Retroactive Jealousy: Did your partner lie to you about their past?

 Retroactive Jealousy: Did your partner lie to you about their past?

This is something that unfortunately happens often with Retroactive Jealousy sufferers. 

Firstly, we are going to cover what to do if your partner knows that you have a Retroactive Jealousy or your partner knows that their past bothers you and so they lie to you.

This is horrible for a Retroactive Jealousy sufferer. It breaks trust. It's not right. 

However, we also need to put ourselves in the partner’s shoes for a moment.

Imagine if you were with someone that had Retroactive Jealousy…

You can't talk about your past because it triggers them. In fact, you can but only when asked. 

When asked, you have two options, to lie or tell the truth. 

If you lie and your partner finds out, the trust is broken.

If you tell the truth and the Retroactive Jealousy sufferer does not like it, you risk being shamed, blamed, or stonewalled.

In this case, although lying is not okay, we can clearly see how the partner of the Retroactive Jealousy sufferer is trying to protect themselves (and the relatioship indirectly).

Understand, this is human nature. If you make someone feel bad about themselves, if you make them feel ashamed, they're not going to want to open up to you, they're not going to want to share things with you they're going to want to hide, they're going to lie to you,

If you are a Retroactive Jealousy sufferer and the above resonates, I would recommend getting help and educating yourself on how you can overcome Retroactive Jealousy altogether.

In short, if this is you, work really hard on overcoming Retroactive Jealousy before it ruins your relationship.

It is recommended that in the period of time you have devoted to overcoming it, not to ask any questions and tell your partner to not answer any even if you do.

Once you get over Retroactive Jealousy your partner will see that and feel comfortable opening up again, but it will take time.

Secondly, if your partner lies to you about their past and they don't even know you have Retroactive Jealousy, it's tricky to determine whether or not to trust them and move forward together.

It depends on why they did this but of course it doesn't really help the relationship because trust, love, connection and vulnerability is what builds great relationships. It is not easy to cultivate these things when lies have been told.

Again, the question here is “why did they lie?" was it because they wanted to trick you? Impress you or were afraid you would judge them?

Is it because they felt shame? Were they abused?

Most importantly: What was their motive behind lying and have they owned up to it and apologised?

Please watch the video above for more details on what to do if you suffer from Retroactive Jealousy and your partner lied to you.

Thank you for reading:)