I’m talking with Martin on Zoom and he’s visibly upset. “My wife lied”, he says, “in the worst possible way.“

I sit back and listen. She slept with this guy – a not particularly nice guy, apparently – about six months before meeting Martin. And her story has always been that she regretted it. He was this pushy type at her work, she’d felt pressured into it, it happened twice.

Martin had known about this right from the start and he didn’t like it. This predatory creep having had access to his wife. It played on his mind sometimes, but it was three years ago, we all make mistakes.

“But now I’ve seen him” Martin says. “I’ve seen a photo of him. His smug, laughing, disgusting face…”

What, you’ve recently seen this? “Yes, and not only that” – he takes a deep breath – “it was more than twice. He was all over her, she encouraged him. She lied, she loved it…“

Whoah. She’s told you this? “No” – Martin looks really uncomfortable now – “I found it. I found these old text messages between them, with photos and her tongue-out emojis…“

Martin pauses. “I shouldn’t have gone looking, I know. It’s been on my mind so many times. But I was putting a new screen protector on her phone, and it was unlocked, and I looked… I really didn’t think the messages would be on there… I’ve looked before but never checked text history…” Ah.

“And there he is, tormenting me ever since.”

The downward spiral of evidence-seeking in RJ

Well, there’s no unfinding that photo now. And Martin’s mental movies are in overdrive.

Martin had feelings of retroactive jealousy ever since he first knew about this guy. Checking for evidence was his way of managing the thoughts. Snooping, secretly digging – and not finding anything. Phew. Until he did.

Digging for evidence is compulsive. It’s trying to resolve an imagined problem with real-world action.

It might start with looking through social media, through our partner’s Facebook profile or Instagram. “Well, that’s public isn’t it, I’m doing due diligence…“

And then we find ourselves surreptitiously going through emails, phones, USB sticks. We just can’t leave it alone. 

The trouble is, this detective work feeds retroactive jealousy. And it sabotages us and our relationship in the process. Because there’s no end point; we’ll always find another line of enquiry.

There’s the relief of not finding anything, and then RJ thinking says “Oh but what about her friend’s profiles, what about that old laptop, what about deleted items…“

We’re trying to resolve the uncertainty, the thoughts. Guys often say “I’d rather find the worst. I’d rather have my worst fears confirmed than live in this state of not knowing“. That’s the torment of retroactive jealousy.

Retroactive Jealousy: how to respond when you find what you feared

So what’s Martin going to do now?

“I have to say something. I shouldn’t have looked, and I probably shouldn’t bring it up, but I can’t be lied to like this…“

When we know we probably shouldn’t do it, we should listen to ourselves.

I try to take a bit of a stand. “Martin, you’ve got agency here. You can confront your wife with this, and I know the urge to do that is massive. Or you can see this as an opportunity. To draw a line, to take a completely different approach to all this.”

This doesn’t land very well. I can see it in Martin’s eyes. “You’re telling me to suck this up? To forget about the lies?“

Now don’t get me wrong: if we find evidence that we’re actively being cheated on, that’s not to be sucked up.

Even if we found out through snooping, there’s a conversation to be had. “I shouldn’t have been looking, I apologise for that – but here’s what I found.”

But that’s not the case here.

“Play that movie forward” I say. “How’s that going to go? For you and her and your relationship? Or do you take this hit, and grow from it, and call time on these compulsions?“

“But she still lied” he says. People do, partners do – and for many reasons. Just like people go through their partner’s personal stuff. Two wrongs aren’t going to make anything right here.

Why partners hide the past: understanding the “lies”

Sometimes we downplay our past experiences. Or we apologise when we don’t need to. We do it to shield our current partners feelings – especially at the onset of a new relationship.

It felt right in the moment, at the time. And we’re not to blame for causing retroactive jealousy this way.

“She was trying to protect my feelings – she’s like that” Martin says. “But she shouldn’t have done, I hate lying“

I know. But are we obsessing and shaming our partner, risking wrecking a good relationship, out of principle?

I say it’s time to take the hit and grow.

The root cause: insecurity fuels Retroactive Jealousy, not “evidence”

Here’s the bottom line: Martin’s RJ doubt was clearly there before he found the messages. It made him find the messages.

And his underlying insecurity was there long before; before he heard about this other guy, before he met his wife.

Martin said he’d been uncomfortable about exes in previous relationships. “But never as bad as this” he said, “that photo made it my worst nightmare…“

Yes, the nature of the discovery inflames RJ in different ways. When partners are direct and they openly share their past, RJ reacts with “Why did you tell me this? Why are you doing this to me?“

When it’s discovered though snooping, RJ says “Now I’ve got you. What else is there, why have you still got this stuff…?.

And the anger and uncertainty and despair leads to further checking, snooping, asking or thinking about it all day long.

We need to address this obsessive doubt, and Martin’s urges to bring up these messages, or go back and look at them again, or go looking for more.

This is an opportunity. It’s real life exposure to not doing these compulsions, soothing our anxiety in other ways. Not so easy, I know, but it’s doable and it’s worth it.

An opportunity for self-reliance

I worked with Martin to help him stand on his own two feet with this.

To not depend on his wife’s reassurance, or her apologies or shame. To really get the past and the present into perspective.

At the end of our first conversation, I mentioned to Martin that this is a growth opportunity. I introduce this idea gently, because retroactive jealousy doesn’t feel like growth – it feels like hell.

But it absolutely is, and we get a better sense of who we are in the process.

If any of this resonates with your experience, maybe you have an opportunity too. I hope this is helpful.