Jealousy in itself is not a positive attribute but being jealous about another person’s past seems to be ridiculous, yet it happens. To me the ex is an ex for a reason, and your current partner has already chosen you. Why would you even care about the ex?
I find that men are “worried” about being compared to her past lovers. It doesn’t matter much what the woman thinks; the man will be competing with her past lovers in his head, even if no such rivalry is taking place in hers. After all, he isn’t really after her validation; his real goal is to prove himself “better than” those she’s been with previously. I did have one woman tell me after the fact how “lousy” I was in bed as well as describing in “painful” detail how my “shortcomings” compared with her past lovers. Mostly ranting but these kind of comparisons can have a real detrimental effect. I don’t know where this jealousy comes from specifically, typically it is irrational, a self-image problem. I had more of a problem with this issue when I was younger because I didn’t know where I stood, I didn’t know if I was “good” or “bad” when it came to sex. I was sure that my girlfriend thought that I was “less than” the guy she dated before.
* Over time (and with experience) I became more comfortable with myself as a person and really didn’t even think about there being a specific comparison being done by my lover.
* I realized that even if the sex was great with a person, I couldn’t specifically remember it in any detail after some time had passed. It could not be used as a benchmark for comparison.
* I could have great sex BUT if in the future our relationship was no good, neither was the sex. I would not recollect the great sex…but I would recollect the bad relationship.
* I gained a “take it or leave it” attitude in that if someone was really more interested in the mechanics more than the rest of the relationship…move on.
My current wife, although she doen’t have any specific retroactive jealousy has some strange idea that I will some day go running back to my ex. Regardless of how much I tell her that this is not a possibility, every once in a while it comes up again.
