Relationship OCD

[uk23]

My partner of 4 years has OCD and relationship OCD. Would someone who suffers from it mind giving me a little insight in to how it has an affect on your relationships? Or if there is a partner of a sufferer around.

[hempchick]

Hello, I'm a sufferer of ROCD and I can tell you this much: it's hell.
It attacks you either when you're stressed out about something else in life, or when you're perfectly happy with your relationship. In fact, and it took me a while to understand this, but people who have ROCD are generally very happy and in love with their partners, that's why they obsess about it. But something inside of us constantly doubts, tells us we are not good enough, tells us we're faking our love or that we don't even love the other person, makes us constantly question and over analyze every aspect of our relationships. I am lucky enough to have a very patient and understanding boyfriend, who despite all I've put him through with my doubts and everything still stays with me and believes I love him. Others aren't so lucky, and it can ruin many good relationships. And then we're filled with the worst regret.
So, in a nutshell, imagine looking at the person you love and questioning every little thing about them and yourself. Do you truly love them? You must. But what if you don't?
And it makes you physically ill. It makes you emotionally numb.
That's what it's like. Hope I could help and provide some insight, and good luck to you guys.

[Beckybooboo]

Hi,

I agree with Hemp, the ROCD comes at times when you least expect it and it plays a HUGE part in making you feel that your love is fiction and not fact.

I too have an amazingly patient boyfriend and he's fully aware that these thoughts aren't real and is continually patient with my regardless of all of my thoughts/doubts/worries.

The thing that you must comprehend with ROCD is that it's an obsession, an obsession is usually a ficticious thing caused by the mind to cause the sufferer to fight/flight at the wrong times for the wrong reasons. All I suggest, is that you're patient and understanding and also supportive, you need that yourself too, so ensure that you have good people around you who are able to provide you with the support to get yourself through this difficult time.

I wish you all the best.

[Bunnybun90]

anyone with OCD want to chat?

[Fly away Katie]

I have relationship OCD. I love my partner SO much but I question everything and doubt everything. I never feel I'm good enough. It really is hell. I also tap doors and windows ect to 'stop something bad happening' or the relationship ending ect. The list goes on xxx

[hempchick]

I am deathly afraid I have fallen out of love with my boyfriend, and that I am now just going through the motions of a relationship. I have spent such a long time worrying about it that I am just worn down and feel like nothing. I have no joy in my life right now. I used to make myself sick worrying whether or not we were going to work out. Now I feel apathetic towards everything. I still want to see him but I feel numb towards him. I can't picture myself with other guys... Like, he is my guy... But I just can't feel things like I used to.
I'm not sure if I've had OCD tendencies my whole life... I know I worried obsessively from the time I was little about everything to the point where I couldn't even go to school. I think I do check things sometimes, but in a way I feel like its been a part of my life for so long it would be hard to tell if it was OCD or just my personality.
My boyfriend is so understating and patient and kind and I hate to do this to him. The guilt is unbelieveable. I feel like I have so many of these intrusive thoughts that I literally cannot even begin to think about enjoying anything else. My mind is always on three subjects, and this is the order of their prominence:
Whether or not I love my boyfriend, if I'm secretly some sort of sick pedophile/sociopath, and my health. I constantly worry about chest pains, pains in my leg and having sleep seizures. But not loving my boyfriend is the worst.
Just a couple weeks ago I called him and basically said I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. He said he wasn't going anywhere, but admitted to not thinking about marriage or anything yet. I think this is what spiked me, and I went from sobbing hysterically for a couple days to just feeling depressed and disconnected from him.
I want so badly to feel how I did a few months ago. Right now I feel worthless, and I feel like a terrible girlfriend. He is such a good man, he deserves a woman who knows whether or not she loves him.

[Soulsista]

Hempchick I am exactly the same as you. I constantly cry to my boyfriend and tell him that he deserves better than me and that he deserves a girl who doesn't question every minute with him. It's amazing how one thing they say to you can spike you and make you analyse it over and over until it drives you crazy.

Uk23 I am also a rocd sufferer and believe me it is the most cruel thing a person can go through. Imagine finding the one person you want to spend the rest of your life with but you question it everyday. There are days when they will look at you with the utmost love because they do and it can be guilt free and then there are days when they look at you and all they feel is guilt because all they want is to love you in peace. I haven't told my boyfriend yet about my rocd he just understands that we get hormonal and everyone has their ups and downs. Honestly I don't know whether I should tell him as I think it would break his heart to know that I feel like that sometimes. Did it help you knowing your partner has this terrible illness??

[Katiex]

I have ROCD and OCD.

Mine is caused by the fact that my partner was with his ex for 10 years before he met me and early in our relationship she was still on the scene. I never felt good enough because his sister was best friends with her even though she cheated on him and was always talking about her in front of me. Or she would turn up at his sisters house while we were there. When me and my partner split for a year I found out he had been taking our son to visit his exes mum!!

He also kept alot of her stuff and would drive past their old house alot which made me paranoid. He didn´t seem to care or understand how it affected me.

I have become an absolute wreck over the years, obsessed and deeply in love with him but not convinced that he loves me back. I don´t want him to go anywhere without me. At one point I stopped him going to his sisters house. I check his phone, history, constantly drag the past up asking why he did this and why he did that.

I now have a library full of memories and incidents in my head that I can´t get rid of. Its like they are being thrown around in my head by a whirlwind and I´m constantly reminded of past events to do with him and his ex.

What I would say is that there may have been a trigger for your partner to become this way. Is there any event that could have caused it?

I think a starting point for me would be if my partner took a little responsibility for some of the things that have happened, apologise for some of the things he has done and offer some explanation. Whereas he just says the past is the past and expects me to just accept it.

I´m not saying you have done anything wrong yourself by the way! Just that there may be some reason behind your partners behaviour.

[dboy]

I have OCD, and the more I read on forums such as this I think I have ROCD.
I find myself worrying if I really love my girlfriend or if I just feel sorry for her because she's so nice and lovely. I once spent an entire party we went to worrying, and getting paranoid about wether I really fancied her even though I know I am deeply attracted to my partner.
We have been together for over 4 years, and have been happy for the most part but a few years ago I nearly broke up with her, because we became friends with an Italian girl who came to Bristol to work and to meet other men as she had only been with her boyfriend. I started obsessively worrying about wether I should be settling down with V or going out to date and sleep with more women before I thought about being 'grown up' as she is my first real gf.
It weighed on my mind for months with my mind fighting about wether I should break up with my girlfriend or not until I finally told her I wasn't sure if I wanted to be with her and that I wanted to go away to decide what I really want in life.
Naturally she broke down and I decided not to go away. Instead I told my counsellor about it and he suggested making a list of all the pro's and cons of being in my current relationship. There were tons more pluses then minuses when I did make the list, and when I really thought about leaving her it made me sad and upset.
Now we are getting wed in a couple of weeks, and up until recently I was excited & had no second thoughts about marriage. Then someone said something, and my 'paranoid' doubts started creeping into my head and I have spent the last two weeks worrying if I really want to marry my fiancé and if I even really love her. It's horrible!

---------- Post added at 13:47 ---------- Previous post was at 13:31 ----------

We hardly argue, and when we do it's usually caused by my issues.I can get hugely angry if she simply moves my stuff especially clothes from being straight. I veer from worrying
I am not doing my share if chores around the flat as I can be enormously lazy to then the other extreme of thinking that I'm being taken advantage of.
I go from craving sex and worrying I must not be good in bed if my partner doesn't want to be intimate to us having sex & me feeling guilty that she only said yes because of me.

[LouiseIvan]

I have recently found myself with this too. I can't imagine what it is like for my boyfriend but what I will say to the partner of an OCD sufferer is that the obsessions come from fearing loss. Your partner fears losing you so much that he/she is pushing you away.

I spend half my day obsessing over these doubts and then the other half feeling incredulously guilty and sick that I could ever think/feel these doubts. What we have to remind ourselves is, if these doubts were real then we would not feel such a sense of grief about them, we wouldn't kick ourselves so much afterwards.

The thing about OCD is that it constantly tricks your mind. I'm never at ease because I feel like I can't tell what are my own thoughts anymore or what is the OCD.

But if you are with someone with OCD please stay with them- the fact they tell you about these doubts and feel so guilty about them means they are OCD caused, and an illusion.