Guilt / Porn / Confession

[ibc]

Not sure if this really falls under the umbrella of OCD or not. I have a bad habit of confessing things to my wife when I feel as if I’ve done something wrong. I used to confess to her if I thought I’d looked at another woman or if I had inadvertently flirted with someone else. In hindsight, in many of those cases, I don’t think I had done anything wrong, but at the time it seemed like I did. Or, I would confess if I had sexual thoughts about another woman. Stuff like that. I’m often obsessed with the feeling like I’ve been unfaithful. I love my wife. Would never cheat.

 

She has been urging me to stop confessing and mostly I’ve been doing better, but I recently did something I feel quite guilty about. While out of town, I slipped up and watched porn a few times while we were apart. I feel particularly bad because the last time this happened was during a time when my wife was mourning the loss of our family pet, which she had had for many years. We weren’t in the same city when I slipped up and looked at the stuff, but I feel as if I stabbed her in the back during an emotionally rough time for her, even though I feel that I was otherwise completely emotionally supportive of her and was checking in on her constantly and giving her my support. I know I screwed up.

 

I don’t generally watch porn anymore. I used to (a lot) but stopped when we started dating like 3 years ago. In that time, I’ve looked at it maybe three times. When I last confessed this, she said that she doesn’t care if I watch it and that I should stop confessing. 

 

I hear her and I believe her. I’ve also made up my mind to stop watching porn because it makes me feel bad. Maybe it’s fine for some people but it makes me feel bad. Part of me says that I should just move on, not confess that I slipped up a couple of times recently and just move on, but another part me says to confess it. That I’ve done something really wrong, especially when she was herself going through a rough time. 

 

Any advice would be much appreciated. OCD has clouded my judgement about when to confess.

 

Edited April 5, 2019 by ibc
Addition

[paradoxer]

Want to do the right thing by your wife - rather than sating a selfish compulsion? Suck it up and don't confess. The kicker? The anxiety will dissipate anyway. 

[dksea]

3 hours ago, ibc said:

Not sure if this really falls under the umbrella of OCD or not. I have a bad habit of confessing things to my wife when I feel as if I’ve done something wrong.

Hi @ibc, welcome to the forums.  What you are describing sounds like OCD to me.  Confession is a common type of compulsion and the fact that you do it so often just further reinforces that.  I think you should really think about what @paradoxer has said, while you may genuinely feel that confessing is doing the "right thing", even though your intent is good, the reality is that it actually bothers your wife.  Continuing to confess is actually placing a burden on her and therefore is actually a selfish act.  Please understand I don't mean that to make you feel bad, I think your intentions are good, but its important to understand that just because we have good intentions doesn't mean it justifies whatever action we take.  So I agree with paradoxer, you should definitely stop confessing and if you do it's very likely you'll find the anxiety decrease over time since you'll no longer be feeding it like you are now.  It'll be important to not replace this one compulsion with others (like checking or ruminating) but it' would be a good start since its something that is very easy to tell if you are doing or not.