In today’s video, I’m going to share with you what every man needs to know about jealousy in a relationship.

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Transcript below

Zachary Stockill: I was doing some reflecting the other day, and I realized that, I think I spent the first half of my writing and coaching career focused on addressing many of the symptoms associated with things like unwanted intrusive thoughts, retroactive jealousy, OCD, jealousy in general, things like this.

I was primarily focused on getting to the symptoms and addressing the symptoms associated with these disorders.

In recent years, I realized that I’ve really been more focused on addressing the source. Getting to the root and heart of these problems. Investigating where exactly they come from.

On that note, I believe that a number of male jealousy sufferers lack purpose in their lives. Lack clarity of direction, lack a greater sense of meaning, mission for their lives.

This represents a decent part, maybe not the whole picture, but a decent part of the source of their jealousy.

A lot of their jealousy, their insecurity, their retroactive jealousy, unwanted intrusive thoughts, sense of confusion or lack of clarity about their partner, wife or girlfriend’s past, I believe a lot of this, can spring from a lack of clarity, a lack of mission, a lack of clarity of purpose in their broader life.

It is far easier to lose days, weeks, or months to obsessive jealousy in a relationship. Unwanted irrational, intrusive curiosity, to obsessive curiosity, when you don’t have a grander vision for your life.

When you don’t have a lot of mission, or purpose or things that make you excited when you wake up in the morning, things that make it much easier to jump out of bed in the morning.

When you don’t have real clarity, mission, vision, purpose.

Unfortunately for many male retroactive jealousy sufferers in particular, they find themselves trolling online forums, looking for answers about their girlfriend’s past.

They were often somewhat confused about whether or not their partner’s values conflict with their own. Frankly, because they’re not clear about their own values. It’s going to be impossible for you to be clear about your partner’s values. Whether or not they’re a good match for you long-term.

So in recent years, with recent videos and with a brand new online course, I like to go very deep with men, into the source of their jealousy in a relationship.

And part of that involves getting greater clarity, sense of mission and purpose for their lives beyond their relationship life, their wife or girlfriend, beyond the woman’s side of their life in general.

So for any man dealing with jealousy in a relationship, I’d like to propose an interesting exercise for you.

Picture your whole life as a pie chart.

I’m sure many of you know what a pie chart is, but in case you don’t, a pie chart is a circle and it’s cordoned off into different slices of the pie or different sections.

And you can fill in the different elements of your life in there. So maybe you’d have things like your fitness life. Maybe you’d have things like your friendships. Maybe you’d have your family life, your relationship with your siblings or your parents.

And then obviously a decent chunk of that pie chart, what takes up the majority of your time, a decent amount of that is going to be taken up by your girlfriend or wife.

Now, I want you to take out the slice that involves your wife or girlfriend. Imagine everything in your life that doesn’t have anything to do with your wife or girlfriend and ask yourself if you’re really satisfied with the way this pie looks.

Are you really satisfied with the way you’re spending your time and living your life outside of your relationship?

Do you feel good about the way that you are showing up in the world beyond your relationship life? How about the man you are with or without the woman in your life?

Do you feel like when you get up in the morning, it matters? Do you have clarity of purpose? Are you sure you know why you’re doing what you’re doing? You have an underlying sense of mission that underlies every action you take during the day?

Now finding this kind of mission, purpose, vision for your life is not necessarily a straightforward process, but I believe it behooves any man to start now, getting more clarity about their life beyond their relationship.

Because the fact is, the more clarity you get about your mission, vision, purpose for your life that goes beyond your relationship, number one, you’ll know very quickly, whether or not the woman you’re seeing, the women you’re seeing perhaps, are suitable for you longterm, whether or not they’re going to support you in your mission or not.

And number two, it’s hard to suffer from any kind of jealousy in a relationship, if you feel good about yourself as a man. If you feel good about where you’re going in life.

It’s interesting. I was thinking about this the other day…

I believe, in recent years, much of my success in dating and relationships comes from my life outside of my relationship.

And I believe the same will be true for any male jealousy sufferer.

If you want help overcoming retroactive jealousy and you’d like access to a proven step-by-step system that, since 2014, has helped over 1,500 men and women from around the world overcome retroactive jealousy for good, click here to learn more about my premium course for retroactive jealousy suffers, Get Over Your Partner’s Past Fast.


Zachary Stockill
Zachary Stockill

Hi! I'm a Canadian author and educator whose work has been featured in BBC News, BBC Radio 4, The Huffington Post, and many other publications. I'm the founder of RetroactiveJealousy.com, the author of Overcoming Retroactive Jealousy and The Overcoming Jealousy Workbook, and the host of Humans in Love podcast.