Learning about a partner's romantic or sexual history is, in most cases, inevitable. Soon after we become close to someone, either we'll ask them about it, or they'll tell us about it. And even if we don't know the details, it's hard not to form some kind of an impression about a partner's amorous life before they met us.

Relationships on Female First

Relationships on Female First

Some people are able to take this side of our partner's past on board and just let it go, like water off a duck's back. For others, though, information about ex-wives, girlfriends, and former sexual exploits, can become deeply ingrained in the brain to the point where it's very hard to shake.

I should know, as I used to suffer from what's known as "retroactive jealousy" myself and ended up writing a book "How To Stop Being Jealous Of Your Partner's Past In 12 Steps" about how to get over it. So if you've found yourself in the unfortunate position of being endlessly tormented by negative thoughts and emotions about your partner's sexual past, read on - I may be able to help!

The first thing I'd stress to anyone suffering from retroactive jealousy is that you need to pinpoint exactly what you're feeling and why you're feeling it. Retroactive jealousy can be a very confusing condition because consciously you know everything's in the past and shouldn't matter, but subconsciously you can't help feeling threatened.

As I mention in step three of the book, a big part of why you're feeling threatened by your partner's former lover(s) is because on some level you fear that you may lose them. Not necessarily to these people from the past, but to someone like them. In other words, these former lovers are merely representations in your over-active imagination of your worst fear - losing the one you love to someone else.

Now, the reason why you're concerned about these exes, in all likelihood, can be traced back to a certain lack of self-confidence. People who are confident in themselves, know who they are, and why their partner loves them, tend not to become consumed by excessive over-thinking about who their partner once dated or slept with.

I read a quote recently by Tony Blair's biographer, Tom Bower, - "He has unshakeable self-confidence and never thinks about the past." The two really are interlinked. If you were truly confident in yourself your mind wouldn't keep sliding back to the past because it would know that you're truly worth sticking around for.

So, here's what you need to do going forward. Firstly, realize that the overwhelming emotion connected to retroactive jealousy is fear. (And probably mixed in with some form of judgment, brought on by this fear.) Secondly, learn how to eradicate this fear by working on your own self-confidence. List all the ways you could improve your self-image and draw up an action plan to work on them every single day, and after some time the imagined "importance" of your partner's ex-lovers will melt away. This is just one of the tactics I outline in the book, but is a very important part of the process of getting over retroactive jealousy.

I wish you good luck.

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Jeff Billings is the author of "How To Stop Being Jealous Of Your Partner's Past In 12 Steps." To find out more about how to overcome retroactive jealousy, drop by his website www.RetroactiveJealousyCrusher.com.


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