I’m in the worst spiral of my life
I normally just visit these Reddit posts via the browser, but I honestly am completely lost and need any help I can get. I apologize if my thoughts are scattered here, but I’m deep in the hole right now.
For context, I am a 20 year old male and I’m running on 6 months with the best girlfriend I could have asked for — like seriously life changing in the best way imaginable. I have had a total of three prior relationships and one fling that I regret in hindsight. Both my girlfriend and myself are currently at a military academy — similar to ROTC if you’re familiar — and that makes it a little tricky mental health wise. I have attended a couple counselings with the psychology office on base and was unofficially-officially diagnosed with OCD (my psychologist offered an official diagnosis and recommended a referral to the medical side but I ultimately denied over a fear of being disqualified from the military).
I consider myself quite versed in the different forms of OCD and ways to cope. I have been practicing ERP for years and feel confident in identifying obsessions and avoiding compulsions. I understand that this retroactive jealousy and ROCD is triggered by the fact that I have an unbelievable amount of love for this woman. Towards the start of the relationship, I found myself running through small, manageable loops that are, at this point, normal for me at the start of the relationship. I was able to overcome those and was doing perfectly fine for a good bit.
However, about a week ago, I completely gave into the compulsions. I have a million different emotions and regrets about the decision I made, but I’m trying to just accept the facts at this point. She was spending the night and fell asleep before me; I caved and began looking through her phone. I found a text exchange between her and a couple friends talking about how she had sex with a guy from the male equivalent of her varsity team during a summer training. I’ve read a couple posts on this sub and understand that there could be way worse things to experience in regard to a partner’s past, but this hit me in a way that I never expected — especially considering that I’ve been with multiple women with a sexual past.
I spent about a day totally trapped in the situation: the guilt and shame of invading her privacy, the shame of being disgusted/angry of her past, and upset at the fact that I felt such a feeling of injustice even though I have done the same exact things. I thought I had the situation under control; though a couple thoughts popped up every once in a while, I felt that it had no real effect on my life.
Last night, I was invited to join her and a couple of her friends for a dinner. Over the course of the table discussion, there were talks of the aforementioned summer training and her team in general. As these topics continued to come up, I found myself more and more controlled by the thoughts and images of her with another man. It got to a point where I was almost completely nonverbal at the table. She noticed it and we had a private talk after dinner. She knows I have OCD, but I’ve been intentionally careful about telling her details to ensure she doesn’t feed into any compulsions: I’ve explained that I might “be a little weird sometimes,” that there’s nothing that she can do to help, and that I just have to work this out by myself. I ended up completely breaking down and crying in her arms, but kept the thoughts and triggers out of the discussion. She has no idea I found out about this and I plan on taking my actions to the grave.
I can’t get these thoughts out of my head and my traditional methods for coping with OCD just haven’t been working. I don’t know how I am supposed to “let a thought be” without entertaining it and feeding the loop. I made an absolute fool of myself at that dinner. I feel like an asshole for making my girlfriend feel like she did something wrong by not talking to her. I feel like a failure as a man because I have this externally visible problem that I have no answers to. I am so hopeless and lonely.
I am a mess and honestly don’t even know what I’m asking for. Has anyone experienced something like this? How do I let a thought ruminate without entertaining it? How do I accept the fact that my girlfriend has past relationships? Why do I feel like she’s somehow wronged me even though I’ve had more of a sexual history than her?
Thank you for reading. It helped to just get this all into words if nothing else. Any help or advice is appreciated, and good luck to those struggling with these same problems. I wouldn’t wish this upon anyone.