We’ve been married for a while now, and for the most part, our relationship is solid. But there’s one thing that keeps resurfacing, no matter how many times we address it—my husband’s fixation on my past relationships. He has this way of turning innocent conversations into interrogations, where he’s constantly fishing for details about the men I once dated. “Did you ever take him to that restaurant we love?” or “Did he ever make you feel the way I do?” It’s like he’s haunted by these invisible rivals, men who have no hold over my life now, yet seem to dominate his thoughts.

I don’t understand why he does it. I’ve been as open and honest as I can be, answering his questions with patience and trying to reassure him that he’s the only man who matters to me. But it never seems to be enough. His retroactive jealousy—this constant comparison between himself and the men I used to know—feels like a wound that never quite heals. Sometimes, I can see him stewing silently, caught up in his own thoughts, and I wish I could reach inside his mind and pull out whatever it is that keeps him stuck in the past.

I’ve tried to talk to him about it, to tell him how much it hurts me when he doubts our relationship because of things that happened years ago. He always apologizes, promising that he’ll try to let it go, but the questions eventually return. It’s become a cycle—one that leaves me feeling like I can never fully move forward, as if we’re always being dragged back by memories that mean nothing to me now.

I love him, but I don’t know how to make him see that he’s enough, that he doesn’t need to compete with the past. I wish he could trust in what we have, in the life we’ve built together, instead of comparing himself to men who have long since faded from my mind. It’s a battle I’m not sure how to win, and I worry that if we don’t find a way to move past this, it might eventually tear us apart.