How To Cure Jealousy In A Relationship & Get Over Her Ex

I received an email from a guy struggling with how to cure jealousy in a relationship regarding her former “sex buddies”. You can read the email and my retroactive jealousy cure in my response below…

Overcoming retroactive jealousy of your girlfriend’s ex lover(s).

Personally I didn’t have to deal with the problem of running into any of my girlfriend’s former lovers when trying to overcome retroactive jealousy as we weren’t living in the same country.

However, I think I can offer some sound advice to help all of you out there who may have this problem.

Firstly, though, let’s take a look at the email from Daniel (not his real name).

How to cure jealousy in a relationship – Daniel’s quest

Hi Jeff, 

Apologies for the epic email, but I would appreciate your advice please. My relationship with my girlfriend is great. She is from LA and I am from Switzerland. We met in LA and I am likely to end up living with her there in the future.

My problem is, issues revolving around casual partners/one night stands etc. We have slept with the same amount of people 15 — 20, mine have generally been casual partners and buddies, but I’ve had a few long term relationships, in there and hers are the same.

I just get very worried about the casual partners she has had. An example is that I know that she had a one night stand with an Australian guy, and she rejected him afterwards. He called her afterwards for a few months, but she wasn’t interested. The problem is, now whenever I see a Australian guy, I immediately worry it will be the one she slept with.

I just get paranoid that I will end up working with him, or during the course of making new friends he will be a friend of a friend and I will end up embarrassed and feel belittled. I think it all boils down to people judging me because of my girlfriends ‘casual’ past even though I have done the same.

My question is though – Did you ever experience feelings like this before? If so, how did you feel about it seeing past partners? I really feel like this is giving me social anxiety. I want equip myself with this to deal with it the best can, so do you have any tips for me? As you say, confidence is key and these ‘what if’ thoughts, which may never happen are destroying mine.
Hope to hear from you soon. 

Thank you
Daniel

Here’s my answer on how to cure jealousy in a relationship

Okay, here’s one thing I suggest you start doing straight away, Daniel: “Befriend” these ex partners of hers in your mind. Start liking them instead of hating them.

This may sound silly, I know, for someone trying to overcome retroactive jealousy ocd — to start actually liking the people who are seemingly the cause of so much of grief, but it works.

So, what do I mean by “befriend” and “like”?

I mean you need to start conjuring up different emotions to the ones you’re feeling at the moment when you think about these guys.

You need to take all of those feelings of retrospective jealousy, anger and bitterness that’s built up inside you toward them, and turn them into feelings of positivity, peace and even, dare I say it, friendship.

I remember how I used to feel about my girlfriend’s ex “friends with benefits”.

I didn’t like them at all.

One guy in particular used to play on my mind constantly. He was called Jack and whenever I’d see or hear the name Jack anywhere — on TV, the radio, newspapers, books etc. — I’d be overcome by a wave of nausea.

(It was around this time I began to realize just how many characters are called Jack in Hollywood movies).

Basically whenever I thought of this guy, I felt very, very negatively toward him. I imagined that if I ran into him at party or something, I’d probably want to punch him.

But then, I began to realize that this attitude was getting me absolutely nowhere.

All I was doing was churning up completely nonsensical animosity toward a guy I didn’t even know, and making myself constantly angry and anxious for no apparent reason. In short, it was fueling my retroactive disorder.

So, this is when I endeavored to start “liking” him in my mind by thinking of him as a friend rather than a foe.

An imaginary friendship as a retroactive jealousy cure

I purposefully imagined that I knew Jack and that I liked him.

Okay maybe not in a best bud kind of way, but I began to think of him as a guy I knew, maybe through a friend of a friend, and respected.

I deliberately set out to reframe my image of him as this terrible guy — with the temerity to have his way with MY girlfriend whenever he felt like it — into just a regular guy:

A guy just trying to have some fun in this life. A guy with a sense of humor. A guy who liked movies and football, etc. In short, a guy I liked.

A very strange thing started to happen once I made the conscious effort to do this:

I stopped feeling bitter, angry and resentful toward Jack and her other ex lovers, and started seeing them just as people.

After all, if you think about it, what do you really have to be angry with these guys about?

Aren’t they the people who paved the way for you to come along?

Aren’t they the guys who let your girlfriend get all of her “playing the field” out of the way?

Aren’t they the guys who are in a way responsible for you two meeting in the first place, in terms of the space time continuum?

This is just one way to answer the question of how to cure jealousy in a relationship

Try reframing how you think about your girlfriend’s sexual past and see how it helps alleviate some of the anxiety you have coursing around inside you.

It may not be easy at first, but practice it. Picture having a beer with this Australian dude. Imagine him as a similar guy to yourself, and you may start to realize that he’s probably not so bad.

After all, didn’t you engage in exactly the same behavior as him when you were single?

Hopefully, you’ll then begin to realize that even if you did run into him at a party, you’d probably get on with him rather than want to punch him.

I would wager that when you start to see this guy as someone just like you, this perceived threat from him will start to fade away.

What is certain is that whatever your girlfriend once saw in him, she doesn’t anymore. Their time is well and truly over, but yours has just begun.

I hope this helps,
Jeff

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To learn exactly how to cure jealousy in a relationship, click on the button below to purchase my book The Ultimate Retroactive Jealousy Cure: How To Stop Being Jealous Of Your Partner’s Past in 12 Steps.