The 17-year glitch: her past feels ‘wrong’

Here’s a top tip for retroactive jealousy: don’t argue with it.

Rory came to see me about his wife’s past. I could see his frustration immediately.

“She slept around when she was at uni. She told me right at the start, when we first met seventeen years ago. I didn’t like it… but I didn’t think about it much. We were young, we fell in love. I went along with it, but I shouldn’t have. I should have listened to my gut. I should have walked away there and then…”

“Why, what went wrong?”, I asked.

“Oh it’s been fine. We got married, we’ve got children – teenagers now. Our careers, the house, holidays. It’s all been… fine.”

Rory looks at me. “I know, there’s been no cheating or anything like that. We’ve had good times. Regular ups and downs. It’s more me… I knew I didn’t like her past and I should have listened to that. Her adventures at uni, sleeping around, it gnaws away at me. I hate it more as time goes by.”

His frustration turns to sadness.

“Look, it just feels wrong. Our marriage, the things we’ve done, it just… all feels wrong now.”

Why ‘positive thinking’ fails to fix retroactive jealousy

My therapist instinct is to go into positive reframing mode.

I could say: “But what about all the good stuff? Your family, the children, all those good times. Doesn’t that mean more than whatever she got up to at uni?”

But I’ve learned. It won’t help.

I could try to normalise: “We all have regrets sometimes, especially when our kids are getting older and we reflect on our lives, etc. But Rory, maybe you’re getting things a bit out of perspective here…”

I think he is, and he’d probably agree. But his wife’s past will still feel wrong.

I could try to be clever therapist: “So if you’d known how difficult her past was going to be for you, you’d wouldn’t have married her?”

“Exactly”, he’d say. “I would have respectfully walked away.”

“Ah but what if 17-years-ago you had known how good things were going to be? You didn’t know that then, did you? Would you really have turned all that down?”

All this would be well-meaning therapy talk. But none of it will help.

If I keep making the point, Rory might feel a bit better and say “You know what? I’m getting things out of proportion here. I should appreciate everything I’ve got…”

But on his way home back to his wife, or at 4am laying next to his wife, he’ll feel it again: “NO. What she did was wrong.”

The OCD connection: RJ is a state of confusion

Rory is saying ‘yes, everything’s fine but it’s not fine, it’s all wrong’. We can work with that.

This confusion is something OCD and OCPD have in common. Worrying that something bad is happening – or worrying that something is wrong or not how it should be.

Either way, it feels intolerable.

Choosing the ‘ghost’ over the reality in front of you

Why do I think Rory’s having a confused doubt rather than a real doubt?

In the grip of this feeling, he doubts his sensed reality. The things he can see, hear and know.

Rory woke up with his wife this morning, she wished him well for his therapy, he felt loved right there. He told me that.

But retroactive jealousy disregards all this and says: this event from the distant past is more relevant, don’t get tricked by here and now reality.

It’s similar to classic OCD confusion: I checked my house was all locked up two minutes ago, but the thought that my front door is still open feels more real.

And it feels intolerable.

The ‘chump’ narrative: how doubts target our vulnerabilities

Retroactive jealousy reasoning is as clever as we are. It knows us, it knows our most sensitive, vulnerable areas.

“I should have listened to my gut, but I was swept up into this relationship”, Rory says.

There’s a narrative right there about himself: I just go along with things, I’m weak, I’m a chump.

Anything that proves this narrative about himself grabs his attention: I can’t let this be true, I need to take a stand.

Another clever trick: retroactive jealousy masquerades as a profound truth. I see it now, it was wrong all along.

Feels like we’re making a deep realisation. But we’re making a confused doubt.

And the doubt and the facts can’t be argued with. Not without getting more tangled up, and even more confused.

Breaking the spell: shifting the story we tell ourselves

So that’s where I steered my conversations with Rory. We talked about the power of narratives.

We highlighted the story he tells himself when he’s doubting: I’m a chump, I made a huge mistake.

And we recognised how easy it is to lose sight of how things are, once the story grabs us.

We considered where Rory’s story came from. His past relationship experiences, his beliefs and ideals about what a partner’s past should be.

We explored this narrative about him being easily led and weak. He’d had it for a while, before he ever met his wife.

Rory feared being that kind of man, and he kept going back seventeen years into the past to prove it.

And that feels more relevant to now, Rory?

“Well… maybe I don’t need to keep going back there.” Rory smiled.

I think we’re starting to break the spell.

Dealing with sticky doubts and philosophical pushback

In our subsequent conversations, there were pushbacks. Working with retroactive jealousy, there always are.

Rory’s RJ reasoning wanted to get philosophical: “But he passing of time doesn’t put wrongs right, does it? I still feel it was wrong…”

Interesting point, we could get into the nitty gritty of that. But what would that achieve, apart from distracting us from here and now reality. Sticky doubts are clever like that.

Instead, we acknowledged the feeling and asked why it seems so relevant. What’s wrong now?

“Not much, I know!” says Rory.

Anchoring in the now: Rory’s path to peace

Over time, Rory did arrive at a different narrative. Not ‘my wife’s past was right after all’ or ‘everything is great now so I accept her’.

But a narrative more anchored in reality: I don’t like thinking about my wife’s past, but I don’t really need to.

Nothing to see here. Nothing confusing about that.

If you struggle with similar thoughts about your partner’s past, what’s the story you’re telling yourself? Is it based on evidence or feelings? Have you had this story for a long while?

Does a part of you know it’s not accurate or relevant, but arguing with it gets you nowhere?

I hope this suggests some ways through the confusion.