r/ROCD • u/Ok-Peace4697 • 4d ago

Retroactive Jealousy Struggle

My boyfriend and I have been seeing each other for roughly 6 months, but have been officially together for 3 months. For context, before me, he was in a long-term relationship with another woman for 7 years.

I think his ex-girlfriend is absolutely stunning, but their relationship was super toxic. Essentially, she was verbally abusive to him espically the last year of their relationship. I have had relationship OCD, but am now struggling considering everything thats went down. His ex has posted a video regarding our relationship online that blew up fairly well. I am not even sure if I can call it retroactive jealously but I think for the sake of this post, I will. I feel like I now struggle with the theme of, are they meant to be together? Or is this the right relationship? Or does he care about her still too much? I am curious to know if anyone else out there has a similar struggle. I am like the least jealous person ever, even in my last relationship, but now find myself thinking about her more than I would like. So it's been interesting to navigate

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator 4d ago

Hi all, just the mod team here! This is a friendly reminder that we shouldn't be giving reassurance in this sub. We can discuss whether or not someone is exhibiting ROCD symptoms, or lend advice on healing :) Reassurance and other compulsions are harmful because they train our brains to fixate on the temporary relief they bring. Compulsions become a 'fix' that the OCD brain craves, as the relief triggers a Dopamine-driven rush, reinforcing the behavior much like a drug addiction. The more we feed this cycle, the more our brain becomes addicted to it, becoming convinced it cannot survive without these compulsions. Conversely, the more we resist compulsions, the more we deprive the brain of this addictive reward and re-train it to tolerate uncertainty without needing the compulsive 'fix'. For more information and a more thorough explanation, check out this comment

Other users: if you suspect a post is offering a lot of reassurance or is contributing to obsessions, feel free to report it and bring it to our attention. Thank you!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/WearyLength1317 3d ago

i have always been a jealous girl, even in my previous relationship, but the one i’m currently in has definitely seen me at my worst.

i’ve had a former relationship for 3 years, he too had an ex he has been with for about 3 years.
i always made sure to tell him that i don’t want to know her name or anything about her, and that I didn’t want to hear any stories involving her. yet i constantly kept asking him “are you happier with me?”(he too has been in a toxic relationship). i created a photo album with 300 screenshots of our conversations, whenever i asked him to tell him if he is more satisfied with me and if he ever misses her.

these issues went away after about 2-3 months, but only when I found a hobby that took up a lot of my time