Every app in this space is built for the person who's struggling. This one has a section built for you — what's actually happening, what's yours to carry and what isn't, and how to tell whether anything is really changing.
See the partner section They haven't started yet — what do I do? →Every other app in this space treats the partner like a bystander. They aren't. They're the one who found it. They're the one who's been told they're overreacting. They're the one doing the math on whether to stay. Husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, partner — whoever you love, this is the part built for you.
Inside, the partner gets their own space:
They don't need their partner's permission and they don't need their password.
Written for your side of it, not theirs. No day counting, no advice about how to fix them — and nothing that tells you to leave or to stay. That part is yours.
Day one is called "You're not imagining it."
One a day for five days, then I leave you alone. Unsubscribe in every one.
Almost nobody who asks this is. People who genuinely overreact do not lie awake auditing themselves at two in the morning — that is the opposite behaviour. If you have been told enough times that you are exaggerating that you have started checking, the checking is the injury, not the evidence.
You are allowed to be affected by something without having to first prove it was serious enough to be affected by.
No. And that answer will not land yet, so here is the longer version: compulsive behaviour runs on its own logic, it was almost always there before you arrived, and it would be there with somebody else in your place. It is not a verdict on your body, your attention, or how interesting you are.
The reason it feels personal is that it was hidden from you specifically. The secrecy is the part that hurts — and the secrecy was about them, not about you.
Nobody on the internet can answer that, and anybody who tries is guessing about a life they have never seen. What is fair to say is that you do not have to decide this week. A decision made in the first month is made by shock, not by you.
What helps in the meantime is to stop making it one enormous question and start answering the small ones: what am I willing to be in the room for tonight, what do I need to sleep, who else knows.
Not from what they say. From what is different:
Because it is the only part of this you control, and because that advice is usually given badly. It does not mean bubble baths. It means the specific things this has quietly taken: a friendship you stopped answering, an evening that was yours, an appointment you keep moving, food, sleep.
Put back one. Not because it fixes them — it will not — but because there has to be a version of you that exists outside this, or there is nothing to come back to when it is over either way.
Theirs: whether they stop, when, how, and how they feel about being asked.
Yours: what you will be present for, what you say yes to, where your money goes, whether you tell one true person, and whether you sleep.
A boundary is a sentence about what you will do, not a demand about what they will do. That is what makes it hold whether or not they agree with it.
A program written for your side — not a version of theirs with the words changed. It does not ask you to fix anyone, it does not count their days, and it never tells you to leave or to stay. It is free, it works with no account and no name, and nothing you write is visible to them.
If you want to start smaller: the five-question check-in takes about a minute and stays on your device, and what actually happens at an Al-Anon meeting is there if the not-knowing is what has been stopping you.
If you're in crisis, or you've had thoughts of hurting yourself, please talk to a person tonight — not an app. Call or text 988 (US), any hour, free and confidential.
If you're afraid of them — not just hurt, afraid — the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. You don't have to be in danger tonight to call. You're allowed to call just to ask whether what you're living with is normal.
If you're reading this and they haven't started — you can still use this. Start here. On Android, get it on Google Play.