It was an unexpected encounter that brought back memories of your relationship, the sex you had together and the messy way the whole thing ended.
Because those unsettling recollections contrast so starkly with your present feelings of happiness, immediately you tried to put those thoughts to the back of your mind. The problem is that they refuse to stay there.
It’s ironic that trying not to think about something or someone almost guarantees that you will do precisely the opposite.
In 1987 Daniel Wegner, a psychology professor at Harvard University, published a groundbreaking paper called in the .
Wegner’s paper described a relatively simple experiment in which 14 male and 20 female psychology students were asked to talk about anything at all for five minutes.
The only specific instruction was not to think about a white bear, and they were given a bell to ring if they did. The results showed that participants thought about the bear more than once a minute.
Wegner’s work highlighted how hard it is not to think about a traumatic event, for example, and explains how going on a diet can make people become hyper-focused on food.
For you, trying to suppress unwanted thoughts about sex with your ex is doubly complicated by the fact it feels as if it is a psychological betrayal of your partner.
When we try not to think of something, one part of our mind avoids the forbidden thought but another part “checks in” every so often to make sure the thought is not coming up, therefore bringing it to mind.
Thought suppression is the most obvious explanation for your intrusive sexual memories, but the fact the relationship ended badly may also be making you feel anxious about the prospects for your present relationship.
You don’t say how long you and your ex were together, but presumably you were happy with him and your sexual connection at the beginning.
Yet that didn’t stop the relationship from breaking down. We can’t predict the future, and so to some degree all relationships exist in a state of uncertainty.
Some sexual relationships start brilliantly and end up a complete disaster. It’s scary, but the not knowing can be dynamic; it can be what stops us from taking each other for granted and makes us all raise our game.
Wegner’s later research explored how best to get rid of intrusive thoughts. He found evidence in favour of strategies such as distraction and mindfulness, but ultimately found that the best thing to do is to get comfortable with them.
The more you think about it, the more you will release its power over you. Reflecting on what went wrong in the past may also help you to figure out what to avoid in the future.
