Online Reporter
We never thought of this as a big deal, until we began to interact with couples on a regular basis. This isn’t because we both remained virgins throughout our singleness and kept ourselves for marriage.
It’s because after we were honest with one another about our pasts, we somehow thought of our wedding day — or the period we became exclusive to one another — as the reset button for our fresh start and a brand new beginning.
Truth is, no one likes to think about their partner being with anyone else, including the exes.
But while it’s normal to have a passing thought about your partner’s previous romantic life, some people have serious issues dealing with the honesty of their partners’ past sex life.
And some choose to withhold the extent of their previous activities and cross their fingers that nothing will ever catch up with them from that baggage.
Others choose to ignore talking about each other’s sexual history, as long as they’ve both passed the physical health test.
But for many who’ve chosen to lay every card on the table, they struggle with what is called “retroactive jealousy”.
When they bare it all, they struggle handling the historical reality of their partners to the point of it affecting the relationship.
Retroactive jealousy is a state of having major obsession and insecurities over — or anger about — your partner’s romantic history. You ruminate on their past relationships and have serious envy and jealousy toward their exes.
These negative thoughts could be about situations that actually happened in their past. But to a large extent, it’s about your imagination running wild about your partner’s sexual past.
If you’re suffering from retroactive jealousy, you might find yourself obsessively looking up your partner’s exes on social media, or even daydream about how you’ll handle meeting them one day should your paths ever cross.
You’ll comb through their Instagram feeds looking at all their photos and fixating on whether or not they were more attractive, smarter, or even interrogating your partner about whether or not they were better in bed than you. You wonder whether or not your partner loved them more than you.
Retroactive jealousy is next level self-sabotage that’ll guarantee a degree of toxicity in your relationship, you’re not ready for.
If you’re struggling with how to accept your partner’s past, thinking through the reasons you’re feeling insecure can help.
Share your emotions
Instead of snooping, imagining, obsessing, overthinking and self-doubting, talk to your partner and share your feelings.
When you share your feelings, you can get support and understanding, while accusing them or speaking from a place of logic could make them defensive, upset and hesitant to be there for you. We shouldn’t have to explain our pasts to our current partners, especially when we’ve completely moved on from it.
Your partner should also have enough emotional intelligence not to overshare about their past life or rub it in your face. No-one really looks forward to hearing how awesome your life was with your exes, especially how great your sex life was by comparison. And no matter how glorious it’s been, they’re no longer together.
Consider your own value
What are you bringing to the table? Stop imagining stuff that’s not even there over people you may not even know and start appreciating the fact that you’re in the present.
When we feel good about ourselves, it’s easier to believe a person will continue to choose us over others. What areas of your life do you want and need to improve, so you feel more worthy in your own eyes?
See the positives in the past
Our previous experiences are the training ground for our better selves today. Your partner’s past is necessary for them to be the person they are today and choose you.
Consider all the lessons they’ve learnt that are beneficial to your relationship now. Have that list with you when clouds of being jealous of a partner’s past set in. Also consider your own past, and how it benefits your relationship today.
Work on your self-confidence
Lack of self-confidence is one common denominator in relationships with a retroactive jealousy problem.
This is because it’s very hard for someone who’s self-confident and knows what they want in life, to become fixated by past events in their partner’s love life.
On the other hand, someone who ponders on some level if they can live up to their partner’s ex-lovers, is vulnerable to low self-esteem.
In short, to feel anxious and upset about the people your partner once dated or slept with, means you’re probably comparing yourself to them and putting yourself second best.
There are probably many reasons why your partner once went through a “promiscuous phase”. Or were in love with someone who was obviously not right for them.
And none of them relate to these exes being anything remotely out of the ordinary, or “special”.
In any way, it’s part of their journey as much as you’ve had yours before you met. — Sowetan
