My husband loves me, and I know it. But there’s something that has become a recurring shadow in our relationship—his tendency to bring up my past, to compare himself to men I knew long before we even met. It’s as if he can’t let go of the idea that they still somehow matter, that their presence in my memories holds some kind of threat. I’ve tried to reassure him time and time again, telling him that what I had with them is long over and that he’s the one I chose, the one I’m with now. But his retroactive jealousy—the lingering doubts about things I can’t change—sometimes makes it hard to move forward.

We’ll be having a perfectly good evening, watching a movie or sharing a quiet dinner, when he suddenly asks a question about one of them—someone I haven’t thought about in years. “Was he funnier than me? Did he make you feel more alive?” he’ll ask, and I can see the tension in his eyes, the way he’s bracing himself for an answer he doesn’t want to hear. I’ve learned to respond gently, reminding him that he’s the one I love now, but it never seems to fully calm the storm inside him.

It feels like he’s competing with ghosts—men who are nothing more than distant memories to me, yet they seem so real and present in his mind. Sometimes, I wish he could see himself the way I do—a man who is kind, intelligent, and loving, and who has nothing to prove. I want him to feel secure in the love we share, but it’s hard when he’s constantly comparing himself to a past that can’t be undone. I worry that his insecurities are slowly driving a wedge between us, and I’m not sure how to help him let go.