“I’ll never be him,” he says. It’s become his mantra, a self-fulfilling prophecy that eats away at him. He doesn’t need to say who “him” is—I already know. It’s the man I was with before him.

It doesn’t matter that I chose him, that I love him, that the past is behind me. All he can see is what he’s not. “You probably think about him all the time,” he accuses, though I haven’t spoken that man’s name in years.

I never thought that my past could poison my present. I thought we were strong enough, that he was secure enough. But now, I see how deep his insecurities run. He compares himself to someone who no longer matters, and in doing so, he’s destroying what does.

He scrutinizes everything: the way I look at him, the words I say. “You don’t love me like you loved him,” he says one day, as if it’s fact.

It’s exhausting. I feel like I’m constantly on trial, defending myself against feelings I don’t even have. And the more I reassure him, the more he doubts me.

I want to pull him back to the present, to show him that this is what matters. Us. Now. But he’s stuck, fighting a battle I can’t win for him. And I’m afraid that in his obsession to outshine a man I barely remember, he’s going to lose me altogether.