Rob came to see me, with a case of retroactive jealousy x 2.

His girlfriend had casual partners before him. She’d told him upfront. “I found her confidence about sex kind of exciting“, he told me, “but also… unsettling.”

Rob hadn’t experienced much casual sex himself. His girlfriend’s experience was quite recent too – she’d ended a friends-with-benefits arrangement as soon as she’d met Rob.

“It was hard to hear“, Rob said. “I wanted to keep my end up. So… I made up my bodycount. I told her I couldn’t really remember but it was higher than 40…“

Rob’s girlfriend believed him and was kind of impressed (“oh – Mr Experience!“) but also a bit intimidated.

“I sensed some jealousy on her part. I felt guilty lying like this, but it seemed to level me up…” said Rob.

Fast forward two years and their relationship is going great. They’ve moved in together.

“But RJ haunts me even more now“, Rob says. “When we have sex, I convince myself she enjoyed it more before, that she regrets dumping that friends-with-benefits guy for me.”

“Sometimes I can’t resist asking about him. Especially when we’ve both had a few drinks. I get resentful, angry sometimes….“

Rob went on. “And then she says – hang on, you’ve had more than 40! You’re obsessed with this one man, out of my 6 previous partners ever, and you can’t even remember all yours…“.

“And this just makes me worse because hers were all real, mine weren’t… but I can’t tell her this, of course.“

Rob gets a bit worked up telling me this. “I need to get out. I’m thinking about it all the time. I’m attacking the girl I love. And I’ve given HER retroactive jealousy now… she randomly asks me about my exes sometimes and I know the feeling but it still sets me off about hers….“

My head is spinning at this point. And I’m supposed to be the therapist.

Two reasons we get hooked on their past

Anxiety + guilty exaggeration + bilateral retroactive jealousy + quite a few drinks. Where do we start in therapy?

Well, Rob has to focus on his side of it. We went back to basics: we are wired to feel some discomfort about our partner’s sexual past.

The vast majority of adults in relationships can relate. “Yeah, my partner had past partner(s). I just don’t really think about it. I don’t particularly want to.”

So why do some of us get so hooked up on it? And obsess more as time goes on, like Rob?

Well, when a) the partner’s past feels like a threat or b) when we have doubts about ourselves; when we doubt whether we’re enough in one way or another.

Often it’s both. For Rob, the FWB who got ditched as soon as his girlfriend met Rob felt massively problematic.

“I don’t worry about this guy coming back“, Rob would say – that’s not the threat. “It’s more about what it means, can she really go from totally casual to committed relationship just like that?“

Well Rob, two years of her being with you says yes. “Yeah but what if she regrets it, what if she misses all that?“. Where’s that idea coming from?

Which leads to b – doubts about ourselves. Rob feels behind sexually, inexperienced by comparison. And he’s making a lot of comparisons. Hence the 40+ cover up.

Again, two years of sexual connection with his girlfriend (with no complaints) says he’s worrying unnecessarily. But worrying he is, because he’s had this perception of himself (behind, less than, missed out, sexually inept) for a long time.

We did some work on that and would you believe… it went back to some pretty awkward experiences in his teenage years. It wasn’t random, it made sense. But he’s not that teenager any more.

This bit of insight helps Rob stand on his own two feet with his feelings. Less stuck in the past, less hooked up on needing assurance.

And we had to be mindful of the drinking too. Yes, having a couple of drinks on date night helps us lighten up.

But there’s a tipping point where we lose our inhibitions and the thoughts flood in and RJ says “Right, time to kick off”. Stay off the beers while you work on this.

Is retroactive jealousy contagious?

As for Rob’s girlfriend’s RJ, that’s actually quite common too. I touched on it in a previous post: our partners have their doubts and vulnerabilities too.

One partner might struggle with the past more than the other, but there’s a kind of fusion going on. I’m anxious and doubting, and that sets you off about my past (real or made-up) and now I feel even worse…

It’s like two mirrors held up to each other and the stress and need for assurance reflects back and forth, into infinity.

This dynamic needs to change. Couples therapy can help but there’s a lot we can do unilaterally.

For Rob, this means becoming less reactive and hooked on assurance and putting his mirror down. His girlfriend senses that something has shifted, and that helps her too.

The doubting and questioning and dragging up of the past stops. Date night doesn’t inevitably turn into a slanging match. That’s positive.

Telling the truth about the lie

As part of the work, Rob wondered whether he should fess up about his 40+ lovers. Tricky one.

Maybe in due course, but not as a compulsion to make himself feel better or get assurance. If his girlfriend would benefit from knowing the truth, and understanding why he said it, then yes.

Rob did tell her, eventually. And she rolled her eyes and smiled and it really wasn’t that big a deal.

Rob’s doing a lot better, and so is his girlfriend. It’s a work in progress and he’s still noticing the moments when he doubts himself. When that old narrative of him being less than tries to take over.

Teenage cringe he called it – and he’s getting better at not letting teenage cringe take him over. It old, obsolete, done.

Healing the root causes of RJ

Rob’s not planning to find another girlfriend now. Because what becomes clear is this isn’t about her, or her past. It’s about innate feelings, deeper doubts and pattern matches to his past.

When we tackle that directly, in therapy or self-help, and we stand on our own two feet, the benefits work retroactively too.

Rob felt compassion for that teenager, full of self-consciousness and desperate to fit in. Fixing the past in the present, so to speak.

If any of this resonates with you – if you’ve tried to level the score, or you wonder whether retroactive jealousy is catching in your relationship, I hope this helped bring some clarity and hope.