Image description: A couple, specifically the fictitious couple from the television show, Normal People, are lying in bed together. They both are white and have brunette hair, and are seemingly undressed but have bed sheets over them, with the male lied on his side gazing at her, and the woman looking straight up at the ceiling with a blank expression on her face. They hold hands.
You know that panicky-filled disorientation you experience upon waking up from a deep, unplanned nap? But turn that sensation ten times stronger, and add a claustrophobic room and anxiety attack onto it: That’s how I felt when my severe Relationship OCD began and did not soften for nearly two years.
OCD sneaked up on me during a distressing time in my life, right at the moment I was trying to find a soothing tool in my newly implemented meditation routine. When I was about to take a deep, conscious breath, the first intrusive thought hit me: What if he isn’t the right partner? I opened my eyes with a dreadful urgency that would stay with me for years to come. I didn’t know what was happening to me.
At the time, I had been with my partner for five years. He was caring, lovely, gentle, and compassionate (glad to report he still is). The magic ingredient was simmering for an overspilling, boiling experience of ROCD: caring and loving him too deeply. For the next few years, it felt as if our relationship wasn’t just made of us two, but OCD became someone we had to constantly monitor. For me, it felt as if I had to continuously act in opposing force to what my body and mind were telling me. It felt so wrong.
Looking back, OCD didn’t start out of nowhere. It had always been in the background, silently manipulating each of my decisions. It existed in the innocent, but time-consuming and distressing compulsions of nightly routines, checking, praying, and desperately making sure I was a ‘good’ person. OCD showed up in so many different forms in my life, and decided to take over my relationship when my brain noticed how important it was to me.
OCD is described as the disorder of doubt. As NOCD notes: “OCD typically latches on to the things that are most important to you and that you feel strongest about, filling your mind with intense doubt.” The intrusive thoughts are ego-dystonic and feel urgent, which leads you to perform compulsions. In my case, in the case of relationship OCD, these look like ruminating about the relationship for hours on end, avoiding intimacy, seeking reassurance from your partner or others about your relationship, looking for signs, replaying recent interactions, checking if you feel attraction, checking if you “feel in love”, comparing your partner to others, etc. ROCD makes you look for absolute certainty that you are in the RIGHT relationship.
If you have Relationship OCD, you know that scrolling through social media is a harsh form of exposure. Posts such as “Five reasons you need to break up,” “Three red flags you should look out for,” “Why I left my six year long relationship,” can send someone with this type of OCD down a rabbit hole of hours-long compulsions. Not only does this type of content feed unhealthy thought patterns, it also shows that everyone is looking for certainty and absolutes in their own relationships.
All around us we see a culture that’s trying to figure out which relationships are worth staying in and which ones are worth tossing away. Kiyomi, founder of Awaken into Love, says: “Our society continually glorifies perfection and the pursuit of it, not only in relationships but in almost every other area of our lives: health, career, finances, children, beauty, to name a few. We are no stranger to continually seeing ads and growing up watching movies and TV shows where people seemed to have ‘perfect lives’ so it’s no shock that this is also exemplified in the idea of having a ‘perfect relationship’”.
Today’s society also presents us with the opportunity (or burden) of so much choice. Nina Montagne discusses the paradox of choice in today’s Western society in one of her latest video essays. Inspired by David Epstein’s work Inside the Box (2026), Montagne explains that more choice in today’s society doesn’t automatically mean more freedom: more choices often mean more regret because there are more imagined alternatives to contemplate on, and, in turn, people start believing that there is one ‘perfect’ choice, so that no matter what path they choose, they will constantly doubt their current reality.
When we apply this logic to relationships, it makes sense why Gen Z is so dedicated to finding the perfect partner. Manon, ROCD Peer Support Practitioner & Educator, believes that this obsession with finding the right partner sheds light on something deeper. In an uncertain world, she wonders if the search for a convincing love is an effort to counterbalance all the uncertainty we deal with on most days. “I believe it’s especially true for younger generations, such as Gen Z, who have been immersed in social media since being young, exposed to a constant stream of information and forced to have non-stop awareness of global crises, which can make them feel utterly powerless. We can see this as paradoxical, but it actually makes sense, when you live in a context riddled with uncertainty around the biggest questions facing our current world, to end up tempted to seek certainty wherever it may be possible; romantic relationships being a big area.”
In order to combat society’s pursuit of perfect love, Kiyomi explains: “It requires understanding society’s influence on us and how it is harming us rather than helping us. Because so much of our society is comparison-focused (specifically because of social media), it requires deeper awareness to step back from societal messages and ask questions such as: ‘Where did this belief come from?’, ‘Is this belief about relationships and love reflecting society’s views or a view of mature relationships and love?’, ‘How is this belief that my relationship needs to look a certain way affecting me in a positive or negative way?’”
It is especially difficult for someone with ROCD to fight compulsions in a system that spreads the idea of certainty so widely, when the only way to fight against the OCD is to resist the pursuit of certainty. But, this also translates into an overall young generation so attached to absolutes and certainties. Are we able to practice sitting in the discomfort of uncertainty and accept imperfection in a society so full of choices? Are we willing to look at relationships as complex, messy human connections rather than constant projects of maximisation?
