Featured Image Credit: Netflix
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Psychology, Life
Britt Jones
Rebecca Syndrome has been warned to couples by an expert, as it can cause some pretty heavy consequences in your relationship.
We've all had problems in our love life, whether it’s a disagreement about socks not being put in the hamper or the dishes never being loaded into the dishwasher.
This one however, takes it a little further than household disagreements.
The syndrome can actually harm you and those around you, so read on to find out what it means.
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In a recent blog post by psychotherapist Toby Ingham shed light on the condition, and what causes it to blossom into something truly frightening.
According to experts, there have been a rise in inquiries on the condition, with Ingham sharing that Google searches have been increasing since 2018, as patients self-diagnose themselves.
The term stems from a 1938 gothic novel written by Daphne du Maurier, called ‘Rebecca’, which inspired psychoanalyst Dr. Darian Leader to coin the term based off the character.
Lily James also played the live-action role in the 2020 film of the same name.
Take it from us, it’s not a great condition to have.
Essentially, Rebecca was a fictional woman who exhibited behaviours personally and within her relationship that could be seen as obsessive.
Her obsession ultimately led to the dismantling of her life, with many twists and turns along the way.
Like Rebecca, the syndrome shows a person developing jealous traits due to their obsession with their partner’s exes.
It doesn’t have to be an ex the person is obsessed with, it could even be details of past sexual partners too.
To figure out if you have it, you can tick off some of these red flags.
You might compare yourself to their ex, whether it’s your appearance, personality, smarts, and sexual prowess.
There may be a feeling of insecurity, questioning everything about your relationship due to this nagging feeling that their ex was better than you are, or special in some way you are not.
This type of thinking could even contribute to obsessional neurosis, which basically ‘describes a condition where the mind is intruded upon by compulsive words, images, or ideas. These uncontrollable, obsessive thoughts dominate the mind,’ as per Ingham.
He said that Rebecca Syndrome, also known as retroactive jealousy, stems from childhood.
He told MailOnline: “While these early problems will be unique to each of us, they may, for example, relate to our having felt overlooked by a parent who preferred one of our siblings to us.
“Or perhaps to problems feeling we were unimportant or excluded in our birth family.”
He said these unresolved feelings can be projected into a relationship, damaging it.
He added: “Ask yourself whether your anxiety, your intrusive thoughts about feeling less important to your partner than their former partner, may really relate to your own past rather than it being anything to do with your current relationship.”
One way to make sure you are staying away from developing this syndrome is to break away from the obsessive thinking, and to keep as far as you can from details that could lead to you becoming fixated on.
Ingham said: “Don’t ask about your partners’ past, particularly their sexual histories, oversharing at the start of a new relationship often comes back to haunt us.”