Danielle Jhiani explains the difference between Relationship OCD and settling. ROCD creates anxiety through obsessive doubts and compulsions like rumination and reassurance-seeking, while settling stems from tangible mismatches like core value differences. Three questions help tell them apart: are your doubts situational or constant, do they clarify or confuse, and do you compulsively seek reassurance.
Hi there. Relationships are complex, but when you add anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder to the mix, things can get really, really complicated. Today we're diving into a really common question I had myself and I get with my clients who are struggling with relationship ocd. Am I really settling in this relationship or am I struggling with relationship ocd? We're going to break it down because it's really important to understand and be able to answer this question for yourself so you can move forward and be happy and healthy in your relationships.
Relationship OCD is not a diagnosis. It's just a subset of OCD that consists of obsessed sessions about your relationship. Maybe the rightness of your relationship, the health of your relationship, or your happiness in the relationship. Followed by compulsions. The things you're doing to alleviate your discomfort or to gain certainty or perfection to feel better. Common signs of a relationship ocd. Constantly questioning the rightness of your relationship, whether you're compatible enough, your feelings, their feelings. Comparing your relationships to others. This can be in romantic relationships, family relationships, friendships. It doesn't matter what type of relationship it's in. Then you might find yourself seeking reassurance from friends or family. Searching Google, analyzing your feelings, analyzing or hyper focusing on your partner's flaws or or the flaws in the relationship. What might be wrong or what might go wrong. Relationship OCD has less to do with your relationship and a lot more to do with your response to uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, situations, or general doubt. It's like your brain wants to play detective, yet it can never find an answer. Now let's talk about settling. If you're truly settling in a relationship, you are going to feel unfulfilled and maybe even unsupported by your partner. You're going to have significant core value differences, different ideas of what the future looks like or what's really important to you. You might also have a lack of emotional or physical connection in your relationship, not brought on by your fears and doubts. But these things happen just naturally. Unlike relationship ocd, settling in a relationship is tangible differences that are actually happening versus with relationship ocd, it's all about your own thoughts and doubts, followed by compulsions like ruminating, googling, and seeking reassurance from other people. So how can you tell the difference between actually settling in a relationship and having relationship ocd? It's actually quite simple. First, are your thoughts consistent or are they situational? With relationship ocd, you can be experiencing a really great time in your relationship, but you're still having doubts. You can be out and about At a movie with your partner, enjoying yourself, and all of a sudden a thought pops up. Nothing that's actually happening in your environment outside of you. If you're actually settling, situations are going to rise in the relationship, not inside of you. They're going to happen with situational conflicts. Now, some of you might find certain situations triggering, and that is different. For example, you're sitting and watching TV with your partner, and you see a couple on TV who is really in love, and you have the thought, oh, my God, I don't feel that way about my partner. Or I don't experience or say those same things that that person is saying to their partner. The situation outside of you is triggering you, but the fear and the discomfort is coming from within, not an actual situation that's happening between you and your partner. Very different. Number two, do your thoughts create clarity or more confusion? With ocd, the more you think about that topic, the more confused you get. If you're in a clear, healthy headspace as you think or contemplate something which is a lot less than you would with relationship OCD or any OCD subset, you're actually going to gain more clarity. The more you ruminate on a particular topic, your brain is looking for evidence to prove that this belief is true. It's called confirmation bias. With ocd, there's fear and discomfort. With settling, you're not going to experience that same level of fear and anxiety. You're going to feel like you've come to a conclusion that feels more at peace. And third, do your thoughts lead to compulsive behaviors? With ocd, you're going to feel like you have to do something about the thought or the feeling or the situation. A lot of times that need to check to get reassurance to ruminate is going to feel really urgent. But sometimes it doesn't feel really urgent. Sometimes that compulsion just feels like, this is normal. Everybody does this. With settling, you are not going to feel that urge and need to do something about it. You could wait to make a decision. You don't have to do anything or act on it. Right now, the biggest difference here is the feeling of discomfort followed by compulsions. Now, that doesn't mean that you wouldn't have any discomfort at all if you realized you wanted to end your relationship. But if you're experiencing ocd, you definitely have discomfort and it's followed by compulsions. And let me tell you, most of you have a lot more compulsions than you even realize. And don't let OCD convince you that these compulsions are normal. And it's not normal to think about the same topic for hours and days and weeks. It's not normal to google over and over again or to seek reassurance about the same topic for multiple people. This is compulsive and it leads to the cycle. And the cycle will continue in the next relationship. If you end up ending this one, which is a common compulsion of avoidance, it will continue out of relationships even. Even if it's not as strong. So until we stop the cycle, it will continue. I've been there. I know how difficult it is. But I just want you to understand that you can recover from relationship ocd. You can be happy, you can be joyful, and you can be confident about your relationship when you get the proper help. I would love to hear what you think about this video and if it was helpful, to provide at least a little bit of clarity. Check out the link in the description below. If you need help, we're here to talk with you. We have overcome relationship OCD and you can too. Talk to you soon.
