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In today’s video, I share how dating changed after I beat retroactive jealousy and set boundaries
Read or watch below to learn how I navigated relationships after I beat retroactive jealousy and the strategies that helped me move forward.
Zachary Stockill: In today’s video, I’m doing something I haven’t done much recently on this channel—I’ll be answering one of your questions about my personal experience with retroactive jealousy.
My name is Zachary Stockill, and I’ve helped thousands of men and women around the world overcome retroactive jealousy and strengthen their relationships.
If you’d like to learn more about my work or are interested in working with me one-on-one, please click here.
For those who are new here, the term retroactive jealousy refers to unwanted intrusive thoughts, obsessive curiosity, and what I call mental movies about a partner’s past relationships or sexual history.
And if you take a look at the book right behind me—my first book, Overcoming Retroactive Jealousy—you’ll see that this issue isn’t just theoretical for me.
It’s deeply personal because retroactive jealousy once took over my life, causing significant turmoil and nearly destroying my peace of mind for several years in my early 20s.
It was pure hell. I struggled with it during my first serious, truly adult relationship as a young man.
But eventually, I overcame it—hence the book—and went on to help others do the same, which is why I’m here talking to you today.
However, if you’ve been following my channel for a while, you might have noticed that I don’t often share personal details about my own story as much as some of you might like.
I think I’m so focused on the future, offering solutions, and helping people.
Sometimes, as some have pointed out, I might overlook the value of sharing more of my own story.
So today, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
I’ll be responding to a comment from a viewer of this channel, which asks: Once your retroactive jealousy was defeated and you entered a new relationship, how did you manage?
Did you still feel a little retroactive jealousy and quickly brush it off? How did you handle it?
Well, yes—I’ve been in several relationships since overcoming retroactive jealousy.
Now that I’m in my late 30s, I’ve been dating for about 20 years and have experienced many different relationships along the way.
I’ve experienced many different dating situations since then. It’s been quite a while since I wrote my book and overcame retroactive jealousy in my own life.
I think this commenter is genuinely curious about what that process has been like for me.
Looking back, my own experience with retroactive jealousy was almost completely irrational.
In other words, there weren’t any real red flags in my partner’s past—nothing shocking or out of the ordinary.
In fact, my own past was more colorful than hers at the time.
Looking back, it was purely irrational retroactive jealousy.
Of course, that didn’t make it any easier at the time.
Back then, there was almost no information available on this topic online—very little, to say the least.
Therapists didn’t have the answers, and if you were searching for help with retroactive jealousy, it felt like a complete wasteland.
It was an incredibly difficult experience.
If you’re curious, you can visit my website, retroactivejealousy.com, or read my book, where I go into all the details.
But to keep it short—once I got a handle on this problem and put it behind me, I moved forward into new relationships.
Naturally, the topic of the past would come up with whoever I was dating.
So, over the course of a few weeks or months, my girlfriend or the woman I was dating would naturally start opening up about her past
And honestly, I’ve been in a variety of relationships and dating situations, so I’ve had these conversations many times.
I never avoided the topic or set strict rules like, We’re not allowed to talk about this or We can’t discuss that.
The truth is, a person’s past can offer valuable insight into their values and character.
Beyond any irrational thoughts or intrusive questions, it’s natural to want to understand who you’re dating.
This includes their past experiences, boundaries, and values.
So, I never felt the need to tell a partner, I don’t want to talk about this or that.
For the most part, I focused on creating an environment of mutual honesty and vulnerability—both of which are very important to me.
I wanted my relationships to feel open and safe for both of us to share.
And naturally, the past would come up on its own.
Looking back, in every dating situation and relationship I’ve been in, these conversations happened organically over time.
There were moments when I might have felt a slight twinge—something in my gut—when my girlfriend or the person I was dating shared something about their past.
But here’s the key difference: those feelings only surfaced when there was something I genuinely felt was worth paying attention to.
So, what do I mean by that?
I mean that whenever I felt that little twinge in my gut, it was usually in response to something that signaled a potential red flag.
It might have suggested an incompatibility between me and the person I was dating.
It could also have hinted at something I should examine more closely.
In those moments, it wasn’t about irrational jealousy.
It was about recognizing patterns or behaviors that could genuinely impact the relationship.
There were moments when I realized that certain things—sometimes not even from the distant past, but from the very recent past—were worth paying attention to as I moved forward.
In other words, this wasn’t irrational jealousy; it was simply being mindful of important details.
During conversations about the past, my girlfriend or someone I was casually dating might reveal something that made me think, Oh, that’s interesting.
I’d mentally file it away for future reference, not out of insecurity, but as a way to better understand the person and assess our compatibility.
This wasn’t irrational jealousy—it was simply something I needed to know.
To be completely honest, I can remember one instance where a woman I was dating casually admitted that she had been a serial cheater in the past.
This wasn’t a serious relationship or a long-term partner, just someone I was seeing for a short time.
But when she revealed that, it was definitely something that stood out to me.
People change all the time, and my values won’t necessarily be the same as yours.
I’m not saying anyone else needs to adopt my boundaries or beliefs.
But would I personally choose to enter a committed relationship with someone who had a recent history of serial cheating?
No, I wouldn’t. To me, that’s not retroactive jealousy.
I wasn’t obsessing over it, losing sleep, or bombarding her with endless questions about her past.
I simply recognized it as valuable information—an insight into her recent past and character.
And based on that, I understood that this relationship probably wouldn’t progress beyond where it currently stood.
I think a common misconception about me and my work is the idea that I believe the past never matters—that it’s always irrelevant.
But of course, that’s not true. That would be ridiculous.
When I was in university as a young man, I earned two master’s degrees in history.
So, naturally, I understand the importance of the past.
It shapes who we are, and in many ways, it matters a great deal.
Of course, there’s a big difference between past events that are genuinely important and worth noting.
Some are more or less irrational—concerns that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.
Ultimately, it all comes down to perspective.
When I was dating and single, I naturally took my partner’s past into account when considering whether to move forward in the relationship or not.
…with a more committed, serious relationship.
All of this is to say that throughout my single years, I never experienced irrational retroactive jealousy again.
I wouldn’t describe anything I felt as retroactive jealousy.
In fact, I don’t think I experienced retroactive jealousy at all.
There were a few moments where I had concerns about a partner’s past, but in those cases, I felt they were valid and worth considering.
To be completely honest, there were moments when I was dating and single where I learned something about a woman’s very recent past.
Often, it made me think, Okay, this might be a sign that we’re not truly compatible or that this relationship has an expiration date.
We probably weren’t going to be able to move forward together.
And in all of those cases, the relationship didn’t last much longer after that.
Something I learned contradicted one of my boundaries or values, and I was never willing to compromise on those.
Now, of course, no one is perfect—I’m certainly not.
I don’t live up to my boundaries and values 100% of the time.
But as I often say, when you’re trying to understand someone’s character by looking into their past, don’t look for perfection—look for patterns.
And there were times in my single life when I recognized patterns that I simply wasn’t okay with.
So, I hope that answers your question.
I hope you found this helpful.
If any of this resonated with you, you may be wondering if your concerns are valid.
This is especially true if you’re struggling with retroactive jealousy.
I’d highly recommend signing up for my free four-part video mini-course.
It will provide you with tools, practices, and perspectives to help you start moving forward as soon as possible.
