Obsessive compulsive disorder - OCD treatment and therapy from NOCD

What is retroactive jealousy, and how can I handle it?

By Taneia Surles, MPH

Jan 3, 2025 • 12 minute read

Reviewed byApril Kilduff, MA, LCPC

Retroactive jealousy is an obsessive fixation on your partner’s past relationships that is often fueled by low self-esteem, anxiety, or OCD. While it can disrupt relationships, focusing on the present, avoiding compulsions, and seeking therapy like exposure and response prevention (ERP) can help.

There you are, scrolling your partner’s Instagram feed and looking at posts about pets, family, and celebrations. You feel like you’re getting a closer glimpse into their life before you were a part of the picture. Then you see an image of your partner kissing someone else, and it feels like a gut punch. They broke up years ago, but it’s still excruciating.

If you’re preoccupied or overly insecure about your partner’s romantic past, it could be something called retroactive jealousy, says NOCD therapist Amalia Sirica, LCSW. 

Here’s how to identify retroactive jealousy, when it might be the sign of an underlying mental health issue like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and what you can do if you’re feeling jealous of your partner’s past.

What is retroactive jealousy?

Retroactive jealousy, also known as Rebecca syndrome, is an unhealthy fixation on your partner’s previous dating history. The term “Rebecca syndrome” originates from the 1938 novel, Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. In the novel, the main character obsesses over her husband’s late wife and believes she’ll never live up to her. “Retroactive jealousy focuses on one aspect of the person you’re in a relationship with—their past—rather than the relationship you currently have, and it becomes so magnified that it creates a lot of distress and hurt,” explains Kimberley Quinlan, LMFT, a therapist who specializes in OCD and anxiety disorders. “It’s almost like reliving the past in the present,” Sirica adds.

Retroactive jealousy can make you worry or obsess over your partner’s exes, past relationships, and any romantic or sexual experiences they had prior to dating you. You might also be worried that your partner may leave you for an ex or that an ex will re-appear and harm your current relationship.

Your thoughts and fears may be so consuming that they interfere with your daily life and create significant trouble in your relationship. And, Sirica says, you might even be aware that your feelings are irrational, but you still can’t let them go.

Retroactive jealousy focuses on one aspect of the person you’re in a relationship with—their past—rather than the relationship you currently have, and it becomes so magnified that it creates a lot of distress and hurt.

Kimberley Quinlan, LMFT

Retroactive jealousy is often a symptom of mental health disorders

On its own, retroactive jealousy isn’t considered a mental health disorder by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders (DSM), but that doesn’t mean it’s any easier to cope with. “I knew someone who had been married to his wife for more than 60 years, and he was still angry at her because, before they met, she had gone on one date and kissed the guy goodnight,” says Patrick McGrath, PhD, NOCD’s Chief Clinical Officer.

In some cases, retroactive jealousy can be tied to another mental health issue, such as:

How to know if it’s retroactive jealousy or just plain jealousy

“Everyone has a certain amount of jealousy,” says Tracie Ibrahim, LMFT, CST, Chief Compliance Officer at NOCD. “Say someone walks by, and you’re like, ‘Oh, that person is hot. I hope my partner is looking the other way so they don’t notice.’ That’s completely normal. Retroactive jealousy is when you’re obsessed with specific details about your partner’s past experiences or relationships.”

Here are some common elements of retroactive jealousy:

  • You do research or ask questions about your partner’s past to try to compare yourself to your partner’s exes in terms of looks, career success, and strength of the relationship.
  • You could also try to avoid any information about your partner’s past relationships because you feel you can’t handle it. 
  • Your jealousy creates significant trouble in your relationship—like unnecessary arguments. 
  • You try to control your partner’s relationship with their ex.
  • Your thoughts and fears are so consuming that they interfere with your daily life.
  • You know that your feelings are irrational, but you still obsess over them.
  • You feel frustrated with your emotions.

So, what can be deemed “normal” jealousy versus retroactive jealousy? “With ‘normal’ jealousy, you may also feel insecure and worry about your relationship—like comparing how you look in a bathing suit next to somebody else at the beach,” explains Ibrahim. “But the difference is that these feelings revolve around your current situation.” We all have moments of jealousy from time to time, it’s when we can’t let go that it becomes an issue. 

I knew someone who had been married to his wife for more than 60 years, and he was still angry at her because, before they met, she had gone on one date and kissed the guy goodnight.

Patrick McGrath, PhD

What causes retroactive jealousy?

Experts aren’t exactly sure what causes retroactive jealousy, but they believe that a combination of factors may contribute, including:

  • Low self-esteem. If you don’t have a very good opinion of yourself, you might feel like you can’t measure up to your partner’s previous relationships.
  • A fear of betrayal or infidelity. You may be concerned that your partner will ultimately choose their former partner over you.
  • An anxious attachment style. You are constantly feeling anxious about your relationship, which could cause a fear of abandonment and make you overly obsess about or fixate on someone—such as your partner’s ex.
  • An anxiety disorder. People with anxiety tend to experience higher levels of jealousy and respond to situations with elevated levels of fear, sadness, or anger. You might worry about your partner’s previous relationships and if they mean anything about yours. For example, do they treat you with as much love as they treated their former partner?
  • Obsessive-compulsive tendencies. For example, you could fixate on your partner’s relationship history and constantly check their social media feeds. 
  • Rumination. If you’re constantly having negative thoughts towards your partner’s exes, then retroactive jealousy could creep in.
  • Being sensitive to rejection. Who isn’t sensitive to rejection? But, high rejection sensitivity can make you more likely to experience jealousy in relationships, especially if you’re concerned that your partner will leave you after comparing you to somebody else. 
  • A history of trauma or abuse. Both can make it hard to trust other people, including your partner. For example, being cheated on in a previous relationship or negative childhood experiences could contribute to a fear of your partner leaving you.
  • Cultural or religious factors. For example, media portrayals of “perfect” relationships can create unrealistic expectations that fuel jealousy and self-doubt. Ibrahim also points out that your faith may have taught you that you need a partner who’s never had any sexual experiences. 
  • If your partner is still in contact with their ex. When your partner still talks to their ex, you may worry that they may not have left their romance behind them. 

Could retroactive jealousy be a sign of OCD?

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental health disorder characterized by obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are intrusive thoughts, images, urges, feelings, and/or sensations that cause significant fear and anxiety. Compulsions are physical or mental actions performed to relieve distress from obsessions.

OCD can dovetail with retroactive jealousy—specifically with a subtype of OCD called relationship OCD (ROCD). If you have ROCD, you may have intrusive thoughts and worries about your relationship, and you may find yourself fixating on doubts and uncertainties you can’t seem to let go of. 

Some examples of these obsessive thoughts include:

  • “Was my partner’s ex smarter, more attractive, or better in bed than me?”
  • “What if they still have feelings for their ex?”
  • “Did they move on too quickly before they met me?”
  • “How many people has my partner been intimate with?”
  • “Did their past relationships mean more to them than our current relationship?”
  • “Why didn’t they save certain experiences for me?”
  • “Are they still thinking about their ex when we’re together?”

These intrusive thoughts can lead to performing compulsions like:

Compulsions make you feel better in the short term, but in the long run, they do the opposite—they teach you that your fears and obsessions have merit and lead to more obsessions and compulsions. This fuels the OCD cycle.

Case in point: “When you seek reassurance, your partner may have a natural response to want to reassure you, and what happens is that they inadvertently give you more information to be jealous about,” says Sirica. “For example, they might tell you about a nice vacation they took with their ex, and you might feel frustrated that you haven’t had an experience like that together. Your partner’s hands are tied.”

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How to deal with retroactive jealousy OCD

Good news—it is possible to overcome retroactive jealousy with the support of your partner(s), friends, family, and mental health professionals. 

In addition to having support, it’s also important that you’re willing to put in the effort to strengthen your relationship. “Try to keep your focus on the present, not the past,” says Ibrahim. Build a stronger bond with your partner by spending time with them and creating great, fulfilling memories. 

If obsessive jealousy is causing a lot of distress in your relationship, here’s how to get over retroactive jealousy OCD:

  • Talking with a therapist. Ibrahim says that general talk therapy can help you pinpoint why you’re insecure and why your partner’s past is so important to you.
  • Relationship counseling might also strengthen your bond with your partner. “For example, if you’re not comfortable with the fact that your partner was in a relationship with someone else two years ago, they can’t do anything about that,” says Sirica. “But you can learn to accept the past and move forward with the help of a trained therapist.”
  • Joining a support group for others with relationship anxiety.
  • Focusing on facts instead of fears. Remind yourself that your partner has chosen to be with you, not their ex. This is an exercise you can learn to do with the help of a therapist.
  • Try stress relief strategies, like exercising, talking with friends, or soaking in the tub.
  • Grounding techniques to regain composure, such as meditation. 

Ibrahim says it’s important to cultivate trust—and what you don’t do is just as important as what you do. Here are a few behaviors to steer clear of if you want to overcome retroactive jealousy:

  • Avoid asking questions about your partner’s past relationships.
  • Don’t snoop.
  • Don’t research their past partners. One study shows a connection between social media and retroactive jealousy, so if you come across triggering posts, remind yourself that social media tends to paint a glamorized and often inaccurate portrait of relationships. 
  • Try not to compare your relationship to your partner’s past relationships.

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Exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy for retroactive jealousy OCD

A big difference between “normal” jealousy and OCD is that the obsessions have a sense of urgency to them, meaning you need reassurance from your partner or have to search through social media immediately to quell your jealousy. So, if you’ve tried to stop the obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors, but they keep coming back, you may want to consider specialized treatment for OCD. 

The most effective treatment for OCD is a therapy called exposure and response prevention (ERP).  ERP aims to help you address your fears head-on without responding with compulsions. This specialized therapy can be very effective, with 80% of people with OCD seeing significant results when they do ERP. 

You’ll work with a specially trained therapist who will have you slowly face your fears—starting with the least distressing ones and working your way toward the more difficult ones. They’ll show you how to resist the urge to perform compulsions.

In the case of retroactive jealousy, ERP might expose you to thoughts or images related to your partner’s past relationships or sexual experiences. After being exposed to these distressing triggers, you’ll learn how to avoid doing a compulsion in response, such as seeking reassurance from your partner. 

Ibrahim recalls a patient who ended four different relationships because he couldn’t tolerate his partners’ past sexual experiences. In their sessions, he identified what questions were obsessive and compulsive and which were related to his values—the core beliefs and principles that he chose to live by. For instance, he learned that he could ask a potential partner to get tested for a sexually transmitted infection before having sex with him. However, he learned to avoid asking compulsive questions, like how many people his partner had sex with in the past. 

“The goal was to tolerate the discomfort of not knowing about his partner’s sexual past—no matter how urgent and gross it felt—until it passed,” she says. There were still times when he had compulsions, like looking nonstop at social media. And when that happened, Ibrahim encouraged him to lean into the discomfort. He sat with the possibility that his partner’s ex-boyfriend may have been more attractive than him without doing additional compulsions—like self-reassurance—to try to feel better. 

“With the help of ERP, he learned to resist the compulsions he used to do that would eventually tear his relationships apart—and is now able to have successful ones,” says Ibrahim.

You can do the same. No matter how much of a wedge retroactive jealousy has driven into your relationships, you can learn to manage it. It’s worth repeating that not everyone with jealousy has a mental health disorder. But if you have one—or think you might—don’t hesitate to seek help from a qualified therapist. 

Does retroactive jealousy ever completely go away?

According to Ibrahim, there’s no definitive answer to this. “We don’t know what will happen in the future,” she says. “Maybe it’ll come up again, maybe it won’t. [Retroactive jealousy] will come up more the more you perform compulsions—just like any other subtype of OCD. The more you focus on it, the more you feed it.” 

What if my partner has retroactive jealousy?

If you’re dating someone with retroactive jealousy, Ibrahim says that the best thing you can do is not feed into their obsessions—and you can do that through response prevention techniques. “Don’t answer questions that are seeking certainty,” says Ibrahim. “Make sure that you respond by saying things like, ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘I guess we’ll never know the answer to that,’ so you’re not feeding into it.”

Bottom line

Jealousy is something that happens in many romantic relationships. However, if you’re experiencing significant distress about your partner’s previous relationships, you could be dealing with retroactive jealousy. 

If you have retroactive jealousy, consider working with a therapist to identify the underlying causes so you can get the proper treatment to develop a healthier relationship dynamic.

Key takeaways:

  • Retroactive jealousy (aka Rebecca syndrome) involves obsessive and distressing preoccupation with a partner’s past relationships.
  • Low self-esteem, anxiety, trauma, or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may contribute to retroactive jealousy, and effective strategies include focusing on the present, seeking therapy, and avoiding compulsions like reassurance-seeking or snooping.
  • Exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy is the most effective treatment for OCD-related retroactive jealousy, which can help you face your fears and build healthier, more secure relationships.

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