Perhaps a relationship ocd sufferer?

Hi everyone

Wow I really didn't think that I'd ever do this but here I am. We'll it can't hurt to try right? So here goes. I'm really really confused, haven't had a lot of time to go through the forum and have just about a million questions running through my head, so I might be hard to understand. This might end up being a long post but I'll try my best to keep it brief so bare with me.

I'm a 26-year old young man still in the life of studying. About a year ago I started dating a girl from another town. In the beginning of our relationship we primarily had an awesome time, although I did have some doubts and fears already back then but I always thought that they were just because of my previous 4 and a half -year relationship in which I got treated quite badly. Anyway, we've been together about a year now, and even though I know my gf is one of the sweetest people I know, I am having these thoughts about having or wanting to leave her. When I really think about it, I know/feel that I have nothing to worry about and we get along fine, we never even argue and have a similar sense of humour. But still regularly I get these moments where I just think that this is totally not what I want and recently I've nearly had a few panic attacks over it. I constantly try to convince myself of whether or not I still want to go on, I might ask myself the question tens of times a day and the answer might be different everytime. It even feels as though the answers are somehow coming from different parts of my head!

I fantasize on how the break up would go and what I'd say and how it would feel. Sometimes I feel horrible thinking about it and sometimes the thought runs so deep that I might even start planning on when to do it. Still, there's this other side of me that always says no, dont do it. It's like there's these two sides of me that live on top of each other and I constantly switch between them, sometimes several times in an hour. The feeling of conflict and pressure inside my head is horrible and I pretty much think about this all day everyday. I constantly try to set my head on the final answer but either I just don't have guts to leave, or I really don't want to and want to make this work. I try to analyse my gf and all her faults and flaws and sometimes just end up making the vague assumption that even though we get along, we're just too different to be a couple. I know there are some things that bother me a little but at times I just feel they're not reasons to split up. When we're together I on one hand want to be close to her and it feels good. We still have sex frequently too. Then again at times I feel indifferent, even resentful towards my partner and just somehow close inside my head. All this again several times in a single weekend.

The fact that this mindless analysing and yes/no rollercoaster has occurred in some form in pretty much all of my relationships has me wallowing in the big question of whether I am just sick with ocd or if I just haven't met the kind of girl who makes me feel fine immediately.

Then there's the other problem where I start feeling guilty putting this on ocd. Even while writing this I had a couple of moments where I thought/felt "stop lying, you just don't love her and that's it". Then I'm afraid that if I start treating this as a disorder and it turns out it isn't, I might force myself to be with someone I'm not supposed to be with and at worst we'll break up years from now when we already have kids or something. I just want to find the truth and be cool with it. Sometimes I blame myself for not being a man enough to face the truth a tell her I don't want to go on but on the other hand I feel stupid about thinking/wanting to leave since I know my gf is a good person and especially good towards me. Can ocd work this way too or is this a sign of me living in a lie? I mean some people get along great, have intimacy and even sex and still just that (weird) "something" isn't right and they're just "not meant to be". I just dont know what to do. And when I think I do, I'm not able to act accordingly. It's like living in a limbo.

Ok, I guess that's it. Hope someone had the patience to follow through. I appreciate any insight on the subject and thank you for your time. I just wish I would be happy one day and wish it for anyone else caught up in problems such as these. It's not easy.

Thank you!

Hi, Narri, and welcome to Psych Central! Remember that we aren't experts here, but I would say you don't have what would be called OCD, but you are certainly obsessing over what to do about this relationship. Maybe on some level, because of your earlier bad relationship, you are worrying she will hurt you, and you think maybe you should leave her before it happens.

Are you able to see a therapist? I really think it would be good if you could talk to a professional counselor about the situation. That person would be able to help you get rid of the obsessional thinking and work through your feelings about the relationship.

Let's see what other folks have to say about it.

I am currently seeing my scool psychologist who I visited yesterday for the first time. It's not a long term solution since they can only provide about four sessions, but I might be redirected from there. After the visit I somehow felt calmer and the different pieces of my head at war with each other got a bit separated and I felt I could think more clearly. This didn't last very long however as until the night I was pretty messed up again when everything got mushed together again :/

Sounds like more therapy can be the answer, since only one session helped for awhile.

Yeah. Reading my post now, it kinda might seem that I'm "normally" second guessing and evaluating a relationship. Who knows maybe I am! Still what originally made me wonder if there is anything unusual about this, is the level of anxiety, the rapid shifting of my moods and thoughts and the fact that this has in some form happened to me in every single one of my relationships. This is now my fourth longer one.

And as I said before: One of the biggest questions that makes this simple thing (ok relationships aren't really that simple but you get the point) a huge deal for me is that I don't know if all my problems are because I just haven't met a person that doesn't cause this stirring in me, or if I just suffer from some sort of anxiety that always comes, regardless of who I'm dealing with. I've always thought of this but just lately the question has grown to be like a huge obstacle in my life, because of which I'm incapable of making any long lasting decisions. I'd feel like an idiot if I left this kind of person only to one day meet the same anxiety with another girl, yet I sometimes dread making any bigger expressions of affection to my partner because there is the possibility that we aren't right for each other for some reason and she'll be hurting even more if that one day turns out to be the case. So I just keep hanging on and hope that one day some lightning of wisdom hits my head or something..