How can i go on living a lie

[battlethrough]

As is known i confessed to fantasizing about my sister in law to my partner years ago. 

Tonight i was speaking about shame and guilt, my partner got edgy and said are you having thoughts about my sister, i couldnt say yes i feel incredibly guilty still about it. 

My heads done in, i should never have told her the things i have because now she thinks i feel guilty for thinking about her now, its so confusing 

[paradoxer]

It's a reminder that performing a compulsion (in this case confessing) just gets you deeper into the mire.

As for living a lie, everybody does, it's just part of being human. In fact, on a vague tangent, I just returned a great book to the library, with the title 'Everybody Lies' - about what Big Data, can tells us about ourselves - our fellow human beings. 

[battlethrough]

Thanks for the help,i am just so worn out with it all, the need to confess and feelings of fraud,so so tired of it all

[ecomum]

I am worn out too. I know how you feel. Could you talk about having  thoughts about having thoughts if you get what I mean. Talk about how ocd is upsetting you. Not about the content as you aren't wanting those thoughts. Hope this helped it helped me. 

[battlethrough]

Thanks em,i say its the pocd theme but then i feel bad but that she's supportive for the wrong thing,i still cant beleave i had such fantasies, the guilt is unbearable 

[battlethrough]

Its hard to accept i did want those thoughts, fantasies, 

[ecomum]

That's ocd making it hard to accept.

I say to ocd 'I'm not going to let you win, I'm not letting you rob me of my happiness". 

[battlethrough]

Its the beleaf behing it witch keeps me bad, i genuinely beleave i was wrong to have such fantasies, even though it didn't bother me at the time

[PAVLIS97]

Hey,

Don't feel guilty. Naturally we are attracted to other human beings besides our partner. I used to have a boyfriend and his brother looked appealing to me lol

Don't confess cuz there's nothing wrong with it, just accept the fact that everyone can be attracted to several people:)

The best

Pablo

[battlethrough]

Thanks pablo, though theres finding attractive but having erotic fantasies seems the worst betrayal,no matter how hard i cant see it as ok

[Atlantis]

Did you confess it to your wife already?

[battlethrough]

Yes i did, years ago but because i said it was only once, i now feel the need to say it was more than once and explain all the details, of course she doesnt want to know that but its eating me up, trying to sabotage 

[Atlantis]

You definitely don't have to confess details, that's the OCD forcing that from you. It's irrelevant. She's accepted what you did and has moved on. In one of your earlier posts I'm sure you said that she asked you if you were "thinking about her sister again" - I hope that she's aware that you are being tortured by OCD with feeling guilty for thinking about her sister, rather than just thinking about her sister.. ?

You feel a guilt which is normal, but the level at which your OCD magnifies this guilt is preventing you from having quality of life.. besides if you confessed, that wouldn't resolve the guilt,the only way of breaking the cycle is to allow the thoughts to come but resist the urge to confess, the thoughts will lose their poison as will the urge to confess.. 

[Caramoole]

4 hours ago, battlethrough said:

i still cant beleave i had such fantasies,

Why?  They are pretty normal among most adults in one form or another.  As Atlantis points out, the fantasy (whatever it was) isn't the problem at all, it's the level at which your OCD magnifies your feelings of guilt and convinces you you are a bad person.

It's not the fantasy that is a problem, your reaction is.

It probably wasn't your cleverest move confessing the details.  If you'd said you fantasized about having sex with a strict school mistress or a nun, she probably wouldn't have been bothered, some couples might even get into role play over such things......but no woman likes the thought of their partner fancying their Sister or Best Friend even though there's nothing wrong with it, they just don't want to hear it.

That said, we've discussed this many times (in this thread and others) and explained the reasons why this fantasy wasn't significant or wrong.  We have to move on now from reassuring explanations and look at the OCD and how you can better deal with that when the doubts and anxiety taunt you

[battlethrough]

Thankyou both, its really weighing me down, it just replays. 

To imagine food fights and vegatables and even fantasizing saying i could give her a baby is so messed up. I know at the time i was very frustrated as my partner hadnt wanted to know for over a year but still its pretty far out fantasies i created

[battlethrough]

Sorry, turned into a bit of confession and reasurace, just feel so ill, i have been sertraline for months, may change to another ssri, doesnt seem to help much this time, September i get intence therapy with ocd specialist but its just getting through each day is hard. 

Hard when sunny to as i feel left out when everyone seems happy and enjoying it

[Atlantis]

3 hours ago, battlethrough said:

Thankyou both, its really weighing me down, it just replays. 

To imagine food fights and vegatables and even fantasizing saying i could give her a baby is so messed up. I know at the time i was very frustrated as my partner hadnt wanted to know for over a year but still its pretty far out fantasies i created

If you didn't have OCD, you wouldn't feel so guilty about this. Fantasies are normal, human processes. Nothing to feel guilty about so long as they remain just fantasies. They only exist inside your mind. They are harmless whether they are sexual or not.  

In my old job, I had a boss who was a micro-managing moron who loved nothing better than to pick on me due to me being absent because of OCD. I often fantasized about throwing him out of the 4th floor window down into a skip on the street outside the building - but I'd never do it, as much as the idea appealed to me at the time. 

[Spud2018]

I agree with Atlantis, fantasies are meaningless. I read a lot about them when I was suffering from HOCD because I can recall so many times where I've had lesbian fantasies and then when I started to get HOCD I have terrified it meant I actually wanted it in real life. In fact, researchers say that fantasizing is just merely just the mind exploring sexual encounters that you wouldn't necessarily want, but the fact its "forbidden" or "taboo"  is the reason why they arouse you or you think about them- human process.

The guilt is all OCD, I have this all the time and someone without it would have seen it for what it was; "oh lol I once fantasised about my sister in law, that was weird!- oh well!!" and move on with their day because it doesn't have to mean anything! 

I hope this helps, Spud x

[battlethrough]

Thank you xx. 

 

[paradoxer]

On 4/18/2018 at 00:33, battlethrough said:

Thanks for the help,i am just so worn out with it all, the need to confess and feelings of fraud,so so tired of it all

Ok, here's the thing, OCD is the fraud. No one without OCD is that 'honest'. I bet (and hope) that your non-OCD self isn't that 'honest'. 

[Fender]

Does your partner know you have ocd? You could show them resources to better understand what' going on in your head

Edited April 19, 2018 by Fender

[battlethrough]

Yes she does, she knows about harm and pocd but i cant talk to her about guilt about fantasies, she finds that hard because i made the fantasies

[paradoxer]

battlethrough, remember, confessing is about the most selfish thing you can do. It might make YOU feel better (temporarily, in the long run, it just gets you in deeper). but causes the person you care about distress. Want  to do the right thing by your girlfriend? Take the 'guilt', suck it up, say nothing, and move on.  

[battlethrough]

Thamks, i know it wouldn't help,its like im holding a secret though, eats and eats away but ive confessed so much, beleave to much in total honesty i suppose

[Wonderer]

I compulsively confessed something to my partner a while back, the guilt was killing me, he told me not to worry it was normal and then gave me an example of something similar on his part, so guess what happened then? I began to obsess about HIS thing and drove myself a bit batty in the process, wish he hadn’t told me, it really isn’t that bad, neither of our things were but there’s just some things we don’t need to know about each other. Everyone has the right to privacy and total honesty is NOT always the best policy!