If you experience nagging doubts about your partner’s sexual past, and you try to ignore them and you persevere with the relationship – are you being weak or passive? Beta even? It feels like it sometimes.

Retroactive jealousy thoughts can have this effect. A client said to me recently “It feels like people are laughing behind my back. My wife’s friends and exes, they know things about her past that I don’t. They can see how weak and naive I am…“.

It’s not just intrusive thoughts pushing this feeling. I’ve seen discussions on the retroactive jealousy subreddit, where someone posts “I’m really struggling with my girlfriend’s past. I love her but she’s got a body count of 5 guys before me”.

And someone responds with “Dude, find a girl with a better past, stop putting up with that”.

Such thoughts about our partner’s past are difficult, I know. And if we decide to respond or react to them, things get even more difficult.

This is where retroactive jealousy gets quite OCD

Another intrusive thought about my partner’s past and I’m feeling weak or trapped and full of uncertainty. So I say something. I bring up their past. I ask questions about it, maybe I challenge them on it. Or I think about it all day.

I do this to get certainty, fix the thoughts and feel OK again. And maybe it works, in the moment. I took action, I wasn’t passive. Even if it hurt or shamed my partner in the process, all because I had a difficult thought. I stood up to their past, and I felt some temporary relief.

Some self-help guides say THIS is a sign of weakness. If you’re letting these thoughts push you into sabotaging behaviours, you need to stand up to them.

So if we try to ignore the thoughts, we’re being weak and passive. If we respond to the thoughts, we’re being weak for letting them push us around. And the thoughts keep coming either way.

This is the trap of retroactive jealousy OCD. And it doesn’t bode well for our relationship or our mental health. Fortunately, there’s a better way.

What not to do with RJ bully thoughts

In my therapy work and articles, I’ve talked about retroactive jealousy thoughts pushing us around and OCD thoughts being bully thoughts.

Well, what’s the opposite of being pushed around? Being strong. What do we do with bullies? We stand up to them, don’t we?

I remember coming home from school in tears and my dad telling me to “hit the bully back if it happens again“. Well-intentioned, trying to empower me.

This advice didn’t work out in the school yard for me. And it rarely works out in the realm of intrusive thoughts either. These notions of being mentally weak or strong actually feed the problem.

When we think about it in this way – and RJ has us doing a lot of thinking – we’re questioning and criticising ourselves even more. I’m so low status, such a loser. Rabbit holes of analysis and more thinking open up, or more attempts at standing up to our thoughts. Keeping us in the trap.

And it’s a false solution. When you stand up to intrusive thoughts or hit them right back, they don’t go “oh I’m sorry, you’re stronger than me, I’ll leave you alone from now on“. No, retroactive jealousy just does pushups outside.

Addiction advice often calls for more mental strength and willpower too. And in a way, people struggling with RJ thoughts are addicted to the compulsions and temporary relief that compulsions bring. Does their willpower need to be stronger?

When someone like my uncle says “I smoked for 50 years and then one day I just said NO, NO MORE“. Have you tried that with intrusive thoughts about your partner’s past?

You most probably have. It’s not realistic, and it’s nothing to do with your willpower.

A better way to handle intrusive thoughts: therapeutic surrender

What? Surrender? That sounds a bit weak. Like surrendering to the bully and giving him your dinner money every day?

No. This surrendering means accepting the thoughts and the triggered feelings. It’s happening right now, and I’m not ignoring it. What is the thought I’m having? How is it making me feel in my body?

Fully notice when you’re caught up in the mental arm-wrestle of ‘how could my partner do that’ – ‘but I love them’ – ‘but they did it’ – ‘but it was in the past’ – ‘but I need to make sure it’s in the past…’ etc.

It’s paradoxical. By not ignoring the thought and by observing in close-up, in real time, we’re better able to detach from the feeling. Sooner or later, the bored bully passes along. We’re not ignoring, hitting back or trying to fix anything.

Take a breath and get back to your present. Feed the cat, finish that email, go back to sleep, be there for your partner. Disengage and simply don’t do what these thoughts are telling you to do.

When my mum said “try ignoring the bully, rise above it“, she was on to something. Accept that you thought ‘what if’ and then get back to what is.

Resources to help you develop this approach

Techniques like urge surfing and dropping anchor are based upon this very approach. Also check out the work of therapists Sally Winston and Martin Seif, who provide straight-forward advice on how to develop this attitude towards intrusive thoughts.

You might not find it so easy at first. It can feel counter-intuitive. Getting used to stepping back from thoughts and giving them less priority, even when they bring a whoosh of feeling. Even being amused at how creative and desperate they can be. Bullies want to be taken very seriously.

And while we’re at it, we can ditch the notion of mental weakness. I don’t think it helps anyone handle their unwanted thoughts (except my uncle maybe). I hope this is helpful for you.