Hey, what's up everybody, Dan Munro coming back at you with another Ask Dan anything question.
This one comes from a guy named Pete. And it's about jealousy. And what he's seen through is,
I get obsessively jealous about my girlfriend's sexual past, imagining scenarios and situations
from your past, for example, and making mental movies. I completely understand why this is
wrong and illogical and even hypocritical. But no matter how much I think this through,
I still can't shake the feeling of resentment and judgment drives me crazy. I was wondering
if you had any steps or practical things that I could do to combat this problem. This is a really
common one that comes up a lot, and different forms of jealousy come up a lot in my work,
but particularly this one about the threat around somebody's sexual history. Pete goes on to say,
part of me feels that if I become single and get more experience with women, this will solve the
problem. And help me to understand the sexuality of woman more to the point where I lose this
irrational judgment and jealousy. But I like the relationship I'm in and I think there must
be a different way to solve this problem. Pete, you're absolutely right, there is a different way
to solve this problem. And your initial impulse to solve the problem by leaving the relationship and
hooking up with other girls, speaks to me a little bit about where this jealousy is coming from. So
we'll start with jealousy in general. And then our moves more specifically into your case, the apt so
jealousy in general. I've learned and I've already made a video about jealousy, which I'll try to
remember to put into the comments below here. But essentially, jealousy shows us that we feel
threatened. And for us to feel threatened, that shows us two things. One is that, yeah, like I
said, we feel threatened. And two is that we feel threatened to lose something, therefore we are
possessive. So this jealousy is telling us that you are possessive around your girlfriend, part of
you is trying to keep her to yourself. And so you see her previous experience as a threat to that we
could extrapolate this out and see that some part of you believes that her previous sexual history
somehow indicates that she could be perhaps more interested in other means than you and therefore,
be stolen away at some point. Or it could simply mean that her history somehow makes her enjoyment
of view less, and therefore is a threat to the relationship. So sometimes just understanding
that you feel threatened. And the neediness behind this feeling of threat. That's the only way you
can feel threatened in this way is if you're trying to keep and possess her. So it shows
that part of your connection here is probably unhealthy, because you believe that you own her,
that she is something that can be taken away. Now she is just a unique person who have experiences
with any choose to call those experiences or relationships, then nothing can be taken away.
You're just connecting with her until you're no longer connecting with her. If she's a bad fit
for you, then she'll cheat on you or leave you and you'll be glad that that happened. Because
you don't want to keep someone who is going to do that in your life. And you're trying very hard to
keep her these jealousy fantasies. expressing your neediness to keep her. The other thing and I think
this is the darker truth to your jealousy is that it's an excuse to escape. When you
talk about how part of me feels that if I was to become single and get more experienced, this will
solve the problem. Your solution to solve the problem of your jealousy with your girlfriend
is to leave her. And this tells me that this jealousy is actually your fear, trying to get
you to leave her. And I don't believe this as a healthy reason behind this. Those mental movies
that your fear is projecting into your mind. And remember anything fictional and scary in your mind
must be fear based because fear is a fiction. So it's making these movies and horrifying you and
scaring you. And then part of your brain comes up with this idea of leaving her as a solution.
In simple terms, what I think is your jealousy represents your fear about staying with her.
There's something about your commitment in this relationship that you find uncomfortable. There's
something perhaps about the connection with her that deep and vulnerable and you're scared. And
so your brain uses these fantasies, or these nightmares of her being satisfied by other men
perhaps in order to try and convince you to leave her and get back to your comfort zone. Which tells
me that this is probably a good relation He should for you to be him. She represents growth for you,
she's taking you out of your comfort zone. And this jealousy reaction proves it. So one
of the things that odds simply expresses that this jealousy is, I hate to say a good thing. But it's
it's evidence that this is a healthy relationship you're getting into that perhaps the potential
for vulnerable connection with this woman is so strong that your brains actually scared, and it's
trying to convince you through these fantasies to leave her. Now, one thing I'm willing to guess,
and I'm probably accurate about is that you are not being open and honest with her about this
jealousy. And that's why you're ruminating on it. It's circling around your head and
punishing you like somebody who's fallen into the ocean get smashed against the rocks by wave after
wave. Because it's not getting out. There's no discussion with her to explore this jealousy, to
see her side of the story, to come to agreements on what this means and how to manage it, you're
keeping it all to yourself, trying to deal with it, and here with no assistance. Now, what I love
about jealousy the most is that it can be one of the most powerful ways to connect with a partner,
not through trying to manipulate their behavior, just really expressing it. My suggestion, Pete,
is to go to her and tell her about these jealousy, thoughts and fantasies that you have it show her
that you're so scared of losing her that your brain is coming up with these horror stories.
And let's worry about losing her, that you care about her so much, that your brain is actually
terrified of losing her. You know, you wouldn't be worried about our past unless you cared about
her. Or at least unless you cared about keeping this relationship. And this is some of the thing,
one of the things that you'll have to figure out for yourself. Are you having these fantasies
because her, she is important to you? Or are you just obsessed with being in a relationship? Given
everything you've written, Pete, I think this is a case of you seeing her sexual past as a threat
is merely a representation of how strongly you want to be with her, and also how terrified you
are of staying with her. That conflict in your head has been represented by these movies. And
the solution is to share these movies with her to tell her about how her past makes you insecure
and scared of losing her. If she's a good fit for you, this will bond you closer together, if she's
a bad fit for you, and may end up breaking you up. But hey, that was your strategy anyway. You
can't really lose by sharing this. When in doubt, be more honest, that's kind of like my solution to
everything. If you're not sure what the right way forward is be honest about how you feel unsure,
be honest about what's happening inside your head, and let the two of you work on it together like a
project. And the last thing I'll say on that is the same thing with anything to do with painful
repetitive thoughts OCD types thinking is to practice diffusion. Now if you go to my website,
the inspirational lifestyle.com And you use the search box and look up the word diffusion D F U
S IO in, you'll see an article I made about diffusing from negative thoughts. And that
will help you to deal with this. But I think mostly the most important thing is to express
it. If you express it, you automatically make it something real that the two of you can talk about,
rather than just a revolving, adapting mutating fantasy inside your head. So hope that helps.
It's one of those things you won't believe that it will build a connection until you try doing
it. So expressing jealousy will seem like the worst idea until you do it and express it in
terms of how you feel not what you want her to do differently, or that you blame her for
a past just that you're afraid and insecure and see what happens. So I hope that helps.
If you guys want more information on this, I suggest you get hold of my 3x confidence
and authenticity masterclass program. I talk a lot about how to both Express and defuse and send your
questions through dan@brojo.org, subscribe to the YouTube channel as always, and I'll see you next