its amazing how you don’t know me but you are so wise that you are able to put this all together. Are you going to be able to tie this to the incident with my boyfriend?

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*

Anita. I’ve been having a really bad couple of days and I think your great amount of knowledge can definitely help me and hopefully calm me down if you could explain to me what’s happening and how it really is my OCD once again.

I recently think I have developed a really bad episode of ROCD (relationship OCD). Let me give you a back story of my relationship. Where we live in college, I am with my boyfriend every single day, sleep with him every single night, he is my partner in everything and we don’t really hang out alone. Now, I recently last Friday, came back to my hometown where I find myself a lot less with my boyfriend and definitely with friends. All my friends are single and I almost feel that I feel guilty having fun WITHOUT my boyfriend. And my OCD attaches to this and says oh you don’t want to be with your boyfriend. You want to be single and enjoy life. You want to break up. You don’t love him. And I spiral out of control and get where I am now.

Another thing I notice, which I think is JUST NORMAL, is that I want other men to want me. I like going out and other guys thinking I’m beautiful and trying to talk to me. I have always been such a flirty person I get along with everyonw. and I feel that since I’ve gotten a boyfriend, I’ve lost that about me. I don’t have many guy friends, I don’t connect with random people like I always used to. But is there anything wrong with wanting to feel wanted by other men??  My boyfriend compliments me every second of everyday… it’s not that he doesn’t make me feel beautiful. He makes me feel more beautiful than anyone has ever made me feel.

Another thing I’m thinking is that we are going on a trip alone together in 4 days and my OCD is trying to get me to ruin it. This might be happening just sonmy OCD can say oh you’re not going to enjoy this trip you’ve been waiting MONTHS for and wanted for years with him. I’m in control and I’m going to ruin it for you. And what other way to ruin the Romantic trip than my convincing YOU that you don’t want to be with your boyfriend?? I find that my mind does that when I’m really happy.

Another thing I can say is that I am finally so happy with my boyfriend that it’s scaring me that this could be the guy I marry? He is so perfect and I am so young that it’s starting to scare me that I can really marry my first boyfriend.

Overall, I just have been really tense in my relationship and my OCD has really latched on to me believing that I want to be alone and I start panicking because I love my boyfriend so much. Another thing I can add is that we have BARELY been together this past week maybe 3 times for some hours but that’s it, so I can’t even reassure myself with him becusse he’s not around so my OCD is spiraling. Now we are on vacation desperately with families so I won’t see him for another 4 days either until we go on our vacation together.

anita please help me understand myself and these horrible thoughts and how I could not worry and feel better about myself and my boyfriend because he’s everything I want and I love him so much and I hate having these thoughts. By the way, I talked to him about all this and he says he understands but that he never wants other girls to think he’s hot. And when I told him he asked me if I wanted to be alone because he thinks I think I’m too good for him and that I’m acting like I want to break up and that’s what KILLED me, he told me what my OCE was telling me, and it’s brought me to the lowest point of this week, and now I’m freaking ou. I can’t believe he thought this. It’s like the incident with my mom when she asked me the questions my OCD was convincing me was true and it made me lose my mind and I got really bad anxiety for days.

please help as soon as you can. Thank you ALWAYS!!!

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.

I can totally see how telling him was not the right decision. Now he might be insecure and now I might obsess that he thinks I want to break up and it’ll probably have a bigger impact on me than him. I just felt guilty not telling him. I felt guilty that I was thinking this and I almost just anted him to tell me yes sometimes I do want other girls to find me attractive and I thought I would feel better (temporary relief) but instead he told me everything I didn’t want to hear “I don’t do that, I only like to look good for you, I like being told we’re a good looking couple that’s why I like to look good, are you too good for me? ;9 you want to be single? And it KILLED ME. I told him I no longer wanted to talk about it because it increased my anxiety and I made it a real life issue and not an issue in my head like before.

About the childhood thing… a moment specifically doesn’t come to mind but I’m sure there are some stuff there? It’s just so weird it’s always happened to me. I remember I got a really nice car as my first car and the entire time I couldn’t be happy about it I was like did my parents really want to get me this? Do I deserve this? Do they have this kind of money? I never can ENJOY something without thinking bad about it. So I know I’m going to Mexico and I just want to have a good time and I was excited for so long and now I’m like what if I ruin it what if I have an anxiety attack what if my OCD ruins the whole trip and I can’t control it what if I act on my OCD and break up with him. What if I can’t have a good time because I’m so stuck in my headS I notice this every time I go somewhere exciting. I can say that my OCD random attacks as a young kid really did ruin HAPPY moments in my life transferring to a new school, summer vacation, etc. so I can see that I was excited about all of those things and my OCD ruined it for me . Getting a car, a dog, school, everything.