1 Introduction

Partners' sexual pasts have long been recognised as a potential source of tension in intimate relationships (Elphinston et al. 2013). Research has often approached such experiences through the lens of jealousy, emphasising concerns about rivalry, threat or fear of loss. Within this literature, reactions to a partner's sexual history are frequently framed as expressions of insecurity or possessiveness and understood as cognitive or emotional distortions that can be challenged or corrected (Wurmser and Jarass 2008). Although this work has provided important insights, it may not fully capture the complexity of how partners' sexual pasts are lived and negotiated in everyday relational life.

One concept that has gained attention is retroactive jealousy, referring to persistent distress related to a partner's past romantic or sexual experiences (Osorio 2025). Research highlights intrusive thoughts, repetitive imagery and difficulties disengaging from imagined scenarios involving the partner's past (Elphinston et al. 2013). Although offering valuable descriptions of recurring cognitive patterns, this literature has largely conceptualised the phenomenon in individual terms, risking the neglect of its relational, embodied and affective dimensions.

From a family systems perspective, intimate relationships are embedded within broader relational processes. Experiences related to partners' sexual pasts are not isolated intrapsychic events but emerge within ongoing circular dynamics between partners (Bateson 1972; Priest and Lorås 2026). Feelings of insecurity may shape communication, disclosure and the negotiation of emotional closeness. Withdrawal, altered attunement or protective silence may function as attempts to preserve equilibrium, while simultaneously sustaining the experiences they seek to regulate. Individual experiences and relational processes are thus mutually constitutive rather than causally separate.

Meaning associated with a partner's sexual past is shaped through dialogue and anticipations of dialogue. Openness, silence, avoidance and protection are relational accomplishments rather than individual states. What is spoken, what remains unspoken and how disclosures are received contribute to the ongoing negotiation of intimacy and safety. The significance of past experiences emerges through shared meaning making within the relationship, while also being shaped by broader sociocultural contexts and discourses of intimacy, gender and self-worth.

In many contemporary Western societies, openness and disclosure are often portrayed as indicators of authenticity and relational health (Giddens 1992). At the same time, dominant constructions of masculinity may link self-worth to comparison and performance. Such narratives shape how couples negotiate what should be shared, what remains private and how vulnerability is expressed. Experiences related to partners' sexual pasts are therefore simultaneously personal, relational and socioculturally situated. These tensions become evident when ideals of openness collide with embodied limits of tolerance. Although disclosure is often framed as necessary for intimacy, it may also exceed affective capacity and lead to destabilisation. Bateson's concept of double bind offers a framework for understanding such dilemmas, where openness and self-protection may be experienced as simultaneously important yet difficult to reconcile (Bateson et al. 1956; Bateson 1972). Such tensions need not be understood as fixed or irresolvable but may shift as partners negotiate different ways of balancing openness, protection and emotional safety. Here, the concept is used not pathologically but as a phenomenological account of lived relational tensions.

Despite growing interest in relational and embodied dimensions of intimacy, there remains a need for in-depth studies exploring how partners' sexual pasts are experienced from within. Little research has examined how such experiences unfold as lived relational phenomena or how they become embedded in dialogue, mutual regulation and the negotiation of closeness in long-term relationships.

This study therefore explores how partners' sexual pasts are experienced within intimate relationships, with attention to their relational and sociocultural situatedness. By focusing on lived experience, it seeks to illuminate the relational and dialogical dynamics through which partners' sexual pasts shape present intimacy. The guiding research question is: How do we experience and make sense of the ways in which our partners' sexual pasts shape our intimate relationships?

2 Methodology

This study employed a qualitative collaborative autoethnographic approach, theoretically grounded in phenomenology and hermeneutics. The analysis was conducted using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The aim was to develop an interpretative understanding of how perceptions of a partner's sexual past may affect intimate relationships. Particular attention was paid to how such experiences are lived and interpreted within relational contexts. The data were generated through a collaborative process involving individual reflective texts and subsequent dialogical conversations between the researchers.

2.1 Research Design and Data Material

The study was conducted within the framework of collaborative autoethnography (CAE). CAE is a qualitative research approach in which several researchers generate autobiographical material related to a shared topic and engage jointly in the interpretative exploration of this material (Ngunjiri et al. 2010). Rather than treating personal accounts as isolated narratives, the approach emphasises how lived experiences gain meaning through dialogue and through their situatedness within broader sociocultural contexts (Chang et al. 2014). In this sense, CAE can be understood as a socially oriented form of autoethnography in which individual experiences are examined in relation to relational, cultural and contextual influences.

The goal of doing an autoethnographic study is not to achieve objective and positivistic knowledge about the phenomena in question. Instead, the perspective pushes towards deeper reflections by the researcher towards the phenomena in question, and to try to let some kind of wider authenticity emerge in the handling of the findings (Svensson and Brandt 2023). The autoethnographic approach is less concerned with conveying information of the phenomena and more interested in the evocation of the phenomena and what it feels like to be alive in the world as a human being living the phenomena in question (Bochner and Ellis 2022). This is because the here and nows that we are observing are beginning and ending with us (Foerster 1962), or at least, they are in the practice of being in our descriptions of reflections in this paper. This also means that in presenting the autoethnographic material we produce, we will move away from the standardised and legitimate forms of writing in the sciences. The normal third-person view, objectifying perspective and neutral language (Bochner and Ellis 2022), will be replaced by first-person language saturated with feelings and experiences.

Within this methodological framework, the researchers explored their own lived experiences related to the study's research question: How do we experience and make sense of the ways in which our partners' sexual pasts shape our intimate relationships? Personal experience was approached as a legitimate and analytically valuable source of knowledge, examined reflexively and interpreted in relation to relational and sociocultural contexts. Given that the phenomenon under investigation concerns experiences embedded within intimate relationships, CAE was considered particularly suitable because it allowed individual experiences to be explored in dialogue with another person familiar both with the phenomenon and with the process of meaning making.

The dual position of being both participants and researchers required particular attention during the analytic process. The initial reflective texts were written from within the lived experience of the phenomenon. During the subsequent analysis, we moved towards a more interpretative position. Through the IPA process and our dialogical conversations, the personal accounts were revisited, compared and questioned. They were examined in relation to emerging patterns and broader relational and sociocultural contexts. This did not remove our personal involvement, nor is this intended within CAE. Rather, it allowed us to distinguish between experiencing the phenomenon and interpreting these experiences as research material.

The empirical material consisted of six written autoethnographic reflective texts. Each author produced three extended reflections, resulting in a total of six texts. The reflections ranged from approximately 10–15 pages and were written at different points in time over an extended period. This temporal spacing allowed experiences to be revisited and reinterpreted as understanding evolved.

The process of generating the material was iterative and dialogical. Each reflective text was followed by conversations between the authors in which experiences, emotional responses and emerging interpretations were explored jointly. These conversations functioned as reflexive spaces in which meanings were negotiated and assumptions examined. Insights from these exchanges informed subsequent rounds of reflective writing, giving the process a cyclical and recursive character.

In our reflective writing, both authors drew on a shared set of open-ended questions that functioned as points of entry rather than as a fixed structure. These questions helped anchor the reflections while allowing new and unanticipated themes to emerge.

• In what way is this experienced as a problem?
• What do I fear that my partner's sexual history may contain?
• Why is this important to me?
• What kinds of stories do I fear hearing?
• What do I believe such stories might do to me and to the relationship?

Across the reflective texts, the authors drew on a wide range of experiential material, including bodily sensations, emotional reactions, inner dialogues, relational interactions and reflections on cultural norms related to sexuality, intimacy and masculinity. Consistent with autoethnographic principles, the writing moved between detailed descriptions of lived moments and more reflective passages in which experiences were situated within broader relational and cultural contexts.

The complete set of reflective texts constituted the empirical material for the subsequent IPA. In this way, CAE functioned as the primary strategy for data generation, whereas IPA provided the analytic framework through which the material was examined in depth. The combination of CAE and IPA enabled attention both to the idiographic qualities of lived experience and to the relational and dialogical processes through which meanings were developed and refined.

2.2 Participants and Researcher Position

The study was conducted by two male researchers, both of whom are married and living in established intimate relationships. One researcher (LL) has been married to his partner for more than 10 years and has one daughter with his current partner and one child from a previous long-term relationship lasting 12 years. The other researcher (JCVC) has been married to his partner for more than 10 years and has two children with his current partner and three children from a previous marriage lasting 11 years.

These life experiences grounded the reflections in complex family structures and long-term intimate relationships, providing access to experiences related to intimacy, commitment, parenthood and relational continuity that were methodologically relevant to the research question. In addition, the researchers' positions as men in long-term heterosexual relationships situated their experiences within particular relational and sociocultural contexts, including broader understandings of intimacy, sexuality and masculinity. At the same time, this positioning required reflexive awareness and methodological transparency, as the experiences examined were both personal and deeply relational.

2.3 Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

The analysis was conducted using IPA, which is grounded in phenomenology, hermeneutics and an idiographic focus on lived experience (Smith et al. 2022). Phenomenology seeks to explore how experiences are lived and experienced, with particular emphasis on subjective meaning and the lifeworld. Hermeneutics provides an interpretative framework in which understanding develops through continuous movement between parts and whole, whereas idiography prioritises in-depth analysis of particular cases over generalisation (Lorås 2025).

IPA was considered particularly suitable because the empirical material consisted of extensive reflective texts resembling longitudinal personal accounts, allowing detailed exploration of embodied, emotional and relational experiences over time. Consistent with the idiographic orientation of IPA, the analysis sought to remain close to lived experience while acknowledging the interpretative nature of understanding.

The analysis followed the seven steps of IPA (Smith et al. 2022). In Step 1, each reflective text was read repeatedly to develop a holistic and experience-near understanding of the material. In Step 2, exploratory comments focusing on descriptive, linguistic and interpretative aspects were produced. In Step 3, these comments were condensed into experience-near codes. In Step 4, emergent themes were identified within each text. In Step 5, connections between themes were explored, and themes were refined and hierarchically organised. In Step 6, the same process was repeated for subsequent texts, with openness to both similarities and differences. In Step 7, patterns across the material were examined and further developed through repeated movements between parts and whole, in accordance with the hermeneutic circle.

The analysis developed through dialogue between the researchers, with interpretations continuously challenged, nuanced and revised. In this way, the analysis was both individually grounded and dialogically developed.

2.4 Ethical Considerations

The study raised particular ethical considerations because the researchers examined their own experiences related to intimate relationships and family life. This also meant that their partners were indirectly present in the material. Although the study focused on the researchers' own experiences and reflections, their partners inevitably appeared in the background of the narratives. For this reason, the paper does not disclose any information about the partners' sexual histories. Instead, the analytical focus remained on how the researchers experienced and made sense of these experiences and how they became embedded in relational processes. At the same time, the authors acknowledge that the experiences examined are inherently relational and that the perspectives represented are necessarily partial. The intention was not to describe the partners' experiences but rather to explore how the researchers themselves experienced and negotiated these phenomena within ongoing intimate relationships.

Both researchers retained full control over their own texts and could at any time withdraw or revise material experienced as overly vulnerable or potentially burdensome to their personal relationships. Ethical considerations were therefore understood as an integral part of the research process rather than as a discrete methodological step.

Particular ethical attention was given to the position of our partners, as our accounts inevitably involved experiences situated within our intimate relationships. Both partners were informed about the study and its focus and consented to our use of experiences related to the relationships as research material. Care was therefore taken to avoid unnecessary disclosure of identifiable or intimate information concerning them.

3 Findings

The following findings present an IPA of how partners' sexual pasts are experienced and understood within intimate relationships. The analysis is grounded in close, idiographic engagement with the reflective texts and attends to how meaning is articulated through language, imagery, affect, embodied experience and relational processes. Across the material, the past does not appear primarily as factual knowledge about earlier relationships. Instead, it becomes experientially present in the participants' everyday relational lives through imagination, bodily responses, self-evaluation, dialogue and processes of relational regulation. Accordingly, the analysis focuses less on historical events themselves and more on how these experiences are lived and understood within intimate relationships. Four interconnected experiential patterns were identified: (1) experiencing oneself as insufficient (‘coming up short’); (2) intrusive imagery and embodied distress; (3) shame and self-regulation; and (4) ambivalence between openness and self-protection. These patterns do not represent separate or isolated themes but rather different aspects of a shared experiential field through which partners' sexual pasts become present within the relationship. Although analytically distinguishable, the patterns were experienced as closely interconnected and mutually influencing, reflecting ongoing processes of self-evaluation, emotional regulation and relational negotiation.

3.1 Experiencing Oneself as Insufficient (‘coming up short’)

Across the reflective texts, partners' sexual pasts are described as becoming points of comparison through which participants continually evaluate themselves. The experience is articulated less as fear of relational loss and more as an ongoing assessment of adequacy in a domain experienced as central to self-worth, masculine identity and relational value. Sexuality emerges as an area in which comparison feels unavoidable and where perceived insufficiency is experienced as definitive rather than as situational. What is at stake is not primarily behaviour or effort, but the self as such and what one is able to offer within the relationship. In Lennart's reflections, this experience is framed through a language of impossibility and irreversibility:

I am not afraid that she will leave me. I am also not afraid that our relationship is at risk. What troubles me is that I cannot offer her what some of the men she was with earlier probably could. One of them looked like a Greek god. I cannot give her the memories she has had with others; that will be an impossibility. And that is painful, because I care deeply about being as good as I can be for her in the important areas of life.

Here, sexual history is positioned as a closed temporal space that cannot be entered or altered. Lennart repeatedly returns to what cannot be changed, replaced or compensated for. Unlike other areas of life in which development and effort are experienced as meaningful, sexuality is described as resistant to improvement. The comparison is therefore experienced not as a challenge that can be addressed through growth or adaptation but as a fixed asymmetry between past and present. These comparisons are experienced not merely as private evaluations but as influencing how one positions oneself within the relationship and experiences one's significance to the partner.

The pain articulated in these reflections is primarily related not to failure in the present but to the experience of structural limitation. Adequacy is evaluated against criteria located in a past to which Lennart has no access. This gives the experience an existential quality, in which the self is measured against an imagined standard that cannot be engaged with directly.

Jacob describes a closely related experience but places greater emphasis on its processual character:

When I am insecure about myself, the thoughts take up more space. I withdraw, I become less present, less attuned. That withdrawal then makes me feel like an even worse man for her, and then I become even more insecure about my own capacity.

Here, insufficiency unfolds through interaction rather than remaining confined to inner experience. Withdrawal functions both as a response to insecurity and as something that confirms it. Attempts at self-protection simultaneously reinforce the sense of inadequacy. Reduced presence and attunement are experienced as affecting the relationship, contributing to a process in which insecurity and relational distance become mutually reinforcing.

Importantly, positive experiences in the present do not fully regulate the insecurity. Even when the relationship is described as stable and meaningful, the imagined presence of past partners continues to function as a silent reference point against which the self is evaluated. This comparison is experienced as influencing how closeness, attunement and emotional availability are negotiated in everyday relational life. Both authors explicitly distinguish this experience from jealousy. As described by Jacob:

Many would probably say that this is jealousy, but that does not feel accurate to me. Jealousy has a different tone. What I experience is pain and insecurity, and it happens in my body here and now.

This orientation situates the phenomenon primarily within self-relation rather than relational rivalry. The central experience is not the fear of losing the partner but the sense of not fully measuring up in an area experienced as deeply tied to identity and relational worth. In this way, partners' sexual pasts become a mirror through which the self is evaluated, giving the experience a persistent and emotionally charged presence that becomes woven into the everyday negotiation of intimacy and connection.

3.2 Intrusive Imagery and Embodied Distress

A second central finding concerns how partners' sexual pasts are lived through intrusive imagery accompanied by pronounced bodily distress. These experiences are not described as reflections or memories but as vivid images that impose themselves on consciousness and generate immediate physical responses. The experiences unfold primarily at the level of perception and affect and influence how intimacy and emotional closeness are experienced in the present. Jacob carefully differentiates between thinking and seeing:

I do not experience it primarily as thoughts, but as images of my partner in sexual interaction with another man. Sometimes I see it from the outside, sometimes through his eyes, sometimes through her eyes.

This distinction is analytically important. Thoughts imply a degree of distance and the possibility of cognitive regulation, whereas images are immersive and difficult to hold at arm's length. The experience is described as visually immediate and affectively compelling, drawing Jacob into imagined scenes that feel difficult to interrupt or disengage from.

The repeated shifts in perspective are also significant. Jacob does not occupy a stable observational position but moves between different vantage points within the imagined scene. At times, he observes from the outside, whereas at other moments, he inhabits the position of the imagined rival or of his partner. These shifts suggest a form of experiential instability in which the boundary between observer and participant becomes blurred. The imagery therefore does not remain a distant representation of past events but becomes a space in which the self is repeatedly implicated. Jacob further elaborates on the involuntary and embodied nature of the experience:

The images come without my consent. Concrete descriptions trigger them, and once they are there, they are painful to have. Not just uncomfortable, but painful. Even though I know it was many years ago, it happens now, in my body.

The images are described as arriving uninvited. At the same time, the experience is strongly embodied. The distress is not described primarily as emotional discomfort but as a form of bodily pain unfolding in the present moment. Although the events belong to the past, they are lived as immediate bodily experiences. In this way, the temporal distance between past and present becomes blurred, and the past re-emerges in sensory and affective form.

Lennart describes a related process, framed through persistence and mental saturation:

It occupies a great deal of space in my mind. I spend a lot of mental energy trying to understand why this has such power over me. It interferes with my ability to relax in everyday life, because the images return even when nothing external has triggered them.

Here, reflection is mobilised as a strategy for regulation. Lennart attempts to make sense of the experience through analysis and self-examination. However, this effort does not lead to resolution. Instead, reflection appears to sustain the preoccupation, even as it represents an attempt to regain emotional equilibrium and preserve the quality of the relationship. Lennart further reflects on the paradoxical nature of this process:

I often tell myself that if I could just understand why this affects me so deeply, I might finally be able to let it go. In some ways, I think I keep turning it over in my mind because I want to protect what we have and not let these reactions interfere with our relationship. But sometimes it feels as though the more I try to understand it, the more space it takes up, and the harder it becomes to simply be present with her.

Analytically, these accounts suggest that when experiences cannot easily be integrated into shared narratives or symbolised through dialogue, imagination becomes a primary medium through which meaning is generated. The imagery does not merely represent the past but actively shapes present affective and bodily experience. In this way, partners' sexual pasts become experientially present through recurring imaginative scenes that continue to influence how the relationship is felt and lived over time.

3.3 Shame and Self-regulation

Shame emerges as a central affect regulating both inner experience and relational communication. In the reflective texts, shame is directed primarily towards the self and towards the participants' own reactions rather than towards the partner or her sexual history. Thus, shame concerns not only the intrusive imagery itself but also the fact that these reactions occur. In this way, shame functions as a second-order response that shapes how the primary experience is interpreted, contained and communicated. Jacob reflects on how shame expands over time:

At first, I felt shame about having these intrusive thoughts about my partner's sexual past. Later, I also started to feel shame about examining them.

This temporal progression is analytically significant. Initially, shame is directed towards the intrusive images and the emotional reactions they evoke. Over time, however, shame shifts towards the process of reflection itself. Attempting to understand the experience becomes something that is also felt to be questionable or excessive, gradually narrowing the space for inquiry. Jacob continues:

It feels self-centred, almost narcissistic, as if I must believe that my feelings are unusually important. I find myself joking about it or downplaying it when I talk to colleagues.

Here, shame functions as a form of self-regulation. Humour and minimisation allow the experience to be mentioned while simultaneously limiting its seriousness. By presenting the issue in a lighter or ironic tone, Jacob reduces the risk of appearing overly preoccupied or emotionally vulnerable. At the same time, these strategies constrain opportunities for exploring the experience in greater depth.

When reflection itself becomes a source of shame, the development of a coherent narrative becomes difficult. The experience remains partially unarticulated and therefore difficult to integrate into shared understanding. In this sense, shame regulates not only emotional exposure but also the interpretative space within which meaning can be developed.

Lennart describes how shame also extends into the relational domain:

She becomes cautious about what she shares, because she is afraid of how I might react. That means that parts of her past, which may actually matter for our relationship, remain unspoken.

In the example above, shame does not remain confined to the individual level but begins to shape the relationship itself. The anticipation of the partner's reaction leads to increased caution in what is disclosed. Certain experiences remain unspoken not because they lack significance but because they are perceived as potentially destabilising. Silence thus emerges as a relational adaptation rather than as an indication that the past has lost relevance. Although experienced as protective, such adaptations may simultaneously limit opportunities for dialogue and shared meaning making. Lennart reflects on how this mutual caution gradually shaped what became speakable within the relationship:

Over time, I noticed that we both became more careful. She avoided certain topics because she did not want to hurt me, and I avoided asking because I was afraid of what hearing more might do to me. In a strange way, we were both trying to protect our relationship, but it also meant that some things were left hanging between us without ever really being talked about.

Analytically, shame appears to perform a dual function. On the one hand, it protects against emotional overload by limiting the extent to which distressing material is explored or communicated. On the other hand, this protective function may simultaneously contribute to maintaining the very dynamics that keep the experience alive. By restricting reflection and dialogue, shame helps preserve the conditions under which partners' sexual pasts remain experientially present. In this way, shame influences how vulnerability, openness and emotional closeness are negotiated over time.

3.4 Ambivalence Between Openness and Self-protection

The fourth finding concerns a persistent ambivalence between ideals of openness and the need for emotional self-protection. In the reflective texts, both authors express a strong commitment to honesty, transparency and relational maturity. At the same time, they describe clear experiential limits regarding what they feel able to hear or tolerate. Openness therefore appears simultaneously as a relational value and as a potential source of psychological destabilisation. Jacob introduces this tension through a description of immediate bodily reaction:

Sometimes I think that maybe I should just hear everything, see it all like a film, and be done with it. But if I imagine her telling me about important sexual experiences, my body reacts immediately. I feel like running out of the house.

Here, ambivalence is experienced less as cognitive uncertainty and more as a tension between competing experiential demands. On the one hand, Jacob expresses a wish to confront the past fully, hoping that greater knowledge might bring closure or resolution. On the other hand, the imagined situation evokes a strong bodily impulse towards withdrawal. The body reacts before reflection has time to organise the experience, indicating that the limits of openness are not only psychological but also embodied. Jacob continues:

I hate the idea that there are things my wife cannot talk about, and at the same time I am terrified of what might happen inside me if she does.

This formulation illustrates how curiosity and fear coexist within the same experiential field. Openness remains compelling because it is associated with intimacy, honesty and relational trust. At the same time, the potential emotional consequences of such openness are experienced as difficult to regulate. The tension therefore persists as an ongoing dilemma rather than resolving into a clear choice. Questions concerning what can be shared and how such disclosures might be received remain active even when particular conversations do not take place.

Lennart frames a similar tension through the language of control:

Opening myself to receiving her experiences feels like opening a door to something I cannot control. I cannot choose away my wife or our relationship, and I cannot choose away the images that may appear if I hear something that overwhelms me.

Here, openness is experienced as risky precisely because withdrawal is not a viable option. The possibility that certain disclosures may generate intrusive imagery intensifies the perceived risk of hearing more about the past. Consequently, openness becomes something that must be continuously negotiated rather than something that can simply be achieved. Lennart further reflects on this tension:

I worry that some things, once heard, cannot be unheard. I find myself caught between wanting complete openness and wanting to protect both myself and our relationship from something that might become difficult to carry. Sometimes it feels as though I am trying to balance two things that are equally important but not always easy to reconcile.

Analytically, these accounts suggest that openness and self-protection are not experienced as opposing values but as competing relational goods that are both experienced as important. Ambivalence therefore functions not simply as indecision but as a persistent condition within the relationship. Ideals of openness, experiences of shame, intrusive imagery and feelings of insufficiency interact in ways that make it difficult to fully integrate partners' sexual pasts into shared narrative understanding. Certain conversations may be postponed, softened or remain anticipated rather than enacted. Rather than indicating relational failure, such processes reflect ongoing attempts to balance vulnerability and emotional safety. In doing so, they contribute to sustaining the presence of the past as something that continues to influence how intimacy and closeness are experienced over time.

4 Discussion

The present study explored how partners' sexual pasts affect intimate relationships through a collaborative autoethnographic and IPA. The findings suggest that such experiences are primarily not about factual knowledge of past events but about how the past becomes experientially present through embodied imagery, self-evaluation, shame-based regulation and persistent ambivalence. Rather than remaining confined to individual experience, these processes become embedded in ongoing efforts to negotiate intimacy and maintain emotional safety within the relationship. In this discussion, the findings are interpreted in dialogue with phenomenological perspectives, Bateson's concept of double bind and family systems theory.

A central pattern across the findings is that participants explicitly distinguished their experiences from jealousy. Rather than being oriented towards a rival or a perceived threat to the relationship, the distress was directed inwards, towards the self. Experiences of ‘coming up short’ reflected disruptions of embodied self-confidence in a domain closely tied to identity, intimacy, masculinity and relational worth. Sexuality was experienced as an area where effort and development offered limited opportunities for correction, rendering comparison particularly painful. The past functioned as a closed temporal reference point against which the present self was evaluated, producing an experience of existential limitation rather than situational inadequacy. These experiences may also reflect broader cultural understandings of masculinity and sexual adequacy, in which relational value and self-worth become closely linked to comparison and performance.

From a family systems perspective, these experiences can be understood as part of ongoing circular processes rather than as isolated intrapsychic events (Priest and Lorås 2026). Feelings of insufficiency contributed to withdrawal and reduced attunement, which in turn affected relational closeness and reinforced the original sense of inadequacy. Individual experience and relational dynamics thus appeared as mutually constitutive rather than as causally linear. Importantly, the distress appeared to be maintained through patterns of anticipation, comparison and mutual adaptation that influenced how intimacy and emotional availability were negotiated over time.

The findings further highlighted intrusive imagery and embodied distress as central modes through which the past became present. These experiences resisted cognitive regulation and were lived as immediate and bodily, despite being linked to events that had occurred long ago. From a phenomenological standpoint, this underscores the primacy of the lived body in meaning making (Merleau-Ponty 1962). The past was not encountered primarily as narrative memory but as sensory re-enactment. Attempts to manage such experiences through reflection and analysis sometimes offered short-term containment while simultaneously sustaining preoccupation.

Within a family systems framework, intrusive imagery, reflection and withdrawal can be understood as regulatory strategies aimed at preserving emotional equilibrium (Priest 2025). However, these responses may also contribute to maintaining the patterns that sustain distress. This illustrates a core systems principle: Strategies that promote short-term stability may generate rigidity and reduced adaptability over time. Furthermore, when experiences are difficult to integrate into shared narratives or symbolised through dialogue, imagination itself may become a primary arena for meaning making, allowing anticipated conversations and imagined scenarios to acquire significant emotional power. An attachment perspective may complement this systemic understanding by drawing attention to the interpersonal regulation of emotional activation (Mikulincer et al. 2003; Vetere and Dallos 2008). Attachment processes involve seeking not only proximity and security but also the regulation of affect within significant relationships. From this perspective, withdrawal, caution and efforts to control exposure to potentially distressing information may be understood as attempts to regulate emotional activation while preserving relational security. Importantly, such responses need not represent fixed relational patterns. As emotional activation becomes more tolerable, possibilities for reflection, dialogue and alternative ways of negotiating closeness and protection may also expand.

Shame emerged as a particularly powerful regulator of both inner experience and relational communication. Importantly, shame was directed towards the participants' own reactions rather than towards their partners or the content of their sexual histories. From a systems perspective, shame can be understood as a mechanism that regulates exposure and protects against relational disruption (Priest and Lorås 2026). In this sense, shame also performed a social and relational regulatory function. It influenced not only how participants related to their own reactions but also what could be expressed, asked about or responded to within the relationship. Anticipation of one partner's distress could lead the other to become more cautious about disclosure, while shame about one's own reactions could similarly constrain questioning and dialogue. Regulation therefore occurred between partners as well as within them. However, by constraining reflection and dialogue, shame may simultaneously sustain silence and distance, thereby preserving the experiential presence of the past. Silence should therefore not necessarily be understood as the absence of meaning but as a relational adaptation. Partners appeared to engage in mutual efforts to protect one another from emotional overload, illustrating how vulnerability and protection may become closely intertwined.

Across the material, a persistent ambivalence between ideals of openness and the need for emotional self-protection was evident. Participants described strong commitments to honesty, transparency and relational maturity, while simultaneously encountering clear embodied limits to what they could tolerate. This ambivalence resembles a double-bind-like structure, in which competing relational demands are experienced as both necessary and difficult to reconcile (Bateson 1972). Importantly, this is not understood in a pathological sense, but as a phenomenological description of lived relational tension.

From a family systems perspective, this ambivalence can be understood as a tension between processes of belonging and individuality (Priest 2025; Priest and Lorås 2026). The desire for openness and closeness reflected a need for connection, whereas the need for self-protection reflected a parallel need for autonomy and emotional safety. When these processes became rigid or polarised, partners' sexual pasts remained experientially active rather than integrated into shared meaning. Questions concerning what should be spoken about, how much should be disclosed and what might remain unsaid appeared to be continuously negotiated, even when particular conversations never occurred. Certain conversations remained anticipated rather than enacted, whereas others became softened or postponed. Rather than reflecting relational failure, such processes appeared to represent ongoing attempts to balance openness and protection within the relationship.

Difficulties related to partners' sexual pasts may therefore be more fruitfully understood as relational and regulatory phenomena rather than as expressions of jealousy or insecurity alone. Family systems theory provides a language for understanding how such experiences are maintained through circular processes, whereas phenomenological perspectives illuminate how these processes are lived and felt by those involved. By attending to embodiment, dialogue, silence and mutual regulation, the present study highlights how the impact of partners' sexual pasts is co-shaped within intimate relationships and situated within broader cultural understandings of intimacy, sexuality and emotional openness.

4.1 Possible Limitations

Several limitations of the present study should be considered. First, the use of CAE involves an inherent closeness between researchers and data, which may have shaped what was attended to and how experiences were interpreted. In line with the idiographic orientation of IPA, the findings are not intended to be generalisable, but transferable to contexts where similar relational dynamics may be present.

Second, the dialogical and iterative process through which the reflective texts were produced means that the data are not independent in a conventional sense. However, this interdependence was consistent with the study's epistemological and methodological commitments.

A further limitation concerns the relational scope of the material. Although the phenomenon under investigation is inherently relational, the analysis is based exclusively on the researchers' own experiences and interpretations. Consequently, the perspectives of their partners are not directly represented. Future studies incorporating multiple voices within intimate relationships may provide a more comprehensive understanding of how partners' sexual pasts are negotiated and understood within relational systems.

Finally, the study foregrounds the experiences of male partners in long-term heterosexual relationships situated within particular cultural understandings of intimacy, sexuality, openness and masculinity. Future research could explore how similar phenomena are experienced across different genders, sexual orientations, cultural contexts and relational configurations.

4.2 Implications for Practice and Research

The findings have several implications for clinical and relational practice. First, difficulties related to partners' sexual pasts may be more usefully understood as relational and regulatory phenomena than as expressions of jealousy or cognitive distortion alone. Such experiences involve embodied distress, shame and self-evaluative processes that influence intimacy and emotional closeness. Second, intrusive imagery and bodily distress were often resistant to cognitive reassurance or rational reframing. Therapeutic work may therefore benefit from focusing on affect regulation, bodily awareness and tolerance of emotional activation rather than relying exclusively on insight or narrative reconstruction. Third, shame appeared to constrain reflection and dialogue, limiting opportunities for shared meaning making. Practitioners may therefore benefit from attending not only to what is spoken but also to what remains unspoken due to efforts to protect oneself or the relationship.

Finally, clinicians should be cautious in promoting ideals of complete openness as inherently therapeutic. From a family systems perspective, therapeutic work may instead focus on helping couples negotiate forms of openness that are emotionally tolerable and relationally sustainable. The relational patterns described in this study should not, however, be understood as fixed. Increased awareness of how partners mutually regulate vulnerability, protection and emotional closeness may create opportunities for developing new ways of responding to one another. In couple therapy, this may involve identifying circular patterns in which distress, withdrawal, caution and protective silence reinforce one another, while helping partners explore the meanings and protective intentions underlying these responses. Rather than focusing primarily on the content of intrusive imagery, therapeutic attention may also be directed towards the relational situations in which such imagery becomes particularly distressing. Exploring what occurs between partners before, during and after these experiences may help identify interactional sequences involving insecurity, shame, self-evaluation, withdrawal or attempts at protection. Particular attention may therefore be given to how shame and emotional activation shape what can be asked, disclosed and responded to within the relationship. Rather than resolving the past itself, therapeutic work may support couples in developing a shared understanding of how the past becomes meaningful in the present and in negotiating ways of relating to it that allow greater flexibility over time.

From a research perspective, future studies could explore how partners themselves experience and respond to these dynamics. Studies involving multiple voices within intimate relationships may provide a richer understanding of how vulnerability, protection and intimacy are negotiated over time. Further research could also examine how such experiences are shaped by broader cultural understandings of intimacy, sexuality, masculinity and emotional openness.

4.3 Concluding Comments

The present study offers a phenomenologically grounded account of how partners' sexual pasts shape present intimacy. By combining CAE with IPA, it shows how such experiences are lived at the intersection of body, self-relation and ongoing relational processes. The findings suggest that distress is not primarily driven by factual knowledge of the past but by how it becomes embodied, imagined and regulated within intimate relationships.

Drawing on family systems theory and Bateson's concept of the double bind (1972), the analysis highlights how attempts to manage distress may both stabilise and constrain intimacy. Attending to these dynamics underscores the importance of relational regulation, dialogue and the limits of openness in understanding how intimacy is negotiated over time.

The findings indicate that partners' sexual pasts may affect many intimate relationships, despite limited attention in the literature. More broadly, they point to the importance of how couples negotiate what can be spoken, what remains difficult to articulate and how meanings of the past are developed within ongoing relational life.

In contemporary Western societies, where serial monogamy is common, previous relationships remain part of the relational landscape. Understanding their impact thus requires attention not only to individual experience but also to the relational and sociocultural contexts in which intimacy is continually co-created and renegotiated.