I speak with other therapists, and we have more people coming to us with intrusive thoughts about their partner’s past than ever before.

These thoughts (and mental imagines and movies) are wrecking their relationships and their headspace.

Here are some possible reasons why RJ is on the rise, and my hot takes based on my own client work. See if any of them resonate with you.

High stress and relationship anxiety

We’re all under stress. The state of the world, the economy, the pandemic not that long ago. Anxiety is on the up.

Actually, I quite often hear ‘it was during the pandemic or just after it when I started obsessing about my partner sleeping with that guy…‘.

Pandemic or not, when we’re under stress, we pop at our most vulnerable point. Old doubts come to the surface. We find ourselves reevaluating our relationship, reflecting on what our partner did before us. And maybe, what we didn’t do before them.

Clients say to me ‘it feels like I’ve been cheated on…‘.

How social media fuels comparison

Often with retroactive jealousy, we worry our partner had more fun with an ex – often a casual ex. Or we might not be ‘the best they’ve had’.

All the stuff pumped out on social media about attractiveness and ‘what women secretly want’ and ‘5 signs your partner secretly prefers sex with their ex’ doesn’t help.

My clients often lament how tall, athletic, pretty or confident their partner’s ex was. Are they really going to stay interested in me? Were they ever really interested in me?

The ‘digital footprint’ and compulsive research

The other big way that social media fuels retroactive jealousy: digital footprint.

Photos, posts, comments, friends, their whole timeline. It’s all there for research and comparison. I see this all the time with my clients: ‘I know I shouldn’t but I went on his or her Instagram again, I went down that rabbit hole.’

It gets compulsive. I’m having difficult thoughts about her past. Trawling her past on social media is something I can do, for better or worse.

Inevitably, it’s for the worse.

The ‘body count’ narrative and dating pressure

Tiktoks and Reels about body count grab our attention. Those street interviews for example: ‘excuse me, what’s your body count?’ Millions of views.

Surveys show that Gen Zers are more bothered by their partner’s body count than older generations.

Why? A lot of pressure and anxiety around dating and relationships. Body count reduces messy questions (about trust, values, someone’s value as a partner) down to one supposedly objective number.

I often speak with people, usually on the younger side, who obsessively need to know their partner’s body count.

Red-pill content and the manosphere influence

Social media again: the algorithm likes to serve up divisive content. Whether it’s red-pill stuff, purity stuff, or misogynistic ‘advice.’

There’s nothing new about the double-standards, where women get shamed and men get praised for the same behaviours.

But there has been a rise in the podcasters and channels putting this stuff out, encouraging men to decide when a woman’s body count is ‘too high’ and judge her whole character around it.

I occasionally speak with guys in their 20s who’ve absorbed some of this and are now in real relationships. They’re suddenly confused and conflicted because they’ve never felt more loved, they’re planning to move in together. ‘But she’s slept with 6 guys before me‘.

Reality clashes with absorbed expectations, triggering an obsession with her past.

That said, I’m not sure this is a big factor in the rise of RJ. I probably speak with more guys who haven’t absorbed this stuff, who don’t buy into it.

But when they went on the retroactive jealousy subreddit looking for help, they got some replies like ‘get out now, don’t be a simp!’ etc.

And it wasn’t helpful.

Sexual FOMO and the illusion of endless options

Netflix reality shows, Instagram and of course, internet porn. It feels like everyone else is having amazing sex.

People struggling with retroactive jealousy often say to me ‘I was a late developer and I don’t think I ever really caught up. I haven’t had one night stands or a threesome…‘.

And if our partner seems to have had a fulfilling past, we worry we’re not providing the same excitement or value – there’s the comparisons again. Or we panic that we haven’t fulfilled our own sexual potential and we feel trapped.

I hear it a lot. Someone can be telling me how wrong and disgusting their partner’s past was, and then they say ‘maybe I’d feel differently if I’d done it too‘. There’s the jealousy in the retroactive jealousy.

FOMO and the illusion of endless options – two factors that propel retroactive jealousy, in my opinion.

Is it Retroactive Jealousy or ROCD?

When a condition goes mainstream (like ADHD, for example), more people identify with it. The same applies to retroactive jealousy.

I hear this a lot from my clients. ‘I googled it or I came across this article, I saw a YouTube video… and it described exactly what I’m feeling. I’ve got retroactive jealousy‘.

This is helpful. It’s a thing, and you feel less alone.

Therapists and podcasters have been talking more about retroactive jealousy in the last couple of years, raising awareness.

Just note that retroactive jealousy isn’t a condition.

It’s more a set of symptoms – obsessional thoughts and feelings around our partner’s past – that could be OCD, OCPD, stress or a trauma response.

It’s certainly treatable, but we need to recognise what’s really going on.

Conclusion: overcoming Retroactive Jealousy in the modern world

We have a recipe here: take a very natural discomfort for most people (I’d rather not think about my partner’s sexual past) and layer on day-to-day stress and anxiety.

Mix in social media and narratives about body count, and if you’re a guy, a sprinkling of not being a proper man if your partner enjoyed sex without you.

Let the feelings of being stuck with an unchangeable past – yours and your partner’s – ramp up into fight-or-flight urges.

There we have it: retroactive jealousy.

RJ isn’t new. For as long as our partner’s past has had meaning to us, humans have had these thoughts and feelings. Cavemen probably didn’t care (‘you’re less hairy, you’ll do‘). But we do care.

Social media and the narratives I’ve mentioned are pouring gasoline on a very evolved fire. That sounds a bit melodramatic, but I keep seeing how sticky and tormenting these thoughts are.

If any of this resonates with you, you’re not stuck with retroactive jealousy – I’m here to tell you. See my other posts for some ideas and next steps.

I think we all do ourselves a favour by spotting and questioning these social media narratives. And recognising that, maybe, we’re still enough.