a year later, currently, you are “filled with serious regret over this”, and you hate yourself (“I hate myself so much for everything I did”). You confessed to “most of this” to your boyfriend and he said “it was all fine and it was so long ago”, but that made you feel worse because you feel that he should hate you.

You asked: “How can I overcome this?

My answer: I suggest that you confess- not to your  boyfriend- but to yourself: that indeed you were not faithful to your boyfriend back in 2019, that you really did cheat on him.

When you deny and/ or minimize cheating on him, you prolong our own pain and end up  obsessing, regretting and hating yourself. If you accept that you did, you have the opportunity to mourn your misbehavior, to feel sad about it for a while, and then- let it go, move on, seeing to it that you no longer cheat on him again.

Can you do that: admit it to yourself (here on your anonymous thread, if you want) that you indeed cheated on him back in 2019?

anita