Why Relationships Matter

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Relationship OCD, while not a formal diagnosis, seems to be a growing phenomenon online.

Love is increasingly seen as something to be optimized and resolved.

Leaning to tolerate inevitable doubt can help alleviate anxiety around relationships.

A client recently told me about the large Reddit community around ROCD: Relationship Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

While this is not a formal diagnosis available in the DSM, the size and activity of the threads on Reddit point to high degrees of anxiety around relationships and attachment in general.

This is borne out in practice, as relationship issues dominate much of my focus in therapy—partner doubts, commitment phobia, jealousy, clinginess, over-control, fear of vulnerability, or attention-starved lovers. In practice, it is likely much easier to live alone than it is with another person. When another person enters the picture, vulnerability, risk, uncertainty, and frustration are inevitable. As psychotherapist and essayist Adam Phillips argues, anyone who can satisfy or please us can also invariably frustrate us.

This frustration originates in childhood with the first people to cause us uncertainty: our parents. Even if we were fortunate enough to grow up with “good enough” parents, our foes inevitably disappointed us in some........

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