Jealousy of your wife's past, how to forgive, what to do, advice from psychologists

November 12, 2018
Psychology of relationships
Kira Ifeevskaya

When a person is in a serious love relationship and really values the attention of his chosen one, sooner or later a certain jealousy towards his past begins to appear. The beginning of a relationship takes place in a state of euphoria and a feeling of absolute separation from the rest of the world. But before this global meeting, each of the partners had their own past. Surely there were other serious relationships then that did not develop further for some reason.

Jealousy of what happened before

As the relationship develops, partners begin to get to know each other better, share their past stories, and then pathological jealousy of the past of a loved one begins to appear. This is especially true when he previously had a beautiful romantic story, which was terminated on the initiative of the other party. In this case, there is a high probability that your partner still has tender feelings for the subject of his youthful or girlish passion, which may threaten the well-being of the current relationship. Whether this is true or not is unimportant, but in any case, jealousy of the past is slowly growing and maturing within us. At some point, it becomes too much and negativity is released onto the person you care about. Periodic repetition of such breakdowns is a serious threat to your previously excellent relationship.

In order to protect your love from endless squabbles and poking around in the past, you need to understand how to deal with jealousy of the past.

Jealousy of partner's children

A fairly common type of jealousy, which, as a rule, has two “faces” .

First: jealousy of the children themselves . More precisely, anger from the fact that children are “losing” the attention that should aimlessly belong to you.
Second: jealousy of the mother of his children . Each of his trips to his ex-wife in order to see his children is met with hostility - “What if he still loves her?”, “What if she tries to return him?”, “Or maybe the children are just an excuse to see her?” .

The emergence of jealousy

Our past always remains with us, no matter what part of life we go through. When entering into a serious relationship with a person, you should clearly understand that his past is not subject to our adjustment and will remain as it was. Showing jealousy about the past is not only irrational, but also very harmful to new relationships. Constant comparison does not bring any constructiveness into your life. This is an irritating factor for both partners. One cultivates a feeling of guilt for experiencing warm feelings towards his former crush, while the other is furious with jealousy and the inability to snatch pleasant memories from the memory of his loved one. Both do not contribute to the establishment of strong family relationships and have an extremely negative impact on their further development.

Such situations apply equally to both women and men. Despite the status of the stronger sex, guys are no less jealous of women’s past relationships than girls. Jealous lovers return again and again to the humiliating extortion of various intimate details and details of their personal lives with a previous close friend or even a former spouse, although this does not make them feel any better. The one who asks feels mental pain and torment. The one who answers feels guilty about his past, although he does not understand what it is. Both have a hard time with this situation, but they cannot stop it. How to get out of this vicious circle?

Reasons for discontent

There may be enough reasons to be jealous and suspicious. However, their validity is not always based on facts. Often speculation is presented as truth and is considered the only true one. Do not succumb to the provocations of the subconscious and assess the situation soberly.

Comparing your current partner with your ex

Openly telling your partner that he is losing compared to his former lover is the biggest mistake that can be made in a relationship, even with a non-jealous person. Such words are usually disguised as a desire to motivate change, but as a result, both receive a negative response. Hearing this, the young man will probably be offended, because his leadership position has been greatly questioned.

Naturally, after this the guy is jealous of the girl for her past. The same applies to the opposite situation. Don't say this to your partner if you don't want to break up in the near future.

Such words are not always spoken consciously. Sometimes a comparison is made as a harmless remark, a hint of improvement in a certain action. This motivates some men, but discourages others from continuing the relationship. If a girl decides to use such tactics to achieve her goals, she needs to think about the wording and situation so as not to anger the young man.

Great love for children from a previous marriage

Strong feelings for another object cause feelings of competition. The situation when a child and a parent live separately but see each other periodically is familiar to many young families. Fathers who have left the family and started new relationships often find themselves in this situation.

One of the options for the situation is that the current partner stole the guy, destroying the marriage, but is now jealous of the children with whom the young man is dating. The reaction is natural, since the woman forced or provoked betrayal, and now she is worried about the possibility of the same outcome, a repetition of betrayal. In this case, the problem is solely in the girl’s head, because at a certain moment she competed with her legal spouse, but won, which means a clear lead in all aspects.

Another situation is that a young father met a new girl after the divorce. Now that he is visiting the children, the woman is worried about a possible return to her ex-wife. This is a more reasonable case for concern, since such situations occur often, especially if the ex-wife is not caught up in a new hobby. However, you cannot panic and constantly reproach the young man for infidelity. This may make him think about getting back together.

But it doesn’t hurt to observe more carefully, especially when it comes to the aspect of your relationships. Assess the level of attentiveness, romanticism and interest. Compare with the initial stage. Draw conclusions about the behavior, and if the result is unsatisfactory, discuss the problem.

Good relationship with ex-partner

Trusting relationships between separated young people are possible, but their establishment requires time to accept the situation. Three options are possible:

READ

If a man says “My girl,” what does that mean?

Young guys who dated for a short time. Such people can remain friends, especially if before the start of the relationship they knew each other for a long time and communicated closely. There is no point in being jealous, since this is really a friendly relationship and nothing more.
A young couple who recently separated after ending a long-term or romantic relationship. This is an unlikely scenario in which new partners are usually used as a "pill". If suspicions constantly arise about a not entirely friendly relationship, most likely these are not only suspicions.
A couple who have lived together for a long time and have children. Usually these are people aged 33-35 years. Having separated and received a divorce, they can maintain a trusting relationship, especially against the backdrop of communication with children. Rumors that their relationship is dangerous are often exaggerated.

Other reasons

A list of other reasons for jealousy is given by practicing psychologists:

diffidence;
nervous disorder, obsessive thoughts;
critical age - usually associated with self-identification at 20-22 years old, 37-40 years old;
jealousy as a defense to hide one's infidelity;
trauma, previous experience;
direct provocation of a partner.

The adequacy of each reason should be decided with a psychologist.

What questions torment jealous people?

The first step is to figure out why jealousy occurs and how to deal with it? As a rule, jealousy occurs in people who are not confident in their positions and recognize the superiority of others over themselves. They are constantly tormented by unpleasant questions:

how important were the past relationships for the partner, are they more important than the current ones;
which of us does he or she love more?
won't this comparison be in my favor?

These questions indicate that at the moment the most important thing for us is to be the main character in your partner’s life, the most desirable, surpassing in the intensity of feelings all previous love stories. And when a partner does not let us feel this clearly, fears and uncertainty arise in the strength of the ties that bind you. If you are not confident in your irresistibility and importance in your partner’s life, jealousy of the past appears and becomes the cause of your discord.

Differences between male and female jealousy

The psychology of jealousy manifests itself differently depending on gender. The basis of the feeling is laid in a person by the natural desire to reproduce offspring, and with the most successful partner.

Dependence on the past life of a beautiful girl is based on an instinctive understanding of the mechanisms of choosing a partner. In search of the best male, she does not waste time on insignificant options. When entering into a relationship, a woman is sure that this man is superior to everyone she knows in a certain capacity. Knowing about a large number of former partners, the current lover doubts his importance. In addition, returning to the option that took first place in the girl’s personal rating is humiliating and entails the loss of the woman.

Women's jealousy is less justified. Men are polygamous; their biological task is to fertilize as many females as possible, so they are less picky in relationships. Even having a wealth of relationship experience, a young man will remain with the last girl for a number of reasons:

She wins in appearance, meets current tastes and beauty standards.
The last girls are often more successful than the previous ones, more experienced in intimate relationships.
The woman from the past is inconvenient because she is not adapted to the current life situation or environment.

To stop being jealous of your husband’s past, think about the reasons for his choice not in favor of others. He probably spoke them out or mentioned them in passing. Concentrate on your positive details or on not showing negative (in the man's opinion) qualities in behavior.

It is also worth noting that women are more prone to jealousy. Sometimes this is due not to a lack of sufficient self-esteem, but to excessive concentration on one’s feelings. In such cases, the girl is visited by thoughts that the meeting with her partner could have taken place earlier, that time is lost, although they could spend it together.

Partner feeling insecure

Where does the feeling of self-doubt come from? Where all our fears and phobias come from is from childhood. It is very important to instill in a child from an early age a correct and adequate perception of the world, as well as an awareness of his place in it. By constantly repeating to a child that, due to his young age and dependent financial situation, he is not a full member of the family and is forced to accept the point of view of his parents, you develop in him a lack of self-confidence, belittle his importance in the family and society, and provide fertile ground for the development of doubts in your capabilities and talents.

Growing up and entering into love relationships, such children continue to remain nobody and interpret any comparisons not in their favor. Only psychologists can help change this attitude towards oneself, but changing the vector of one’s attitude towards a partner’s past is entirely within one’s capabilities. First of all, you need to decide whether you want to save your relationship. If so, how can you learn to trust your loved one and curb your unfounded claims about his past? The first thing you should understand is that the main reason for your jealousy lies not in your partner and not in his past affection, but in your lack of confidence in your abilities. You do not believe that you have become the one and only for your beloved person, who is not afraid of any competition from other contenders, be it former or future.

How to get rid of pathological jealousy of past relationships?

By trying to find evidence to support your suspicion that your partner's past relationships had some meaning to him, you also lower your self-esteem. In addition, you are introducing a serious imbalance into your still fragile and unsettled relationship. With your persistence, you demonstrate to your chosen one such a bad quality of yours as pathological jealousy. This hitherto unknown trait of your character, instead of tying your loved one more tightly to you, can frighten and push him away.

Really, what happened in the past to make you worry so much about it in the present? After all, today your chosen one is with you, and not with your former passion. This means your qualities won him over. And now it is only in your power to either stop this jealousy for no reason and remain the winner of your rival, or show yourself from a not very good side, appearing before the astonished gaze of a man in love as a brawler and a pathological jealous person. Of course, every woman expects to hear in response that all past hobbies cannot be compared with your beauty, intelligence, thriftiness, grace and other undoubted advantages.

But would you want your ex to talk about you like that? After all, you also had some kind of relationship before, and they were important to you then, and remain a part of your life now. First love always leaves an indelible mark on the heart and no one wants to renounce it. But this does not mean at all that today the subject of your youthful passion is as attractive and desirable for you as it once was. In essence, pathological jealousy is different in that it causes jealousy for something that no longer exists and that exists only in memories. Therefore, you should not assert yourself at the expense of ghostly exes, live better in the present and prove to your loved one your exclusivity and bright individuality, help him to be confident that in your person he made the only right choice.

How to deal with such an all-consuming feeling?

If your partner is an accomplished, attractive adult man, realize that there were women in his life before you came along . It would be strange if your partner sat all his life in a high tower and waited for you to appear. He is a man, and his bachelor life involves meetings, relationships, and searching for a partner.
Accidental (and even intentional) mention of ex-women is not a reason to explode and look for secret meaning in words and actions. Jealousy always brings discord into relationships, and pathological jealousy even more so.
Are you afraid that your partner's connection to the past is too strong? Analyze the situation . Do you have real reasons for jealousy? If there is nothing but your fantasies, you should calm down and switch to strengthening your relationship (and not destroying it). If real “bells” from the past throw you off balance, it’s time to talk to your loved one. Otherwise, an avalanche of mistrust and unresolved issues from the past will one day bury your relationship.
Remember: you have no right to blame your partner for his old novels . And you, probably, also had meetings and relationships before him.
Your relationship is a life from scratch , which automatically leaves the past where it belongs. And sincere love knows no jealousy.

The "five no" rule

If you want to save yourself and your partner from jealousy of the past and learn how to learn to trust a person dear to you, you should apply the “five don’ts” rule, well known in relationship psychology:

Do not dramatize the situation by raising your partner’s past love to a non-existent height - if your chosen one is with you today, then it does not have such a serious meaning.
Do not demand that your partner forget the past - firstly, this cannot be done on command, and secondly, he may be painfully wounded by your dictatorial tendencies, which will lead to completely the opposite result.
Don’t try to become like your husband’s ex-passion and copy her style of clothing and behavior - maybe all this did not suit him in his ex? Show your individuality and your personal qualities that are unique to you - this will attract more attention and interest to you.
Never speak badly about your ex, because this is basic disrespect for the taste and choice of your partner; he may not like your impartial statement, and the relationship will crack. In addition, discussing a person in his absence has always been considered bad form and was perceived by others accordingly.
Don’t dwell on past relationships - focus on the present, create a cozy home atmosphere for a man, where he is loved and expected, reassured, where affection and fresh delicious food, respect and understanding await him - and he would never exchange such a family for any feminine charms.

Test: zealous state coefficient.

Save this article and come back periodically to take a test that reveals the moral pressure coefficient, thereby checking how jealous you are today. To ensure accurate results, answer honestly.

1. Have there been girls who cheated on you?

2. Do you think that the wife should be under control?

3. Do you feel resentment against peers from the past that still persists to this day?

4. Do you think lying is the worst phenomenon in human life?

5. Do you regret that you didn’t meet your wife earlier, then many things could have been different?

6. Do you have your eye on young girls?

7. Do you prefer that she doesn't wear a lot of makeup?

8. Would you take revenge on everyone who once offended you? Only honestly!?

9. Was there a moment in your wife’s past when she was dragged into bed through naivety?

10. Was your first love at an early age and turned out to be unpromising?

11. Is a female social network account freely available to you?

12. In your childhood, did your mother often leave home for a long time, without explaining where?

13. Do you look at your wife’s gaze when a prominent man passes next to you?

14. Checking a woman's phone?

15. Do you often imagine your wife in bed with someone else?

16. Do you prohibit your wife from meeting her friends?

17. At school, you studied almost perfectly in the first grades, but as you got older, your grades worsened?

18. Does the number of ex-men your wife has directly affect your respect for her?

19. Do you often call to find out where your wife is?

20. Do you often spend leisure time together?

If you have any questions, you can write them in the comments. We wish you all the best!

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Psychologists' opinion

Such a concept as jealousy has been well studied in psychology for a long time. In order to fight it, you need to change the consciousness of the jealous person, otherwise no logical calculations will have an effect on him. Any manifestation of jealousy only leads to aggravation of the situation and brings the end of any relationship closer. Before you start fighting jealousy, determine your priorities - what do you want from life: to convict your other half of infidelity and attraction to past feelings, or to be sure that you are his beloved and only woman on earth? The first is a destructive path, the second is a creative one. If your current relationship is important to you, then stop returning to the past and build your strong peace in the present - as any qualified psychologist will tell you. How to stop being jealous and become confident in your exceptional position in the heart of your loved one?

In order to be confident in your superiority over other women, become truly interesting to a man, enrich your life with knowledge, impressions, communication with interesting people, travel and gain impressions, have varied hobbies, but do not forget about periodically holding romantic dinners together by candlelight or about quiet evening gatherings at home, when partners can touch souls and better understand each other. The more vibrant and emotionally rich your life together is, the less time you will have to dig into the past. And the need for this will disappear when you see how important the current relationship is for both of you. Whatever happened in the past, the present is wonderful and completely suits both partners.

Jealousy. What does feeling mean in psychology?

There is an opinion that if a person is jealous, it means he loves. But jealousy in psychology always has destructive consequences. For this feeling is not controlled by reason and does not hear the arguments of reason. And the reason for this is lack of trust in your partner. After all, if you suspect him of infidelity and are jealous of a non-existent romance, then you don’t feel trust in him in the present. When you completely trust your partner and don’t even think that he can exchange you for someone else, then he won’t have such needs. And in order to learn to trust your other half in matters of love and marriage, you must first assure yourself of your own competitiveness, even with young and spectacular rivals. Believe in yourself, and others will be convinced of your exclusivity and attractiveness.

All these psychological calculations are equally valid for representatives of both sexes. Very often, a man becomes jealous of his wife’s past; the advice of a psychologist will come in handy in this case too.

How to deal with such jealousy?

Remember:

Your partner's past has nothing to do .
By starting an “investigation,” you enter someone else’s personal zone and ignite the fire of conflict between you, which you will then not be able to extinguish.
If you are aware of your heightened feelings of jealousy (possessiveness), ignore all details of your partner's past. “Excavations” in other people's relationships will not add confidence to your relationship.
Stop fighting "chimeras" . Live in the moment.
Admit your jealousy to yourself and learn to control it.
If your partner chose you, it means he is happy with you , and his former love is just one of the turned pages of his life.
Jealousy is a signal that you don't trust your partner . If you are confident in it, then there is no need to be afraid of the shadows of the past (and the present too). And if you don’t trust, then it makes sense to think about whether your relationship is so strong?

Examples from life

In order to provide ourselves with the right guidelines within which to show interest in our partner’s past, let’s consider some real-life examples:

The wife is very actively interested in her husband’s past life, but this does not upset or irritate him, because her interest is dictated solely by the opportunity to better understand her husband, and not by competing with her former degree of importance for the man. According to the family psychotherapist, this will help her come closer to understanding her partner and appreciate his individual qualities.
Sometimes this interest becomes too active and intrusive, especially in men who are not very confident in their masculinity. For example, an older husband is afraid of appearing to his younger partner as an untenable lover and thus tries to find out how things were with her previous partner. The psychotherapist believes that although there is jealousy of the past here, it is more constructive in nature, since it helps to gain an understanding of a woman’s sexual experience and her preferences in carnal love.
If a wife, talking about her husband’s jealousy, mentions that they have been married for 20 years, but in her younger years she lived for several years away from her husband, working abroad under a contract, then his somewhat passive jealousy of the years that have passed without him even flatters the woman, not at all without humiliating her. The husband thus confirms her feminine attractiveness to other men, and this opinion of his extends to the present time.

These examples do not become a destructive force in relationships, but help spouses become closer and closer.

Advice from psychologists

But what to do when past love stories become the subject of a showdown and a tool for manipulating a partner? If you have become a victim of a person suffering from unmotivated jealousy of your past, psychologists offer the following advice:

Learn to defend the boundaries of your memories, do not let your partner endlessly delve into your past in order to look for mistakes and evidence of your past love. Show that his claims are not accepted, and you have the right to your own past, which you will treat as you want, not him.
Never prove anything or convince your partner of your current loyalty - he won’t believe you anyway. Present him with the fact that your past, like his, will have to be perceived as it was, and not make your own assumptions.
Don’t devalue your past history to please your current partner, even if you don’t have any vivid memories of him, your past concerns only you.
Whatever your partner’s motivation for wanting to know about your past, if you don’t want to touch on this topic, then immediately explain it to him.
Work seriously on your self-esteem, get away from addiction, determine your own guidelines and values that can exist regardless of whether you have a partner and what his views on life are.
Convince your partner that responsibility for the development of your relationship lies with both members of the couple. And your common happy future will depend on how respectful you are of each other’s past.

Your man and his exes. Is it worth it to be jealous of the past? 4 useful tips from a psychologist

Without leaving your home, you can now very easily find out about your husband’s exes on his personal page on a social network. How dangerous is this for a marriage? Can online relationships like this destroy a family? What should you do if your husband’s “friends” include his past girlfriends or even his wives?

When creating a family, each partner brings his past into it in one way or another. It can remain silent for some time, without causing any inconvenience, or it can unexpectedly burst into the life of a couple. Including using the World Wide Web. The very fact of discovering such virtual communication often causes a complex of contradictory feelings: anxiety, jealousy, panic, anger, doubt, uncertainty about the love and devotion of a beloved husband. "What to do? How to proceed? Why is she his friend? Why should they be friends if I am now his wife? Maybe we should forbid him to communicate with her? What if it only gets worse, and they start meeting secretly from me, and not just correspond?”

Someone creates a scene of jealousy, “interrogation with bias,” demanding to “remove her from “friends,” while others begin to silently suspect their loved one of infidelity and fear for their marriage. In any case, a man’s virtual life casts doubt on the couple’s real relationship.

What do these anxieties actually hide, and what is the reason for such male behavior?

When getting married, many women, willy-nilly, “appropriate” a man for themselves, believing that they have the right not only to the present life of their loved one, but also to his past. When we are two halves, it seems to us that we are obliged to know everything, everything about each other. And then the presence of personal secrets in a couple becomes direct evidence of dislike, and living together imperceptibly turns into hyper-control and hyper-custody over the man.

Many of us forget that each spouse has the right to his own personal space, to his own world, into which you don’t always want to let your other half in. This is especially true for men, for whom the need for freedom and independence is one of the main ones.

Even when they get married, it is just as important for them to receive recognition of themselves as men not only from their wife, but also from other women. And communicating with their exes, even via the Internet, allows them to do this. It’s nice to know that you are not only a husband, but also just a man - strong, smart, sexy, charming.

If a man “collects” his exes on social networks, this may also indicate that he is unsure of himself, and through online flirting and friendship he raises his self-esteem, confirms his “male” status, is proud of his love past, feels more significant, competitive among other men and, at the same time, attractive in the eyes of women.

What else could the husband’s mysterious words “my ex and I are just friends” hide?

Any friendship between a man and a woman always contains a hint of something more, even if only for one person. It may imply a transition to the stage of a love relationship. Virtual communication is no exception - for an ex, maintaining oneself as “friends” may mean some hope of renewing the connection.

In fact, a man, most often, cannot end previous relationships, draw a line between what was and what is now, it is difficult to say the final “no” to his past love and devote himself completely to his family.

Perhaps, through online communication with his ex, he receives something important that he is now deprived of in his family life

If there are children in a previous marriage, communication with your ex will still occur, since they will forever remain parents to their children, even if the couple breaks up. But of course, other reasons for “maintaining relationships” cannot be excluded here.

What to do if your husband’s exes have taken a strong place in his virtual life?

Much depends on how you found out about it - by accident, on purpose (by looking at his profiles on social networks), or he himself said about it. It’s one thing when the husband himself informs his other half about this, and quite another when she “surfs” the Internet or mobile phone in search of evidence of devotion or infidelity. A lot depends on this, or rather, it immediately shows what kind of relationship the couple has.
In order not to make a mess in your family life by throwing out your suspicions on a man, first of all, it is important to turn to yourself. How does this affect you? Do you feel confident next to your husband, do you have enough warmth and love from him now? Often, scenes of jealousy hide long-accumulated tension in a couple, when small complaints fall drop by drop - and turn into a fountain of words like “I knew you had someone.”
Your family may be going through difficult times right now. The stronger the suspicion, the more insecure you are as a woman, the more fragile you consider your relationship. Your husband's virtual girlfriends are just one of the signals to see this. The discovery of exes immediately makes you think about the fact that, even as a wife, it is impossible to be completely confident in your husband and in your family. Even in marriage, each partner still remains just a man and just a woman who care about attention, recognition, and flirting. Regardless of gender, it is important for us to feel attractive and important. And virtual communication partially solves this problem.

The important thing is that the husband himself talks about this. This is where a sincere conversation is indispensable. The most common way to “get emotional” is to stage a scene of jealousy and demand to “remove them all from friends.” Just how will this affect your relationship, will this closeness between you remain? Most likely, the man will move away, trying to further protect his territory, and will finally go into the virtual world. After all, the good thing about the virtual world is that you can get away from everyday worries and endless showdowns.

Is it worth it to be jealous of the past? Apart from the man himself, no one will tell the true reason for his behavior, including on the Internet. The only way out is to honestly admit to yourself how this situation is affecting you. How much do you trust each other? Do you feel like you are losing out to his past girlfriends in some way? The more you feel threatened by virtual rivals, the less confident you are in the strength of your connection with your husband. Before looking for new traces of his infidelity and betrayal, try to answer the question: what happened to you two? What has not satisfied you for a long time, but you remain silent, hoping that the situation will resolve itself and “everything will be as before.”

But your ex-husband will continue to haunt you: they will become safe only when you feel ready to have an open conversation with your man, when you are ready to hear what he says, as well as what he does not want to say. And it is his right, as well as yours, to sincerely tell him about what worries you and causes you suffering.

If it is important for you to save your family, first of all, find in yourself the desire to appreciate what was and is between you, what makes your couple unique and strong, what protects your love and devotion to each other. As strange as it may sound, discovering “virtual” women in your husband’s life can contribute to the development and enrichment of relationships.

It is difficult to move from controlling your husband to trusting and recognizing that he is an adult who has the right to his own private life. No matter how much we want, a man makes his choice independently. The stronger the jealousy, the desire to control, to dictate who to communicate with and who not to communicate with, the less trust and sincere desire to be together. A man lives with you not because it is “marital duty”, “oath of fidelity”, but because he chose you from all the others, and it is with you that he wants to share his days with their victories and defeats.

You can continue to be jealous, worry, fear betrayal, and you can also see that each other’s past relationships are the experience without which you would never have met, met or gotten married. He also loved there - but something went wrong, since he could not save that relationship. And here he is with you, and he is only your husband. By choice. Be proud of your present, and do not immerse yourself in the virtual past, appreciate and take care of the warmth of your love - and then you will not be afraid of the “unnecessary third”.