Hi Bev... the OC Foundation explains it best:

quote:

Exposure and Response Prevention (E&RP) is a behavioral technique that is most effective for treating OCD symptoms when combined with medication. E&RP has two components: exposure involves confronting fears; response prevention involves not engaging in the response that makes you feel more comfortable. The goal of E&RP is "habituation." Habituation refers to getting used to something that formerly produced a very strong emotional response. It is not enough to do just exposure or just response prevention; you must do both in order to experience habituation.

Here is more info on it. http://www.ocfoundation.org/organizedchaos/articles/Org...ed-Chaos-V001_04.php

It's really hard at first, and scary, and is basically the opposite of the emotional goals we have during therepy... but if you stick with it, it yields great results!

I have this too. I told my docter about thses thoughts and she doesnt think I have OCD, well if it isnt OCD than I dont know what it is. But i constantly obsess about the relationship all the time, my boyfriend and I actually broke up because I fought with him every single day about how he isnt romantic and he doesnt try and yada yada yada, I found things to fight about, and when we broke up I was a mess, i thouight about it every single second of the day. It was almost like a drug almost like I was having withdraw. We are trying to wrok it out now, but he wants to take it slow. Well I dont even let a week go by without myself pushing the issue, and I am always wondering whats going to happen with us, I keep trying to tell myself to give him the space and to just be me the person he fell in love with in the first place but it is sooooo hard when its all you think about. I still obsess about a relationship that happend 3 years ago. He left me 3 years ago and 2 months after he left me he was engaged, he cheated on his fiance with me and I got him cought. I used to compare every single guy I met to him and no one would even live up. Until recently when I read an old journal of mine didnt I realize there were alot of bad things in that relationship that I never thought of because I simply "forgot about them" I dont know why I do this, but it ruins alot of relationships and holds me back!!

I have also suffered with OCD for most of my life and am plagued with these same relationship doubts.