Retroactive Jealousy - Jealous Of Your Partner’s “Number”

Do you and your partner know each other's numbers, as in the number of people that you had sex with before meeting each other? So a lot of couples have this conversation usually kind of early in the relationship, and then they wind up regretting it because they don't actually want to know exactly how many people their partner has slept with.

Interesting conundrum.

So today, today we're going to be talking about retroactive jealousy, which is jealousy about your partner's sexual past.

If you're brand new to our channel, then hello, we are Vanessa and Xander Marin. Vanessa here is the sex therapist, and we've been together for 13 years.

And our channel is all about giving you the tools and tricks and techniques that you need to create a truly extraordinary relationship inside of the bedroom and out. So if you're on board with that, go ahead and subscribe to our channel right now.

So we recently got a DM on Instagram that brought up the topic of sexual history in relationships. So this woman was wondering if it was appropriate to reveal your number to your partner. And that really got us thinking. We both really value having open channels of communication in our relationship. And in general, open communication is one of the most important things that we recommend to our clients to work on and to focus on. But when it comes to being explicit about the specific number of people you've slept with before your partner, it starts to get a little tricky.

More than a little tricky.

Yeah. So before we go any further, we want to know how you feel about this issue. Have you or do you plan to tell your partner your number? Type either tell them or never tell down in the comments.

So we basically ended up having this really long conversation about, like, should you even tell your partner your number in the first place? And then it brought up all these interesting topics that made us realize we're going to have to do maybe a separate video or something else about it because it was such a big conversation. Like, we were talking about things like, you know, the slut shaming that comes up if your number is too high and weird gender dynamics, like if you're in a heterosexual relationship and the woman is the one who's had more partners than the men. Heaven forbid. We talked about being honest in relationships, but sometimes is honesty too much, like, we don't need to know every gory detail of our partner's past sometimes. So it just brought up all these really interesting dynamics that we just wanted to name right now that this is a tricky decision, whether or not to share that number with your partner. And I think Ultimately, it comes down to really being able to know yourself and know how you handle that kind of information. But we'll table all that for now, and we'll come back to it at a different point.

So, unfortunately, there is no simple answer to that question. But let's say that you and your partner did end up having this conversation already, and now you're dealing with some major jealousy. Because, let's be honest, this happens a lot. Nothing wrong with that. So we're gonna get into our top five tips for dealing with this type of jealousy.

All right? Step number one is to honor and validate your own feelings. So a lot of us try to avoid negative feelings as much as possible. And jealousy is one of those feelings that none of us likes to feel like. It just feels very icky when we feel jealous.

It's not a comfortable thing.

Yeah. So a lot of us try to avoid it, pretend that we're not feeling it, ignore it, bury our heads in the sand, all this kind of stuff. But we think that jealousy is a really normal, common, totally human emotion. And we think that it's much more valuable for you to, you know, acknowledge your jealousy rather than trying to hide for it.

Yeah, hiding it tends to only make it worse.

Hide from it, not hide for it. But the sooner that you can accept and validate your own jealousy, the sooner you will be able to move past it. That is really one of the little secrets about emotions. Pro tip here. The more that you try to fight against your emotions, the stronger they feel and the longer they hang around. But when you can acknowledge and give yourself permission to feel those feelings, they tend to move by a lot faster. So taking this one step further, I think it can also be really interesting to try to get curious about your jealousy. So don't just let yourself feel it. Like, actually lean into that jealousy a little bit and try to get curious about what that jealousy is evoking for you. So if you're finding yourself feeling really jealous about your partner's past, what signs specifically are you feeling jealous about? Is it just the sheer number of people that they've been with? Is it because you're imagining them having these amazing experiences with other people? Is it because you are trying to, like, judge yourself against them? You know, there are all these different specifics that could come up for people. And really, like, jealousy is an invitation for us to examine what it is that is coming up for us, because we tend to get jealous about things that we feel personally kind of self conscious about. If you feel really secure with Yourself really confident you're not really going to feel jealous. So look at that jealousy as an invitation to take a deeper look at yourself.

That's a good one.

That's my little therapy in two minutes session right there.

All right, so that brings us to step two. Put yourself in your partner's shoes. Learning that your partner has hooked up with a lot of people may make your blood boil a little bit. Take a deep breath. Have you stopped to consider how your partner might be feeling about your own sexual past? Sometimes we get so caught up with our own feelings that we struggle to take a step back and consider how things might look to our partner. Did you have a period of reckless fun in your youth, perhaps? Did you sleep with people that you met at a bar? Did you go on bad dates that ended up leading to one night stands? There's actually a cognitive bias called the fundamental attribution error that describes how easy it is for us to justify our own behavior and put a positive spirit spin on it. But we tend to judge other people's behavior more harshly than our own. So, like, let's say that you cut someone off when you're driving. You might think to yourself, oh, that was an accident. I was paying super close attention because I'm a good driver, but I just got distracted by my phone for a second. But then if somebody else cuts you off, you're like, what? A terrible driver. How dare they do that to me?

That's like the PG version of what you're probably thinking.

So, you know, the same sort of thing is true with our sexual partners. We may think, yeah, you know, I've been with a lot of people, but I learned a lot of good lessons about what I'm looking for and not looking for, you know, now I wouldn't do that stuff. Whereas we may be really fast to label our partner as just being promiscuous.

Yeah. And we want to be super clear here. Like, you're not a bad person the more people you've slept with. Like, that's where the slut shaming piece comes into play. I think we have this tendency to judge people for having numbers that are too high. But the reality is, like, if you're a sexually active adult, if you're not in a long term committed relationship, your number can go up very easily.

And as you get older, it is going to go up. That is what naturally happens.

Yeah. So we're definitely not trying to make anyone feel guilty for having a high number. It's not a bad thing in any way.

Yeah. So Instead, let's imagine that your partner was the one feeling jealous, and then you can examine your own sexual history through that lens. So even if the actual numbers between you and your partner are quite different, you may find that it might not actually feel like that big of a difference between your actual sexual pasts.

Yeah, and that's what we were kind of talking about with the jealousy piece, is that we might get jealous about the specific number, but there are also so many other things that we could get jealous about. So your number might be much smaller than your partner's, but that doesn't mean that your partner is not going to be jealous of your past.

Yeah.

Okay. So that brings us to step number three, which is actually a step that you should not take. Do not go digging for more details.

As much as you might want to.

Yeah, you know what? Once you know your partner's number, it can be really tempting to want to know even more information. So what was sex like with exactly? Every single one of those people? Who was the best, who was the worst, who had the hottest body, who was the freakiest, you know? But trust us, like, that kind of information will not help you at all.

Yeah, pretty much never. I can't think of any reason why. It's how it's going to help you.

So there are important things that you should be sharing, like your STI status, any sort of health issues, past traumas, what your boundaries are. So all of those kinds of details are great and should be shared, but getting into the gory details of, like, exactly how good the sex was that.

They had with, especially compared to you.

Yeah, do not go there. So you may also find yourself kind of straying down this rabbit hole of social media stalking, too. Like, you might want to figure out, like, well, exactly who did they sleep with and when.

I want to see that.

Like, oh, God, yes.

Where are they now? What job do they have?

So we really want to encourage you to try your hardest to abstain from that sort of behavior. Seriously, it is not going to do you any good to find out that the person that your partner slept with before you could put their feet behind their head or that they had, you know, this wild collection of lingerie. And there is nothing good that's going to come from spending countless hours scrolling through photos and comments and trying to be a little investigator detective, like, piecing things together. So just leave it alone. Whatever information you have, just leave it there. Don't go digging for more.

Step four is talk to your partner about what you're feeling. If you're in a serious relationship and you're really struggling with these feelings of jealousy. Let your partner know how you're feeling. Tell them what thoughts are running through your mind. You want to be careful not to lash out at them, blame them, or slut shame them. Though you really want to take responsibility for the fact that these are your feelings and experiences and take ownership for the jealousy that you're feeling because your partner didn't do anything to you.

Yeah, they didn't do this on purpose. You probably didn't know them at the time. Even if you did, it's not like they were thinking, oh, I want to be dating this person in the future and like, let me rack up my number now and have all these experiences they're going to be jealous of in the future.

Yeah. And I know it can feel so vulnerable to admit to your partner that you're feeling jealous, but airing out how you feel is going to make you feel a million times better than just keeping those feelings to yourself. Because like we said, when you keep feelings or emotions to yourself, they tend to only grow and get stronger. And more likely than not, your partner will be happy to validate you and to listen to you and show support when you open up about this. Your partner may also be able to explain certain elements of their past and reassure you a bit more about what you have in the present.

Yeah. So again, this is not about like you blaming your partner. Your partner doesn't have anything to apologize for and you don't need to share every single gory detail of your own feelings with them. But just having a conversation and saying like, hey, I'm just finding myself feeling a little self conscious. I wish I wasn't feeling this way. It's not about anything. It's not about you. These are my emotions and experiences, but I just want to be vulnerable and honest with you. That's a great way to put it. All right, that brings us to step five. Accept it and move on. Oh, yeah, Nice easy step. Just move on, right? Yeah, just do it. So once you've aired it all out with your partner, once you've taken a deeper look at it with inside yourself, and it's time to let it go. So we know, we know this is so much easier said than done, but it's still really important to try because the bottom line is that there is literally nothing that you or your partner can do to change the situation. We don't have a time Turner. You can't go back in time and prevent them from taking any sort of Action. Prevent yourself from taking any sort of action. Like, it's the past, it's been done. So you're probably always going to feel maybe a little bit tender when you think about your partner's past. Like, it's not fun to think about your partner being with someone else. We've been together 14 years, and I still get a little, like, when I think about your exes.

So same here.

It's not that it's. You're ever going to get to this point where you think, like, yeah, great, everything's fine and dandy, but you definitely can get to a place where it just feels a lot easier to let go of those feelings and keep moving past them. And really, like, in order to build a solid, lasting, great relationship, you have to be able to let this stuff go. If you keep bringing it up, keep getting stuck in it, like, it's just gonna ruin your relationship. It's gonna poison it. So one thing that you can do that might help is, like, just try, like, writing a letter. Put down all your thoughts and all of your emotions, and you can do something kind of, like, fun and ritualistic about it, like ripping the whole thing up or burning it, Something like that. You can also do a ritual around your own past experiences and kind of reflect on, like, what did I learn and what good experiences did I have, and what am I carrying forward with me into the next relationship? It's kind of like a closing ritual for yourself. So these are just nice ways to practice, like, moving on from these experiences and really focusing on your present relationship. So, you know, in a funny sort of way, we can even take this a step further. Like, you might be able to tap into a sense of gratitude for your partner's past because their experiences led them to you. And those experiences, they helped create this special connection the two of you share. So focusing on the fact that the two of you are now together, your past is what brought you together, and now you get to make a future going forward from here. That's just such a great way to take your energy and attention away from feeling jealousy about their past.

Wow, that is a very nice way to think about it.

I don't always get that Zen when the jealousy comes up, but it's a nice reminder, man.

Well, let's end it on that note then. So, you know, that wraps up our video on retroactive jealousy. We really hope that you're feeling empowered to leave the past in the past. Please give this video a like and then hit that red button to subscribe to our channel. And while you're at it, click the notification icon so you keep getting notified as soon as we post more.

Especially if we do end up making something separate about whether or not you should share your number with your partner.

Yeah, because you definitely need to know.

That we also have a little gift for you if you want to get back on track in your relationship. We created this free guide for couples called the Simple Daily Check in that every couple needs to be doing right now. So it's just a super quick check in, but it really leads to deeper intimacy, greater conversations, more connection. So we will put a link to that free guide in the description box down below. Thanks so much for watching.

See you next time.

Hey, no snoring, please.

Guys.

Wake up a little bit, dogs.

Okay, there we go.