I never imagined my husband would become so fixated on my past. His retroactive jealousy has crept into our marriage like a silent storm, building tension that I never saw coming. Every day, it’s as if he’s at war—not with me, but with the men I once knew. He’ll casually bring them up in conversation, asking things that seem harmless at first, but then the questions turn deeper, more probing.

He wants to know if they treated me better than he does. He wonders if I loved them more, if they gave me something he can’t. I try to tell him that the past is just that—something I’ve moved on from, something that doesn’t define who we are now. But he can’t let it go. It’s as though, in his mind, he’s competing with men who aren’t even here, fighting battles that don’t need to be fought.

It’s hard to explain how exhausting it is to reassure someone again and again, knowing that your words fall on deaf ears. I see the insecurity in his eyes, the way he doubts himself, and it breaks my heart. But I don’t know how to fix it. His comparisons to my past are pushing me away, and I’m afraid that one day, the distance he’s creating will be too much to bridge.

How do you save a marriage from something that only exists in someone’s mind? I wish he could see that he’s the only one who matters to me now, but his jealousy is a monster I can’t tame.