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Document 6512004
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! How To Stop Being Jealous Of Your Partner’s Past In 12 Steps! Copyright © 2014 Jeff Billings ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! All Rights Reserved ! ! ! ! ! ! ! www.mypartnerspast.com TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I UNDERSTANDING RETROACTIVE JEALOUSY ! ! ! ! ! ! preface intro step one – thoughts & emotions step two – evolution step three – the ego step four – here comes the fear PART II REWIRING YOUR MIND ! ! ! step five – put on their shoes step six – the most natural thing in the world step seven – everything is because it was step eight – all we have is now ! PART III LET’S GET PRACTICAL ! ! ! ! ! ! step nine – put out the fire step ten – it’s not you, its me step eleven – stop feeding the monster step twelve – a new day, a new you thank you ! about the author ! ! ! ! www.mypartnerspast.com PREFACE ! ! ! ! I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll gladly make an exception.! – Groucho Marx! It was two a.m. and I was asleep in bed with my new girlfriend. Let’s call her “Emma.” Her phone rang, waking us up. She didn’t answer it. A few moments later it rang again. And she ignored it again. Finally, it vibrated with the arrival of a text message… ! ! She read the text, and I… asked who it was. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my first mistake. ! ! Turns out that, yep – you’re way ahead of the game – it was a former sex buddy casually wondering if she was free for more quality “buddy time.” Emma politely declined the request, of course, but he found it strangely hard to take the hint. ! ! A little extra spice was added to all this when, over the coming weeks, a couple of other former lovers joined him in enquiring as to her “buddy time” availability. This, it seems, was due to her having only just returned to town after being absent for six months in France. ! ! And so began my descent into retroactive jealousy hell… ! ! A nagging unease, coupled with repetitive images of her with these other guys grew and grew. And the more I thought about it – who she used to have sex with, and how could I stop thinking about it? – the worse it got. ! ! www.mypartnerspast.com I tried everything, from trawling the internet for information, to talking to Emma about it, to making her delete these ex-lovers on Facebook *cringe,* to writing each other love letters, but nothing seemed to work…! ! So, chances are that if you’ve purchased this book, you’re going through a similar form of mind-bending, unfathomable pain caused by obsessively thinking about useless crap that happened in your partner’s past that I went through. ! ! Maybe you’ve asked for help with your unwanted thoughts and been told: ! ! “Just move on. Get over it.” ! ! “He loves you now, not her.”! ! ! “Her past has made her who she is.” ! As well-intentioned as these nuggets of wisdom are, they are of little use to the sufferer of retroactive jealousy. Intellectually you know you they’re right – you should just “get over it” – but how?! ! ! Well, don’t worry, this book will show you how. ! ! In all the time I was plagued by retroactive jealousy and searching for the answer, something was working… My mind was taking on board a substantial amount of information as I searched, often by looking deep within myself and, behind the scenes, almost without me realizing, I was getting closer to the answer.! ! Over time I began to realize that certain positive thoughts and concepts seriously helped to quell jealous feelings more than others, and this is where the genesis of this book lies. ! ! www.mypartnerspast.com I ended up focusing on several key concepts that really helped me to see my situation in a much clearer light. Within a couple of weeks these concepts – coupled with the daily practical exercises in steps nine to twelve – had eliminated my jealous thoughts. ! ! Some time afterwards, I decided to write this book to help fellow sufferers of this debilitating and confusing condition regain control of their mind, and their life. ! ! Although I can say with confidence that my retroactive jealousy has now disappeared, let me stress that I have absolutely no qualifications or special skills to back up this book other than my direct experience. ! ! I am not a psychologist or a doctor. I’m just a regular guy who has successfully squashed unwanted thoughts after a long and protracted struggle; and ultimately by myself. ! ! I wrote this book for you, because I want you to be able to rid yourself of these pointless, negative thoughts much quicker than I did, and finally be able to stop spending emotional energy on things that really don’t matter. ! ! * * *! ! ! ! www.mypartnerspast.com INTRO ! ! ! ! What I used to be will pass away, and then you’ll see that all I want now is happiness for you and me. ! – Elliott Smith! It may take a day, a week, or a month, but you are close to looking back on your time as a sufferer of retroactive jealousy and wondering what the heck you were thinking. ! ! After reading this book and implementing the exercises contained in the bonus resources, you will be able to…! ! • ! • ! • ! • ! Listen to your partner talk about their past without wanting to cause physical damage of any kind to their ex-lovers.! Look at a photograph of your partner with a former lover without wanting to throw up. ! Be faced with the reality of your partner having had sex and / or loved someone else and not have an emotional reaction to this fact. ! Not spend another moment thinking about their past. Period. ! Much like how someone who is totally uninterested in football might sit emotionless at a game while the crowd goes crazy around them, that’s the kind of state you should be in when faced with the reality of your partner’s romantic and sexual history. Total. Indifference. Like, “What was their name again? I forget.”! ! So, how do we get there? ! www.mypartnerspast.com We get there in three parts… ! ! Part I: Understanding Retroactive Jealousy ! I believe it’s essential to understand fully what you’re up against before you can tackle it, and the first four steps in the book address this head on. ! ! A major part of the problem with retroactive jealousy is confusion over what exactly it is you are tackling. Are these negative emotions and thoughts a product of anger? Fear? Not feeling special to your partner? Being judgmental about sex? Or all of the above? ! ! The mind feeds off the puzzle, and the confusing nature of what exactly it is that you’re feeling makes it that much harder to combat. It’s like trying to play pool while drunk, wearing a blindfold and holding the cue round the wrong way. ! ! After reading these steps, however, you’ll know exactly what it is you’re feeling and be better equipped to fight it. ! ! Part II: Rewiring Your Mind ! Once you know why you’re feeling the way you do, the following four steps build a strong, peaceful foundation in your mind from which you can actually stop feeling the way you do. ! ! Achieving this solid foundation requires a process of “rewiring” the mind from being stuck in a negative mode of thinking regarding your partner’s past, to a positive. ! ! This section focuses on ridding the mind of the negative, limiting beliefs it has about your partner’s past and yourself, and replacing them with four key new www.mypartnerspast.com beliefs which will change how you think about yourself, sex, the past and the present. ! ! When these four new concepts have been ingrained in the mind you will have the solid foundation necessary to tackle the practical exercises outlined in the final section. ! ! Part III: Let’s Get Practical ! Changing the way you think about certain concepts is an essential step on the road to overcoming the affliction, but the mind will attempt to resist this at all costs, unless it is backed up by action. ! ! And that’s where this final section comes in, as it’s only through action rather than mere thoughts that we can truly “rewire” the mind to do what we want it to do. So, in Part III, I detail four insanely helpful, practical exercises you can do every day in order to kill your retroactive jealousy for good. ! ! This is really where the real meat of this book lies as after doing these exercises every day for a week or two you will find your retroactive jealousy has greatly diminished to the point of (hopefully total) non-existence. ! ! A short note: this book is written from the perspective of a heterosexual male, but the scourge of retroactive jealousy can strike at any gender or sexuality. Whether you are gay, straight, black, white, male, female, vegetable or mineral, this book will ease your suffering and banish it for good.! ! So, let’s get to it… ! ! ! * * *! ! www.mypartnerspast.com ! ! ! ! ! PART I ! UNDERSTANDING RETROACTIVE JEALOUSY ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! www.mypartnerspast.com step one THOUGHTS & EMOTIONS ! ! ! ! Emotions ! Named must your fear be, before banish it you can. ! – Yoda! Our minds can certainly work in mysterious ways. Consider the following: ! ! Retroactive jealousy causes us to have an emotional reaction to a past event in our partner’s life, at which we were not even present and before we even knew them. ! ! Negative emotions about your partner’s past are the ground zero of retroactive jealousy. If you reflected on their sexual past positively, you would not have negative emotions and consequently wouldn’t suffer from repetitive thoughts. ! ! Sean Webb, founder of the website “I Am Spirituality”, has developed an easily understood equation which explains how emotions work within each and every one of us. ! ! It goes like this: ! ! (EP – RP = ER)! Expectation or Preference – Reality as Perceived = Emotional Response! www.mypartnerspast.com Okay, so what does this mean? ! ! In a nutshell, our Expectation or Preference is how we would like, or expect, something we’re emotionally attached to, to be or turn out. Our Reality as Perceived is then how something actually is, or what actually happens. And finally, our Emotional Response is conditioned by this Reality as Perceived. ! ! In other words, if our Reality as Perceived meets our Expectation or Preference, we experience a positive emotion. If it falls below our Expectation or Preference, we experience a negative emotion. ! ! Sean Webb tackles many emotions on his site, but doesn’t really go into jealousy of any kind, and so here’s a brief analysis of how your emotions are working when applied to retroactive jealousy. ! ! Your Emotional Preference is that, for example, your girlfriend has only slept with three guys, never had a one night stand, threesome or sex buddy and only enjoyed sex within a secure monogamous relationship. ! ! The Reality as Perceived is when you then find out she has actually had what you consider to be “a promiscuous past” and she’s actually had threesomes, foursomes, sex buddies and so on. Therefore, you experience a negative Emotional Response. ! ! But, in order for you to have an Emotional Response of any kind you must have an emotional attachment to the thing you’re reacting to. ! ! In the case of retroactive jealousy, the reason why you have such a strong emotional reaction, is because you have formed a strong emotional attachment to your partner. The more you care for someone, the more susceptible you are to being attacked by retroactive jealousy.! ! www.mypartnerspast.com One of my exes, who was twenty at the time, had slept with thirty guys, including four in one weekend, and yet I didn’t care. Why? Because I didn’t care enough about her. Okay, so I didn’t like the fact she’d done all that stuff particularly, but it wasn’t something I obsessed over. I just forgot about it. ! ! Emma’s past sex life, on the other hand, is less colorful than this particular ex’s, and yet I became consumed by these destructive thoughts because my emotional attachment to her is that much greater. ! ! * * *! Thoughts ! It is these negative emotions that are causing you to suffer from thoughts and images of your partner being with their past lovers. ! ! Thoughts surrounding your partner’s past are characterized by their repetitive nature. Your mind flings up “mini movies” or “photos” of them being together over and over and over again, of which you seemingly have little control. ! ! Trying to stop thinking about this only makes you think about it even more, as your mind descends into a “don’t think about a pink elephant” type war with itself. And then of course all you can think about are pink elephants. ! ! The thoughts are then subsequently given even more power, making the emotions even more negative toward your partner’s past (and yourself). ! ! As influential author and speaker Eckhart Tolle observes, your thoughts seem to be controlling you rather than the other way around. You may have heard of this type of thinking pattern being referred to as a form of OCD, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.! ! www.mypartnerspast.com The funny thing is, these thoughts are almost certainly not even accurate. They’re just manifestations within an insecure mind that knows nothing of what really happened, but wants to assume the worst. ! ! How do you know that they had such a great time in Paris? How do you know what the sex was like on that one night stand? Were you hiding in the closet watching? ! ! Your mind wants to paint a picture of an insanely hot session involving your partner and their ex, or on an idyllic holiday of a lifetime with them, but the reality was maybe very different. It’s just your mind playing tricks on you, but more on this later. ! ! First, we need ask why we suffer from these negative thoughts? And what exactly is the overriding negative emotion we’re feeling? ! ! In order to answer these questions, I first want to take you on a little trip back in time… ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! * * *! ! www.mypartnerspast.com
