Anxious thoughts about partner and relationship

Hi all, I am new to this forum and decided to post something that I thought I could benefit getting advice on. Thanks in advance for your time.

Some background on my relationship: I have been with my girlfriend for 1.5 yrs, and we have been living together for approximately half a year. Even though we have created a lot of good memories together, we have also been going some through difficult times due to various circumstances - she suspended her studies as she could not afford the high fees, and is now in a career transition, searching for a permanent job while volunteering and also working zero-hour contract jobs that don't pay much. I also switched careers from academia to industry a few months ago, which was and still is challenging, but pays the bills. As a result, I have been paying all of the rent, and she helps out around the house a great deal, which I really appreciate. However, we both know this situation cannot go on forever, as it is putting a lot of strain on us both; hopefully she lands a permanent, fulfilling job soon and we'll forget about the past. Nevertheless, even though I frequently get stressed about that, she is trying really hard, I want her to succeed and I will give her all the support she needs to flourish.

Some background on me: I grew up in country X, in a middle class family, as an only child of mixed marriage. I grew up speaking two languages, languages X and Y (Y is the country my mother originates from). It is worthy to mention that my parents always took pride in the multicultural character of their relationship and I think this was also passed on to me subconciously. Last 10 years I've been living abroad where I also met my girlfriend in country Z.

Some background on her: She also grew up in country X, in a middle class family with one sibling, but not a child of mixed marriage. She also originally left our country to come study and work in country Z, where she did really well in obtaining her postgraduate degrees. I generally consider her a very smart and rational person.


I care about her a lot, and I also believe that my feeling of wanting to be with her is genuine, as she does make me feel warm, and we do share a lot of basic life values. Even though we don't necessarily believe in institutionalized marriage, I think she definitely is marriage material, as in someone I'd like to be with long term. We are very open to each other, try to communicate often and efficiently, and our sex life is great. I really can't think of anyone else I'd like to be with instead.

However, lately I've been having obsessive, intrusive thoughts that go exactly like this: "When the time comes to have kids together, I would like them to effortlessly learn how to fluently speak another language, which will give them an advantage in life. Speaking a language at home other than X doesn't come naturally to us as a couple and would therefore pose limits to our child's learning potential." - and on it goes from there... These thoughts are really discouraging and unintentionally make me devalue her, even though she fulfills me emotionally and rationally in many other ways.

Furthermore, I have shared my intention with her, and she is also a proponent of our potential future child learning more than one language (we share that value), even though we did not yet come up with a plan on how to do it (I know it is quite silly to think of these things so early on, but hey...humans are f*ing complicated).

I have looked up Relationship OCD, and some of the symptoms match my situation (ROCD is rooted in doubt about one’s own feelings for their partner, their partner’s feelings for them and whether the relationship is the “right” one). It has not reached a critical point, but I find myself measuring against other people's relationships in an obsessive attempt to reassure myself that I am in the "right" relationship, which of course is not working, as I am not measuring against the positives, only the negatives. Sometimes I also think that we are not as "diverse", "interesting" and "multicultural" of a couple, and that we don't have as much in common (even though we do share a lot of basic values, as well as hobbies) and I often feel like I am a bad person for having these thoughts. In their extreme form, these minute thoughts evolve into a superiority complex, where I am the smart, capable one in the relationship; this terrifies me, as I know this is not true on a rational level. Trying to be midful of my thoughts and recognize them as such doesn't help, as I feel tremendous guilt for thinking this way. This vicious cycle gets triggered especially whenever she will make a grammatical mistake when speaking language Z, when I feel I must intervene and correct her - it's very frustrating for me, and for her!

I know it will be difficult to tell, but do you suspect these particular thoughts have a hidden source? Something that I am scared of admitting to myself? I understand people may project their faults on others at times. I am quite confused. Where are these **** thoughts and feelings coming from? Our current job situation is causing anxiety and aggravates it, but I would like to get to the root of my problem!

Any thoughts, opinions on the matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all so much, and apologies for the 1000-word essay.