Are You Affected by Rebecca Syndrome? Methods to Cope with Your Obsession with Your Man’s Exes

AS quickly as I picked up the picture, I noticed pink.

Right here was this different lady, gazing lovingly down the lens of a digital camera — straight at my husband Anthony.

Lily James in movie Rebecca as Mrs de Winter, 2019Credit score: 2020 © Netflix, Inc.

Lily with Armie Hammer who performs her husband Maxim in filmCredit score: 2020 © Netflix, Inc.

Instantly, I launched right into a full-on interrogation of him.

“The place was the image taken?” I demanded. Why was she taking a look at him in such a sappy approach? Had they already had intercourse?

As soon as the green-eyed monster had acquired its tooth into me, I couldn’t cease. I dissed her hair, her gown, and topped it off by saying she regarded “annoying”.

What adopted was a row, by which Anthony advised me I used to be being “unreasonable”. When he defended her gown as “not that dangerous”, I turned much more enraged.

However, in fact, Anthony was proper and — gown apart — I actually was being unreasonable.

The image, in an envelope of outdated household photographs, had been taken 25 years in the past at a household christening.

He’d gone out with this lady earlier than we’d began relationship and hadn’t seen her since they broke up.

However over the subsequent few days, visions of them kissing, holding fingers — and worse — stored popping into my head.

As a result of this ex-girlfriend posed zero risk to my relationship, my flare-up actually bothered me.

As a rational one who’s coaching for a masters diploma in psychotherapy, it was utterly out of character.

So as soon as I had calmed down, I resolved to search out out what this was actually about.

It seems feeling jealous of a associate’s exes is a responsible secret for many people — and it’s on the rise.

In keeping with one research, 63 per cent of individuals now stalk their exes on-line as much as as soon as a month.

Round 38 per cent even achieve this after getting married.

With extra of us than ever earlier than logging on to social media, we use it as a instrument to check out our former companions — in addition to snooping on who our present companions used so far.

This phenomenon is called retroactive jealousy, or Rebecca Syndrome — after the Daphne Du Maurier novel, by which a younger lady fears she’s going to by no means dwell as much as her husband’s late spouse.

In fact, everybody will get jealous. And regardless of how safe you’re in your relationship, imagining your associate with another person may be ­painful.

Solely lately, we don’t must think about it — we are able to see the ­proof on-line.

In keeping with a 2018 research within the journal Social Media and Society, platforms comparable to Instagram and Fb have made retroactive jealousy extra seemingly.

And whereas individuals consider discovering out extra about their associate’s previous lovers will make them really feel higher, it has the alternative impact.

If the ideas develop into repetitive and set off them to repeatedly query their companions, then it could actually even destroy relationships.

Psychotherapist Toby Ingham is the creator of latest e-book Retroactive Jealousy, Making Sense Of It.

He says retroactive jealousy is a risk to relationships, including that it could actually even develop into a type of obsessive compulsive dysfunction.

In his view, the important thing to understanding retroactive jealousy OCD is to grasp that it’s not about your associate’s previous. It’s about yours.

Toby says: “Retroactive jealousy is a symptom of a deeper situation from the previous.

Tanith Carey says: ‘Feeling jealous of a associate’s exes is a responsible secret for many people’Credit score: Provided

“Say you grew up feeling your mom or father weren’t notably inquisitive about you — otherwise you felt missed for one more sibling.

“There are clearly numerous variations on these themes, but it surely implies that you have been left eager for one thing which you couldn’t have — predictable love and care.

“This could set off overwhelming insecurities and jealousies that you simply couldn’t cope with on the time and which then are inclined to floor in one other type while you begin your first romantic relationships.

These sorts of fears and insecurities can then get projected into your love relationship and develop into the premise for retroactive jealousy.”

Some elements could make Rebecca Syndrome worse.

These embody your associate taking a very long time to recover from their ex, you hooking up with them whereas they have been nonetheless on the rebound, or if the ex remains to be of their life as a buddy.

Authorized secretary Karina, 34, checks up on her associate’s exes each few months, despite the fact that she has been in a safe and comfortable relationship for 5 years.

She says: “I do know my associate’s cellphone passcode, so when he’s asleep I take a look at what his exes are as much as, on ­Fb. I belief him however I simply need to make sure they haven’t been messaging him or attempting to get again collectively.

“I’ve zero cause to assume they might however I similar to to make certain. The opposite day, we have been ­speaking about his exes and he admitted he knew that considered one of them had had a child. I used to be livid as a result of then I knew it meant he’d been checking up on her too — and he admitted he had.

“That triggered large insecurities for me — that he nonetheless has emotions for her, he by no means acquired over her breaking apart with him, and that I used to be simply the sloppy seconds.

“Regardless of what number of occasions he tells me he loves me, I can’t get that thought out of my thoughts”.

Helen, 43, a retailer supervisor, admits to “stalking” her associate’s ex on-line. She says:

“I don’t actually know what I’m in search of. I do know full-well she doesn’t pose any risk to our marriage and wouldn’t need him again anyway.

“Possibly I’m jealous that she had him when he was younger and match, and had a six-pack as an alternative of a beer stomach?

“He as soon as advised me probably the most occasions he’d ever had intercourse in a single night time was six, together with his first severe girlfriend when he was 21.

“We’re fortunate to have intercourse as soon as per week lately.”

Taken to extremes, Rebecca ­Syndrome can destroy relationships. For development employee Harry*, 31, retroactive jealousy struck when he first fell in love ten years in the past. He says:

“I used to be so obsessed together with her, I began testing the fellows she’d been going out with earlier than, on social media.

I’d disappear down rabbit holes, evaluating myself to them and grilling her about them.

“I couldn’t bear the considered different males ­having intercourse together with her earlier than me. I did it a lot that she noticed it as an enormous pink flag and thought I used to be some type of bizarre stalker, so she ended the connection. I now realise it was all in my head.”

As for me, simply realizing there’s a reputation for the uncomfortable feeling I get when pondering of my associate’s previous relationships has given me a deal with on it.

I additionally now see how my Rebecca Syndrome hyperlinks again to my child-hood, when my dad had quite a few affairs.

When his infidelity broke up my ­dad and mom’ marriage and he moved overseas and had extra youngsters, I ­realised I’d felt forgotten.

Now that I do know my response had nothing to do with my husband and all the pieces to do with my very own previous, I can lastly put the ghosts of his ex-girlfriends to relaxation.

* Names have been modified.

• Retroactive Jealousy, Making Sense Of It, by Toby Ingham, is out now, priced £8.99.

Armie and Lily within the filmCredit score: 2020 © Netflix, Inc.