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Individuals in romantic relationships may wonder about their current partners’ previous relational experiences. These thoughts may threaten specialness beliefs and lead to feelings of retroactive jealousy. In this study, we surveyed 93 individuals about their third-party imagined interactions (TPIIs), in which they imagine their current partner and the partner’s ex interacting. We find quantitative evidence that retroactive jealousy has a negative relationship with functions of TPIIs: catharsis, rehearsal, relationship maintenance, conflict-linkage, and understanding. We also qualitatively investigate the content of these imagined scenarios. We see individuals ruminating on a variety of partners and relationship milestones when they consider their retroactive jealousy. We discuss theoretical implications for TPIIs as well as the specialness meaning framework model of jealousy.
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Coduto et al. (2026) studied this question.
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