#106: Retroactive Jealousy: Navigating Discomfort With Our Partner's Past
On Attachment
Stephanie Rigg
4.9 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 5 September 2023
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Retroactive jealousy is one that focuses on the past, fixating on other partners or stages in your partner's lives and being threatened by it. In today’s conversation, I’ll dive into how such jealousy stirs immense stress, but more importantly, we share insights into building healthier, more resilient relationships.
We'll cover:
- Impacting our self worth
- Looking for skeletons and reasons to not trust
- If you should share the jealousy with your partner
- Keeping yourself in an unhealthy loop
Highlighted Links
- Free Break-Up Training: The 3 Shifts That Help Anxiously Attached People Heal After a Break-up
- Free Training: How to Heal Anxious Attachment and (Finally) Feel Secure in Life & Love
Additional Resources
- Download the FREE Anxious Attachment Starter Kit here
- Join my email list 💌
- Explore my library of free guides, classes & meditations
- Visit my website
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. |
| 0:19.7 | I'm your host, relationship coach Stephanie Rigg, |
| 0:22.8 | and I'm really glad you're here. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. |
| 0:29.5 | In today's episode, we're talking all about retroactive jealousy, which for anyone who's not |
| 0:35.8 | familiar with the term refers to being preoccupied with |
| 0:39.2 | jealousy about the past, and particularly in the context of a relationship about your partner's |
| 0:44.2 | past and maybe their past relationships. So this is something that a lot of people reach out to me |
| 0:50.1 | about and I receive a lot of questions about, you know, it can look like comparison with |
| 0:55.8 | a partner's exes or just obsessive preoccupation with what came before you. And I think to the |
| 1:03.6 | point where it can feel really all-consuming and can be really feeding a lot of insecurity in the |
| 1:09.2 | relationship and can really impact our connection |
| 1:13.6 | and all of the other good things that we would want to be cultivating in our relationship in the |
| 1:18.0 | present moment. So it really can take us out of the here and now and create so much stress |
| 1:24.7 | in our bodies and in our relationship with our partners when we're |
| 1:29.3 | obsessing about things that may or may not have happened in the past. So I'm going to be talking |
| 1:34.3 | a little bit about that today, why you might experience that and some ways that you can |
| 1:39.6 | process it and work through it. And hopefully that will give you a little bit more context for it |
| 1:46.3 | and allow you to feel a bit more supported and able to work through those things as and when they |
| 1:51.9 | arise rather than just panicking or spiraling or feeding all of those obsessive thoughts in a way |
| 1:58.0 | that ultimately doesn't get you what you're wanting. So that's what we're |
| 2:02.5 | going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, I just wanted to say that my building |
| 2:07.4 | trust masterclass, which I ran recently, you know, if you're someone who really struggles with |
... |
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