Retroactive jealousy in relationships: What it is, plus causes and treatments

What Causes Retroactive Jealousy?

The most common causes of retroactive jealousy are:

• Insecurity 
• Past trauma 
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Personality disorders
• Difficulties maintaining a secure attachment style 

However, the causes of retroactive jealousy can also be triggered by certain behaviors demonstrated by the partner of the afflicted individual. If a partner has not let go of a past relationship, for example, and keeps mementos or pictures around the house, or compares their current partner to their previous one, it could trigger retroactive jealousy. Here are a few other behaviors that, if exhibited by a partner,  might cause someone to feel retroactive jealousy:

• Evasive/avoidant behaviors
• Lying
• Inconsistent behaviors
• Avoidance of discussing past relationships
• Difficulty discussing emotions and feelings

Jealousy vs. Retroactive Jealousy

Most people have felt jealousy at some point in their lives and at varying degrees. While retroactive jealousy is a form of jealousy, there are differences between the two. Jealousy may occur if you perceive a threat to your relationship in real-time, such as when you notice your partner dancing too familiarly with someone at a bar, or if your partner is paying extra attention to someone you feel is attractive. While jealousy is centered on a current event and may be more fleeting as the moment passes, retroactive jealousy involves feeling threatened by an event or relationship in your partner’s past. Because retroactive jealousy is centered on something less controllable, it can lead to more fixations and distress around the perceived threat. 

What Is an Example of Retroactive Jealousy?

Typically, retroactive jealousy is used as a way to hold past relationships against a current partner, either intentionally or not. Retroactive jealousy can take different forms based on the people involved and their relationship but generally, it hinders a person’s ability to get over their partner’s past. Retroactive jealousy in a relationship can appear as: 

• Having to seek constant validation from your partner to feel secure in the relationship
• Ongoing concerns about the security of the relationship because of beliefs about your partner’s past relationships
• Frequently questioning your partner’s commitment to your relationship and not to a previous partner
• An unhealthy fixation on your partner’s exes, including looking them up online, comparison, or questioning your partner about them
• Difficulty accepting love and affection from your current partner because they have had previous long-term relationships
• Difficulty engaging in sexual intercourse and having fulfilling sexual intercourse with your partner due to fears that you are not “as good” as their previous partners and then using that as a means to deny sex

Is It Normal to Have Retroactive Jealousy?

Yes, it is normal to have retroactive jealousy, to a certain extent. It’s normal to compare yourself to your partner’s past relationships, to have a general curiosity about them and their nature, and to want to know basic information about their past partners. 

It’s important to recognize that retroactive jealousy is harmful when:

• It lasts for longer than approximately two weeks
• It is present at the start of a new relationship
• It’s something that you think about daily 

If you start to notice that you are experiencing difficulty focusing, concentrating, or being intimate physically and/or emotionally with your romantic partner because of your retroactive jealousy, that’s a sign it is starting to significantly increase and negatively impact your relationship. Persistent retroactive jealousy might even indicate that there is an underlying mental health issue, such as OCD, depression, anxiety, or something else. Only a mental health professional can provide a diagnosis. 

Is Retroactive Jealousy Toxic?

The word “toxic” is dependent on each person’s individual experiences and interpretations, but left unattended, retroactive jealousy can cause someone to act in extremely harmful ways and negatively impact relationships. Retroactive jealousy, left untreated, can cause significant intrapersonal and interpersonal damage due to its demanding, urgent nature of constant comparison and questioning. 

This constant cycle can cause someone to demonstrate irrational, irritable, and dysfunctional behavior patterns that are not healthy and can be potentially harmful if left unrecognized and untreated.

Is Retroactive Jealousy a Form of Anxiety?

While it is not a specific form of anxiety, the activating mechanism of retroactive jealousy is anxiety-based. Retroactive jealousy is fueled by a fight or flight response that gets activated in the body; there is some specific environmental trigger that alerts the brain to potential (real or not) relationship danger.

This then forces/encourages the person to be in a state of hypervigilance as a way to assess and manage real and perceived threats to their relationship, which manifests as retroactive jealousy.

Is Retroactive Jealousy OCD? 

While not everyone experiencing retroactive jealousy has a mental health disorder, severe cases can meet the criteria for obsessional jealousy, which is a type of emotional fixation linked to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In these cases, a person may experience intrusive thoughts and compulsions that interfere with their ability to function. 

Those with retroactive jealousy and OCD may fixate on details of their partner’s past relationships, and engage in unhealthy behaviors like checking texts, browser history, private messages, or the social media profiles of the partner’s ex. Only a mental health professional can diagnose and treat conditions that resemble or develop into OCD.

Treatments for Retroactive Jealousy OCD

Retroactive jealousy OCD treatments will often be similar to what a person might do for OCD. These can include:

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): ACT therapy is a technique to accept distressing thoughts without reacting to them. Learning to acknowledge and accept intrusive thoughts can help a person regulate harmful emotions around their partner’s past. 
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): CBT therapy helps individuals recognize their negative thoughts and behaviors and reframe them in more constructive ways. 
• Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP): ERP is a type of CBT where a person is gradually exposed to their fears and encouraged to resist compulsions. 
• Medication: A person might be prescribed antidepressants or other medications typically prescribed for OCD and anxiety. 

How Do I Help My Girlfriend Get Over Her Retroactive Jealousy?

If you’re wondering how to help a partner with retroactive jealousy, one of the best ways is to seek professional counseling—with individual counseling as a priority. After your partner has established care with a mental health professional, begin to ask your partner to discuss their emotional experiences in a supportive, non-judgemental way. 

Insecurity is often at the core of retroactive jealousy, so allowing your partner to explore their insecurities respectfully can help them feel heard and can increase their feelings of emotional security. Next, finding ways to cope together can be helpful and maybe out of this conversation, you can develop a mindfulness routine such as meditation. 

How to Deal With My Retroactive Jealousy?

If you find that you can’t get over your partner’s past, and that this feeling is negatively impacting you and the relationship, there are several steps you can take to overcome retroactive jealousy. 

1. Identify the feeling. You can start to overcome a self-inflicted retroactive jealousy pattern by first bringing awareness to it and allowing yourself to identify it as a pattern.
2. Recognize if it’s negatively impacting your life. Like jealousy, retroactive jealousy can be felt in varying degrees. Understanding the severity of your jealousy can help you make a more informed decision on how to work through it.
3. Practice open communication with your partner. Approaching the topic with your partner and letting them know how you feel can open a conversation that helps alleviate some of your anxieties. It’s important, however, to recognize that it isn’t your partner’s responsibility to take on the issue. 
4. Give it time. The more new memories and experiences you create with your partner, the less their past relationship will feel relevant. 
5. Lean on your support network. Turn to your friends and family for support to talk you through the jealousy and help give you perspective. 
6. Limit or stop social media searches. Remember that images on social media often don’t give an authentic or full picture of what people are really feeling. Limiting your searches can prompt you to stop creating harmful narratives around photos you see of your partner’s ex. 
7. Remind yourself to check the facts of the situation. Do you currently have a partner who loves you, supports you, and actively chooses to be with you daily? Does your partner value you and make you and your relationship a special priority? If so, that is a key indicator that it is a healthy relationship and should be continued.
8. Speak to a therapist. A therapist can help you develop the tools you need to overcome retroactive jealousy. They will help you learn and apply CBT, ACT, or ERP techniques, depending on what your specific situation calls for. They may also suggest antidepressants or other medications to help with anxiety or OCD.

Will Retroactive Jealousy Ever Go Away?

While it can go away on its own, retroactive jealousy will linger and will last longer and more intensely if you do not seek professional counseling services. Due to its nature, it requires professional attention to help identify, challenge, and replace negative automatic thoughts about self and others. 

In other words, you need specific tools and techniques from a counselor to help you reframe negative thought patterns, because engaging in them is cyclical; they are not likely to go away on their own because they are repetitive.