Sometimes we find people who maintain good relations with their former partners, which is often surprising, because it's common that when two people stop being together, they don't want to know anything about each other or, in the best of cases, they maintain cordial treatment.
In some cases, moreover, we find what is known as “Rebecca syndrome”, which consists of feeling jealous of your partner's ex, a syndrome inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's film “Rebecca”.in which a woman, recently married to a widower, confronts the memories and ghost of her ex-wife.
Is it normal to be jealous when your partner talks about his ex?
It's common to ask whether it's normal to feel jealous when your partner talks about their ex, and self-esteem and relationship experts agree that it's a topic for which they receive a large number of queries.
In this sense, it is assured that jealousy is an emotional response to the fear of losing something, and it is common for it to appear when feeling insecure. For this reason, it is a warning signal that alerts us to the existence of a supposed danger.
If this jealousy appears in the couple, it means that we feel a certain fear that another person may bring things that we can't or won't give them and, as a result, we may lose our partner's attention, loyalty and even lose her altogether.
However, when we feel jealousy towards the ex-partner who is by our side, it's because somehow, in our thoughts, the fact that we may think that the relationship he had with this other person in the past could become better than the one he currently has with us is present. This is what we call retroactive jealousy, and it's a jealousy felt by our partner's previous relationships, which occur more frequently than we first think.
If this is the type of jealousy we feel, and what's more, our partner and his ex are friends, we may find ourselves feeling a great threat in our daily lives, thinking that the friendship they now have could lead to a break-up in our relationship, or even lead these fears to become a source of arguments which, in one way or another, could cause the relationship to explode.
Should jealousy be confessed?
In the presence of this type of jealousy, or any other, the question of whether they should confess to the other person that they have can arise. In this sense, it is always advisable to share our feelings with the person who is our partner, but always without blaming anyone and simply by letting them know how we feel, because sharing our insecurities as a couple is essential, just as we need to understand the fact that two people maintain a friendly relationship, despite the fact that they have been a couple in the past.
In cases where jealousy becomes a problem for you and for the couple's well-being, there's no choice but to deal with the problem. If you have qualms about admitting it to your partner, you can talk it over with a friend beforehand, because sometimes the simple act of sharing your feelings and sensations with others can lead to new conclusions. In this way, you can introspect on yourself, analyzing past relationships, emotions, thoughts, etc., because often, when we go deep inside ourselves, we find the answers we're looking for.
In any case, when you go to confess jealousy to the other person, you must avoid having the goal of making your partner feel attacked or bad. This wouldn't be the healthiest way to handle the situation, as you'd be directly blaming the other person without really being guilty of what happened. Faced with this problem, as with any other circumstance that worries us or generates some kind of discomfort, we need to focus on the existence of adequate communication, in the search for solutions.
To achieve this, you'll need to use an appropriate tone, because your partner needs to understand from the first moment that the conversation, despite the fact that it deals with a sensitive subject, will take place in a soothing tone, and not with the aim of reproaching him for something he's doing that you think is wrong. The aim is to talk things over and for you both to reach a conclusion that will enable you to continue your relationship happily.
