Home→Forums→Relationships→"Should I forgive my boyfriend and stay, or should I move on?"
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March 6, 2017 at 8:26 am #136137
DanielleParticipantSo, this is going to be pretty long but I really need all the help I can get because I am having a really hard time. Let me start off by saying that since I was very young I have been diagnosed with anxiety and (pure) OCD (obsessive thinking), I think this is important because I think a root of a lot of my problems are because of this.
Ok, so lets start. I am in my third year of college and have been with my current boyfriend for almost 2 years. I would say we have had a pretty rocky relationship, but really I blame it on the age and timing of it all. My boyfriend moved to the same college I am attending after we started dating. He decided to join a fraternity (I encouraged this), and I regret it immensely. My boyfriend really started falling to a lot of pure pressure and spending a lot of time with these guys. In September of 2015, I broke up with him because I believed he wasn’t making me a priority and I wanted him to work on it (Looking back, this was immature and I should’ve just talked it out and worked on fixing it together *but this is my FIRST RELATIONSHIP so its all a learning process). During this time, we would see each other all the time,still sometimes kiss etc. One day, we went out and a girl came up and kissed him. He ran to me immediately and I shut him down and said I wanted nothing to do with him, called him all these names etc. (Again, immature. I shouldve been grateful that he was honest with me). Well he kept trying for the next day and I kept shutting him off (mind you we were still “broken up”) so some days go by and we are just small talking and he ends up making out with this other girl.He runs to my house immediately after BUT DOES NOT TELL ME.
I originally, had no idea that this happened because he lied for a YEAR every time I asked him, until this last November, when I messaged the girl myself (my OCD got the best of me and I fell into this compulsion and decided to message her). And she ended up telling me the truth. Now. SINCE THIS ALL, my boyfriend has been 110% AMAZING, its like he’s a completely new guy. He said he didnt want to tell me because he really wanted to be together and was scared if I knew, I would leave him, which I won’t blame him because of how bad I acted the first time when it wasn’t even his fault. Now this is what really I believe started the OCD in this relationship because now I obsess that everything he is telling me is a lie, or that he has all of these MILLIONS of lies and other girls that he isn’t telling me about.
My boyfriend and I have had this “BIG issue” and then some minor ones. He was 19-20 at the time and sometimes would feel that he was missing out, etc.. and would break up with me for 2 days and then realize immediately that he made a mistake and he hasn’t done this in 8 months, like I said he has been amazing. BUT I FEEL LIKE I AM STUCK IN THE PAST. He has proven to me that he really has changed, and he knows what he wants, and he has been so so so good. He has stopped going out, lets me have all his passwords to everything, has (from what I think) been really honest with me etc. Another thing is, my family knows what he has done and they still ADORE him. My mom is very understanding and said its the age and everyone makes mistakes and I have to stop judging him on the past and really focus on the present and forgive him, because it is not fair if I keep bringing him down when he is doing nothing wrong.
So QUESTION: Do you think we can move on from this? DO you think my OCD is making me obsess about the past and question if I should be with him CONSTANTLY based on something that happened almost two years ago… Do you think he really is capable of changing? Did you make stupid mistakes as a young adult and learned from them? How Do I move on? How do I forget his mistakes and realize he is still a good person despite making those stupid college mistakeS? He really is good to me. It is ridiculous. He helps me with everything, calms me when I am panicking, really tries the best to understand me. Is amazing to my family and friends they all love him, he talks about kids and marriage and he really is just overall AMAZING, every quality I ever wanted in a husband (EXCEPT THE LYING FOR OVER A YEAR & breaking up like every 3 months (last year) because of his stupid fraternity). Please just any advice would help me, I’m wasting all these good days focused on the past and its making me miserable.
March 6, 2017 at 9:13 am #136155DanielleParticipantCan someone please give any input on this? 🙂
March 6, 2017 at 10:01 am #136163
AnonymousGuestDear Danielle:
Reads to me, clearly, that you should “forgive (your) boyfriend and stay”- and not move on IF you can stop make him suffer over your OCD.
And this is key: your OCD makes you suffer, a lot, and this is unfortunate. I have suffered from OCD for decades and know the suffering. I wish OCD was not in your life experience, but it is.
First thing you need to do, I believe, in your quest to forgive him and stay in the relationship, if this is your choice, is to stop causing him to suffer because of your OCD. This is your personal responsibility in the relationship. It takes self discipline: enduring your distress (no matter how great) without lashing out at him, calling him names, accusing him again and again for a non-existing issue, and so on.
It will take you paying attention to your distress, to your compulsion, urge to express it to him via abuse, and then NOT do that.
Competent psychotherapy can help you a lot with Mindfulness (the paying attention to how you feel before you react), and Emotional Regulation (so to not automatically react abusively or otherwise, ineffectively to your distress).
Thoughts/ feelings?
anita
March 6, 2017 at 10:40 am #136189DanielleParticipantAnita,
Thank you so much for taking the time to come and answer. It is nothing new that I most definitely struggle with OCD, and this bump in our relationship is my greatest obsession, and my biggest fear is that I am settling. Do you think what he did is unforgivable? Do you think what is did is uncommon? He was 19 when this all happened and I wish we could’ve just started dating NOW as I believe he is more mature, and just not have any bad history in the relationship. I often feel as though I deserve someone that was great and didn’t have any “growing up” to do, or ever put me in pain. I know he was young and it was such stupid mistakes and I know he was scared to tell me, it just hurts and makes me anxious and that is why my OCD is latching on to it. He has been so great recently so it kills me that I am dwelling on our worst times. I find myself being scared that he might be hiding so much more, and that he is going to leave me again to in other words “party” and believing his friends with the whole “the grass is greener on the other side”, and I know that was really just a phase. I can completely see myself marrying him. He’s my best friend, He is literally going to be the BEST father and we just really compliment each other well because we are exact opposites. I also tend to think to myself… in 10 years do you think I am going to care that this kid kissed another girl in college when we were on a break? Or that he wanted to party and broke up with me over such stupidity? and I always find myself answering “absolutely not”, and that makes me calm down. I am just in a pretty bad rut and I’ve always been so independent and I am scared I am a fool for putting up with some of this stuff, but I don’t know if that is just my OCD. Its a horrible cycle.
March 6, 2017 at 10:59 am #136199AnonymousGuestDear Danielle:
The key sentence in your last post is: “my OCD is latching on to it”-
Your OCD is a big part of how your brain operates, and so it will latch on to this for as long as it does, and if it stops, it will be because something bigger happens and so it will latch to that thing. Sometimes, your OCD brain will take a break, and you think: what a relief, it is over. But that is temporary.
The hope is in this fact: not ALL your brain is OCD. There is a place in your brain for you to relocate to, so to speak. There is a calm place in your brain you don’t know about because you are thrown around in the storms of your OCD brain.
OCD is part of you, as it is, but it is not ALL of you.
Find that calm place and the more often you can go there, and from there OBSERVE the other, distressed OCD part, the more in control you will be.
There is nothing I can write to convince your OCD brain that what he did was forgivable (he did nothing wrong when a girl kissed him without his permission or pre-knowledge)- you can’t argue with OCD and talk it into logic. This is because OCD is fueled by anxiety, fear, not logic.
You can come out from this “horrible cycle”- it is just not easy, but oh, so very possible.
anita
March 6, 2017 at 6:14 pm #136269DanielleParticipantSo question, it’s obvious that i haven’t been feeling myself and it’s affecting my relationship. But should I refrain from compulsions which i believe is constantly talking about it. Like right now, I’m with him and we’re great watching tv but it’s like inside in my head it’s nagging me that something is wrong, should I mention something? He’s constantly saying that I’m ruining the good days by talking about my feelings, the past, and anxiety for the future and his future behavior. How do I deal with this?
March 6, 2017 at 7:01 pm #136277AnonymousGuestDear Danielle:
Definitely resist the compulsion, refrain. That will, over time, as you persist and resist, break the link between the Obsession and the Compulsion, which is what Obsessive-Compulsive disorder about, this very link.
It only feels like there will be a relief if you perform the compulsion, in your case, talk to him about it one more time, just this once. But if there is a relief it is only temporary. What happens instead is that as you talked to him one more time, the link is strengthened and the compulsion will reappear again, strong.
It will be difficult to resist, as you know, because you have been trying to resist. But this time, be determined in your mind that talking to him (giving in to the compulsion) is not an option, that no matter how strong the compulsion, how miserable you feel, how desperate, no matter what… you will not.
Over time, as you succeed, you will build a sense of pride in yourself for being able to do this. You will feel a sense of power and the link will weaken, the compulsion will weaken.
Persist to resist and the compulsion will cease and desist. You will see.
Post again.
anita
March 6, 2017 at 8:56 pm #136327DanielleParticipantThank you so much Anita dearly. I resisted in talking to him tonight, he’s sleeping. I really really wanted to because I feel like he is constnslty just not telling me what I want to hear to feel that “relief” you’re talking about. I feel as if I keep talking and talking and telling him what I hear and what i want to hear from him and what I want him to say exactly, will make me feel better. I keep feeling that I need to express myself to him and that one day he will tell me exactly what I need to hear to move on from the past and I feel that he has just not told me what I want. I constantly feel the urge to talk about the past and to make sure in every shape and form that something like it never happens again. I’m obsessed with making sure life doesn’t repeat himself and obsessed with him reassuring me that he’s changed. It’s absolutely horrendous, and I wish I could just open up and explain to him what is going on in my head, but truthfully, I don’t think someone NOT suffering from ocd will ever understand the need to talk and talk. & to begin with… he doesn’t even like talking he’s way more closed off than I am and really doesn’t like issues etc. I blame this on this past (his dad left his mom for an entire new family). He never grew up in a typical family home. And I have this mission to like change him to be as open as me, but I feel that ocd makes me RIDICULOUSLY OPEN and no one will ever be as open as me.
March 7, 2017 at 12:22 pm #136661AnonymousGuestDear Danielle:
Good job resisting last night! Continue.
He can never and will never be able to say it just right, maybe for a short moment, at best. But for the sake of that short moment, you strengthened the compulsion to ask yet again, to feel relief yet again.
No matter how badly you feel, resist. You will continue to feel badly as you resist, but you will be working for a long term resolution. At the least, in that feeling-badly (the resisting), there is hope for a better future.
OCD is not openness (your last comment)- at the least it is not a communication openness. It is more like an open wound bleeding and bleeding with no end in sight.
Please do post again, and, again: good job!
anita
June 4, 2022 at 11:49 am #401825AnonymousGuestDear Danielle:
I read your yesterday’s reply to another member, your first post in 2.5 years, and I am glad that you posted. I hope that your post helps the other member.
I resurrected this thread, the first on record, because it is about your relationship with the same man you dated since you were 18, and now, seven years later, at 25, your fiancé, the man you are about to marry- congratulations!
In the original post of this thread you shared that since a very young age you were “diagnosed with anxiety and (pure) OCD (obsessive thinking)”. At the time, five years ago (age 20), you were in your third year of college. You described your relationship with your boyfriend as a “pretty rocky relationship”. A girl surprised your boyfriend with a kiss at one point, and you obsessed about it, asking him many questions and lashing out at him. The repeated talking about the kissing incident and asking of the same questions, never satisfied for long with an answer, then asking again- was the Compulsion part of your OCD, which caused you and him to suffer.
This is what I advised you in this thread: “Stop causing him to suffer because of your OCD… It takes self discipline: enduring your distress (no matter how great) without lashing out at him… Not all your brain is OCD… There is a calm place in your brain you don’t know about because you are thrown around in the storms of your OCD brain.. Find that calm place.. from there, observe the other distressed, OCD part… Break the link between the Obsession and the Compulsion.. Persist and resist and the compulsion will cease and desist. You will see”.
Two and a half years later, you shared yesterday: “Some years I thought about it daily. I thought I would never get over it. But finally… one day, I decided to forgive and move on. One day of not talking about it, turned into 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, and now here we are 3 years later, the strongest and happiest we’ve even been in our relationship. We actually got engaged last year in Hawaii. We’re currently planning our wedding… I’m here to give you hope” –
– congratulations once again and thank you for posting again!
anita
June 4, 2022 at 1:48 pm #401834DanielleParticipantHi Anita!
If I had to be honest, I literally came to see if you were still on here! I was thinking omg I wonder how Anita is and if she is still on this site. Somehow… as soon as I came on this site that other woman’s post was the first one on the relationship forum and I was like Omg what are the chances, I relate to this! And then saw your comment!
You were 10000% right. I’m glad I stuck it out. Our relationship is the best it’s ever been and he’s still the man I was raving about 3 years ago. Nothing has changed.
Life can never be easy though. Right as we were experiencing the highest point of our relationship and our recent engagement, I got the diagnosis of a lifetime. Premature ovarian failure. Was told I had a 5% chance of ever having children. It’s been devastating. It’s brought us even closer and even with all this, he has stuck by me and I couldn’t imagine going through this without him. I like to think God kept us together because he would know we were going to go through this together at such a young age and I couldn’t imagine anyone else by my side through this. He has been everything and more and so supportive. So at the current moment, we’re going through fertility treatments and trying to build our family.
I think about you often and am so appreciative of all the help and guidance you provided me throughout the years. You’re the best! 🙂
June 4, 2022 at 2:07 pm #401836AnonymousGuestDear Danielle:
I really liked reading “You’re the best!”, I don’t remember ever being told these words. Good to read your first post addressed to me in over 2.5 years, to read a happy-ending/ ongoing Love Story!
I am sorry to read that you were diagnosed with premature ovarian failure while you have the desire to get pregnant, but it doesn’t put a dent on your love story; on the contrary- it makes your love even stronger, like you wrote, it brought you even closer to each other.
Thank you for returning to the forum for a visit- you made my day!
anita
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