Retroactive jealousy ROCD - long story ahead.

I’m gonna try to make this make sense, and any support or advice would be great. I have a beautiful girlfriend, who I’ve been dating off and on for a year. We were really rocky but got our shit figured out 4 months ago and have been strong since. I truly love this girl more than I’ve loved anyone. And I know based off the sheer amount of ocd that has come up on our relationship, that she means a lot to me. Me and her were in a friend group in 2022 and we never liked each other. However she had a sexual relationship with one of my old friends. Fast forward to now I haven’t talked to him in a long time and I don’t see it as an issue. However… I keep having this vivid flashback to him touching her some kinda way in 2022. I can’t remember exactly what happened or the details but it’s running through my head. I guess this is retroactive jealousy but it’s really almost hurting my feelings. I wish it would stop but I know ocd doesn’t work that way. I just wanna be happy with my girl and not upset at her past experiences

New member here. I realize this Retroactive Jealousy OCD topic is not thoroughly discussed and most therapists are unfamiliar with this OCD. This is perhaps the most painful form of OCD, and most people have no idea how or why people have these irrational obsessive thoughts. Here is my story in detail. Many of you might be able to relate. 12 years ago I was a 38 years old divorced man with 2 small children. I had been divorced for 4 years, during which time a had a few relationships and had sex regularly with the women I dated. One day I met a wonderful woman and fell in love with her. She was same age as me, and similar divorce and dating experiences. Everything was perfect in the beginning just like any new relationships. 2 months into the relationship I decided that we should disclose our body count and experiences (for transparency). I was only interested in the period after our divorce because we had both been with our ex spouse for over 15 years and stuff before that was borderline pre-adult stuff. Coincidentally 6-8 for both of us. Only difference is I had 2 serious relationships and she had none. She had 1 one-nighter with a friend and a “friends with benefits” situation with 1 other guy. The rest were short 1x and 2x experiences, just like me. Granted we were both in our mid 30s so this stuff shouldn’t shock anyone. For some reason I began fixating on that 1 nighter and friend with benefits. That 1-nighter happened a few months after her divorce and was with an old guy (54) from another country. I felt sickened and kept imagining their sex act. I asked her how it was and she said she was lonely and it was a bad choice. I kept obsessing over it. Maybe she liked older men? Next I started ruminating over her Friend with Benefits which went on for 2 years. They dated briefly but she said she was never in love. Neither wanted a relationship but happens to meet up a few times a year and ended up having sex. This friend was extremely threatened once he found out about me. I felt maybe her connection with him was stronger or maybe sex was so good she couldn’t avoid him. She said no. In fact she decided to end all contact with him and he freaked out. But I felt insecure and I felt extreme pain when I thought about her having sex with these people. I thought it was very unlike her to do that. She felt I was judging her. We had our first fight. I broke up with her. Same day I regretted my actions and clearly it was my issue. I begged her for her forgiveness. I started therapy to figure out what was wrong. Clearly Retroactive Jealousy OCD was relatively unknown 12 years ago. The psychiatrist considered it a form of OCD and treated it accordingly. With the combination medication and therapy I was able to conquer it in 8 months. We got married and next month we will celebrate our 11th year wedding anniversary. But the story is not over. In March of this year I suffered a nervous breakdown, mainly due to severe. personal and professional stress. All my OCDs came back literally overnight. So now I’m being treated again and it has been very difficult. This is work in progress. I’m not out of the woods yet. I am on serotonin and therapy 3x a week. Hopefully in due time, I’ll get better…again.

I stated dating my boyfriend about 3 months ago. This is my first boyfriend ever. He’s been in 2 serious relationships in the past and multiple sexual partners. I’ve had neither. When we first started dating/ at one point were just friends, he told me a lot about the last girl he was in a relationship including their sex life. Fast forward to us dating for about a month and I found out he had been texting her. We almost broke up. But also for context she broke up with him because she figured out she was a lesbian. But still… anyways we moved past it. And now… I’m sure we can all see this coming… I have this theme! I think about his ex gf all the time. I stalk her on social media and try to find hints and clues about their relationship. I compare myself to her. It really impacts my relationship because I’ll get mad at him for no reason. For example we went thrifting recently and he picked out stuff that completely wasn’t my style, but was hers. Which made me spiral. Is he purposely dressing me like her? Does he want me to be someone else, someone like her? The whole texting her thing was put in the past. I’ve forgiven him. But I can’t help but have resentment towards him and think/ visualize all these thoughts about them together and how I’ll never measure up to that. It makes me think I shouldn’t have got into a relationship. That maybe I’m better off by myself. But like all of us. I wish I didn’t have these thoughts. I wish I could believe he liked me for me. But sometimes it’s really hard.