My husband has retroactive jealousy, and it’s become a constant struggle in our relationship. He’s plagued by insecurities about the men I was with before him, and no matter what I say or do, it feels like he can’t escape the shadow of my past. Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder if this fixation is a form of cucked behavior—a way of letting those past relationships have more power over him than they should.
When we started dating, I never thought my past would become such a sensitive issue. I was honest about my previous relationships because I believed that our love was strong enough to handle it. But over time, his curiosity grew into an obsession. He started asking questions about my exes—how long we dated, what our connection was like, what kind of people they were. At first, I thought he just wanted to know me better, but it soon became clear that his curiosity wasn’t harmless. It was more like he was searching for something, some reason to doubt himself or our relationship.
I’ve seen him go quiet after I mention someone from my past, even in passing. There’s a look he gets—a mixture of sadness and frustration—that tells me he’s replaying my stories in his head, comparing himself to people who no longer matter to me. He asks for details, small things that I barely remember, and then he fixates on them. He’ll find a way to turn those details into something negative about himself, a flaw he thinks he has, something he thinks he’s lacking. It’s exhausting, like there’s this invisible scoreboard, and he’s always afraid he’s falling behind.
I’ve tried everything I can to reassure him. I tell him how much he means to me, that I love him not in spite of my past, but because of who he is now. I remind him that the men I was with before him were part of another life, and that those relationships ended for a reason. But it’s as if my words fall on deaf ears. He hears them, but they don’t seem to sink in. His doubts and insecurities are always lurking, ready to resurface at the slightest hint of my history.
Our marriage has taken on a heaviness that wasn’t there before, weighed down by the constant need for validation. There are days when I feel like I’m walking on eggshells, careful not to mention anything that might bring up another round of comparisons. I don’t want to lie to him or hide who I was, but I also don’t want to keep reopening old wounds that he refuses to let heal. It’s a balancing act, and it’s wearing me down.
Sometimes, it feels like his retroactive jealousy is a form of self-sabotage, a way of undermining our happiness by focusing on things that no longer have any relevance. He’s given these old relationships a kind of power over him, allowing them to shape his sense of self-worth in a way that feels almost self-destructive. In a strange way, it does feel like a form of being cucked—not in the traditional sense of being betrayed by a partner, but in a way where he’s betrayed himself by letting old memories dominate his present.
I want him to see that those men don’t matter anymore, that he’s the person I chose, the one I love. But no matter how many times I say it, it never seems to be enough. His doubts and fears have become a wall between us, a barrier that I can’t seem to break through. I’m starting to wonder if he’ll ever be able to let go of my past, or if he’s destined to keep comparing himself to people who aren’t even in our lives anymore. It’s a heartbreaking realization because I don’t know how to fight something that only exists in his mind, and I’m afraid that it might be too late to save our relationship from the jealousy that’s slowly pulling us apart.
