My husband’s retroactive jealousy has taken a toll on me in ways I never expected. Every day, it’s as though I’m forced to defend myself from a past that I’ve already moved on from. He keeps bringing up men I once knew, demanding details, trying to measure himself against them in some twisted game of comparison.

It wasn’t always like this. When we first met, he never seemed to care about my previous relationships. But now, years later, it’s as though he’s fixated on the idea that I loved someone more than him, or that he’s not as good as the men who came before. I don’t know what triggered it, but it’s like an obsession that has him trapped, and I feel like I’m being dragged into it.

It’s strange, this behavior of his. I thought jealousy was something people experienced in the present, over things happening now. But my husband seems to live in a constant state of comparison with my past, with memories that I’ve long since left behind. He’ll ask me questions about things I barely remember, and no matter what I say, he finds a way to twist it into a narrative that makes him feel inferior.

I love him, but I’m starting to feel suffocated by this constant scrutiny. It’s like he doesn’t trust that I’m with him because I want to be. He’s looking for reassurance in the wrong places, and I don’t know how to give him what he needs. His jealousy is a poison, slowly eating away at our relationship. I wonder if this will ever stop, or if I’m destined to live in the shadow of his insecurities.