WARNING!!! RJ sufferers partners
To the partner of an RJ sufferer - a word of WARNING!!!
I am sharing this anonymous client story to help those of you that are in a relationship with someone you know (or feel might have) Retroactive Jealousy.
A client of ours (the partner of the RJ sufferer) was discussing their issue with us and even though the sufferer had more “life experience,” by a long way, the focus was not about what they had done but totally on our client.
The questions came thick and fast and from all angles. It felt like they were in an interrogation room accused of committing a heinous crime. GUILTY until proven innocent!
Demands were made to discuss every intimate encounter from the past in grave detail in order to build trust in the relationship but our client felt it was, in fact, tearing it down and it only seemed to fuel the RJ fire.
It got to a point where our client shut down, withheld information and started to say “yes” to every single conclusion their partner made about their past even if it wasn’t true. Just to “make it all stop.” But it didn’t stop.
They started being accused of lying even about something that never actually happened and to the RJ sufferer the only way forward for the relationship was TOTAL admission that everything they thought happened did happen.
Our client kept begging them to stop and to start watching videos on relationship anxiety and retroactive jealousy as well as go to therapy together to overcome the suffering they were both experiencing.
Sadly, there was denial that their partner had any issues at all and they were totally unwilling to put any work into the relationship in the form of couples communication, therapy and such so this put our client in a very difficult predicament.
How do you navigate a relationship where someone seems to be showing the symptoms of RJ but is unwilling to at all consider putting in “the work” for the relationship to improve?
The first thing is to STOP discussing your past altogether. Do not allow them on your social media, old computer or journal. Has what you have been doing up till now been working? If the answer is “no” then you need to hold firm and consider changing your behaviour.
Whether your partner does ‘come around’ or not, the most important thing you must do from now on is focus on you.
You need to do a lot of work on boosting your self-esteem and confidence. Exercise a lot of compassion for yourself so you can be present and support your partner through their struggles.
THIS IS A WARNING!!! Their suffering will drag you down and make you feel so bad about yourself (from analysing your past negatively) that it will build resentment which will show itself later on once they have recovered. I experienced this personally.
It will be tough but you can definitely get through anything in this life if you know who you are and what you want so it is imperative that you work on you consistently.
Watch the video above for more details navigating this.
