Jealousy in relationships is a normal human emotion.
A little jealousy occasionally is purported to add zest to a relationship.
Standard jealousy is when we worry that our significant other might find someone else more appealing. This person could be a co-worker, a neighbour or a friend. There is another type of jealousy known as retroactive jealousy. It refers to constant – often obsessive – painful thoughts and curiosity regarding a partner’s past relationships and/or sexual history.
Retroactive jealousy differs from the standard, run-of-the-mill jealousy in that sufferers of retroactive jealousy get caught in a loop of obsessive thoughts and inconsiderate and irrational actions about people who no longer exist in their partners’ lives.
Unless you have been involved with the same person since pre-school, chances are that your partner has had relationships with other people. It is completely normal to feel an occasional pang of jealousy when faced with this fact, but for most people, these feelings are momentary.
Retroactive jealousy is characterised by being caught in an OCD-like trap of repetitive thoughts about your partner’s past, constantly grilling your partner about his romantic and/or sexual history and feeling extremely perturbed by the fact that the person you love was once in love with someone else.
In a sense, people who suffer from retroactive jealousy feel like their partner has been unfaithful to them in spite of the fact that those other relationships and experiences occurred in the past before they even met.
Although both men and women experience retroactive jealousy, they experience it in different ways. A man will typically be more distressed by the number of sexual partners his girlfriend has had before him, whereas a woman is more likely to obsess over one or two of his former girlfriends whom she feels he had the strongest emotional connection with. Imaginations tends to run wild, especially if they find out that he was with a particular girl for a long period of time.
She will start to wonder if she was prettier, more intelligent or had a better personality than her. She will be haunted by thoughts of him and her and imagine things were better and more romantic than they actually were. She will be more focused on the ‘blissful’ years they shared together, ignoring the fact that they also had arguments, stupid fights and the myriad other problems that all couples have.
While it is okay to talk about each other’s exes, the mistake we often make is wanting to know everything about their past relationships, down to the fine details. There are certain things you don’t need to know. You don’t need to know every single element of their relationship and what made him special to your significant other. The less you know, the better.
At the end of the day, you have to remind yourself that your partner is dating you now. It does not matter that his last girlfriend was drop-dead gorgeous or perfect in every single way that you have convinced yourself that you are not. He is no longer with her for a reason. You will not achieve anything by worrying about someone who no longer exists in your partner’s life.
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