Identifying the Harms Experienced by Married Women with Relationship Obsessive– Compulsive Disorder

Marriage can be significantly strained in the presence of Relationship Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder (ROCD), where intrusive doubts and compulsive cognitive patterns disrupt emotional security and marital functioning. Women with ROCD often experience chronic uncertainty, excessive comparison, and emotional dysregulation, leading to relational detachment, compensatory strategies, and maladaptive meaning-making. Examining these experiences qualitatively provides insight into how ROCD shapes marital difficulties within cultural contexts such as Iran. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the phenomenology of marital challenges among married women with ROCD in Bandar Abbas (2023–2024), within the framework of socio-cultural influences shaping cognitive-emotional experiences. This study employed a qualitative phenomenological approach to explore marital difficulties among married women with ROCD in Bandar Abbas (2023–2024). Eleven participants were purposefully selected from counseling centers based on inclusion and exclusion criteria and interviewed using semi-structured interviews until data saturation was reached. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Credibility and trustworthiness were ensured through member checking, peer debriefing, and reflexive practices.The analysis identified eight main themes, twenty-three subthemes, and fifty-eight semantic units: (1) Intrapersonal Cognitive Experiences (chronic doubt and need for certainty, obsessive rumination, polarized thinking and negative bias, suspicious interpretations); (2) Emotional and Psychological Disturbance (helplessness and emotional deprivation, relational depression and psychological exhaustion, self-blame and worthlessness); (3) Marital Intimacy and Affectional Frustration (emotional rejection and coldness, chronic communicative failure, frustration in receiving affection and support); (4) Family and Environmental Pressures (spouse’s family interference, hasty decisions under pressure, social pressure and cultural judgment); (5) Interpersonal Conflicts and Dysfunctional Interactions (dominance and control, humiliation and chronic blame, lack of participation); (6) Maladaptive Coping Strategies and Emotion Regulation (psychological avoidance and suppression, compensatory behaviors, hope for external intervention); (7) Comparison and Regret Regarding Marital Choice (comparison with others, regret over marital choice); and (8) Searching for Alternative Sources of Meaning (meaning-making through the child, meaning-making through individual independence, meaning-making through adaptation). These themes illustrate how obsessive doubts, emotional dysregulation, familial and social pressures, and maladaptive coping strategies collectively erode relational trust, emotional security, and marital cohesion. The findings highlight the need for culturally sensitive interventions that address cognitive distortions, emotional regulation, communication, and meaning-making to improve marital functioning and relational resilience among women with ROCD.