Since I began relationships at age 17, I have had a type of relationship OCD that has nothing to do with questioning my love for my partner or her sexual fidelity to me, but solely on ruminating about her past. It may not surprise you that the first time this happened, she was my first lover when I was 17, while she had had a few lovers before. Five years after we met (we were still very happily together after college!), I freaked out while in some general crisis, and finally admitted I had not slept with anyone before her, and that whole event jolted me into several months of psychological mess, treated then as anxiety and depression and insomnia, but that I now think was ROCD. Forever thinking about her past. Since that ROCD episode happened at age 22, I have never been hit by this syndrome (except perhaps very mildly and transiently) again till last month, nearly 30 years later.
Now, while my total number of partners has been very modest, it's fair to say that over the years (that first relationship broke up at age 25) I have now had a diverse experience with both very long-term and shorter-term relationships. I have never really been alone or without a lover since age 17, excepting a few months. So in some rational sense, my relationship and sexual life has been pretty decent, even a bit adventuresome.
Anyway, now I'm at the age of about 50, and have been married for 20 years to a woman who is absolutely delightful, supportive, mature, as well as pretty darn sexy. When we met, it was clear she had had more partners than I, and also that she had never been in a real longer-term relationship. But that was never really an issue out-front; we were both experienced adults looking for a lifetime partner. I'd describe her as relatively more traditional than "kinky", just always looking for the right person but wanting companionship during the search. She had insecurities about my past longer-term relationships early on (which probably eased my own insecurities about her at the time), and these resolved over a year or two in a natural fashion. My own usual relationship insecurities kinda remained in the background. Anyway, about a month ago, an old friend of hers sent her an email about a remembrance celebration that had happened for a guy who had been her first boyfriend, who had died in a car accident some time back (I had known about this before). Somehow, just this email combined with recent stress-related insomnia launched me into this ROCD phase where I try to take any bit I know about her past (most being those little snippets people tell each other very early on in a developing relationship) and question....I don't know what, everything and anything. Whether her past was "better" than mine, whether mine was "better" in terms of quality or depths of previous loves or morality or whatever...some of you people here know exactly how the brain works in these crises!
One detail is that I came from a working-class place, while my important loves have all been from upper-middle-class or higher backgrounds, one from a city in the East far from where I grew up, and two from foreign countries. My ROCD seems to fixate on idealizing their "perfect beautiful Sex-and-the-city lives" in a carefree past and city I cannot fathom, rather than on explicit sexual details or stuff like that. I don't know just yet what I am trying to prove to myself or what I am exactly scared of. My therapist (only 2 sessions so far) says it may relate to childhood/family, but we'll see.
Obviously, there is some major insecurity going on here on my part, and I'm trying to tackle that along with the OCD. At this age, I owe myself and my wife and our teenage daughter the best life I can give. I have started therapy as well as met with an M.D. psychologist who advises trying Prozac, which I am considering. Anyway, this whole thing is annoying and even shameful for me, as you can imagine. I love my wife, share most of this with her fully, and feel sorry she has to suffer through this with me.
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