Relationship Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

This manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder within emotional relationships takes on the character of repetitive doubts about the quality of the relationship with the partner.

Will he be the right person for me? “,” Does he really love me? “,” Do I really care? “,” But is he really as reliable a person as he seems? ”… These are just a few examples of the form that obsessive doubts can take in the mind of someone with obsessive-compulsive relationship disorder , a variant of obsessive-compulsive disorder, where obsessions and compulsions specifically have the relationship or partner as their object .

 

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Pathological Anxiety

The human mind, to manage the anxiety caused by contradictory feelings and desires about something or someone, can give it a “shape” (otherwise it would take on the confused and rampant character of panic) thus being able to direct its concern not towards a disorganized person and ineffable sense of danger; but towards something more defined and apparently manageable.

 

This “something” can be a particular object or situation to avoid (this is the case of phobias ), a generalized concern for one’s own health or that of others (as in hypochondriacal disorders or generalized anxiety ) or, again, a set of doubts obsessive and compulsive actions to which to standardize one’s conduct in order to stem the unexpected and delude oneself to keep everything under control. In the latter case, anxiety takes the form of obsessive-compulsive disorder and, in cases where it occurs purely within intimate relationships , it takes the name of obsessive-compulsive relationship disorder (Doron, Derby, & Szepsenwol, 2014).

 

Relationship obsessive thinking: “Do we really love each other?”

The obsessive-compulsive disorder report can manifest itself in two directions, often simultaneously present: the report itself or the partner .

 

On the first side we find all those obsessive doubts with which the person torments himself about the goodness, solidity or reasonableness of his relationship .

 

At the center of obsessive thinking there is, in these cases, precisely what escapes the over-investment of the rational mind: the “real” range of feelings , both one’s towards one’s partner and one’s partner’s towards oneself.

 

In an attempt to resolve these doubts, the person undergoes a whole series of compulsive behaviors (which he perceives as “obliged” beyond their reasonableness) of monitoring and controlling his own thoughts and the progress of the relationship.

 

Examples of this could be: repeatedly checking how often you hear on the phone, how much of the time spent together is occupied by conversing on certain topics rather than leisure activities or, again, the characteristics of sexual exchanges …

 

Everything can be subject to the need to monitor the “correct” progress of the relationship , on the basis of parameters of “perfection” that are often spurious and rather arbitrary, which do nothing but decrease the spontaneity of the relationship.
Relationship obsessive thinking: “Will she be the right person?”

The second aspect on which obsessive-compulsive relationship disorder occurs is that of the partner .

 

In this case, the person is a prisoner of an unsolvable series of doubts regarding the characteristics of the other : from sociability, to physical agreeableness, to intelligence. This will lead the person, often in spite of himself, to make continuous comparisons between the partner and others (his ex, the companions of friends and acquaintances, etc.) fueling confusion and further uncertainties.

 

Everything can become an object of doubt since no human being will be free from limits and defects, which will feed the insecurity of the person with this disorder further away, as in the previous case, from the level of feeling and therefore from the main element that could orient it. in choosing a partner who is good for themselves (not “right” or “perfect” at all).
When to contact a psychologist

The obsessive-compulsive disorder relationship leads the person to be trapped, caught in an endless series of doubts on the fairness, goodness, perfection of the relationship or partner in a vain attempt to identify some “external” policy that gives the feeling of not committing “Errors” , to keep control of what happens and be protected from any unexpected events.

 

This mechanism, with which we try to control the uncontrollable, soon reveals its side effects because the obsessive thoughts and compulsions put in place to sedate them isolate the person in the group of his worries, excluding him more and more from the emotional-affective reality of the relationship. and, therefore, from information that could really guide her to make a decision.

 

by Abdullah Sam
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