Is this a form of clingy behavior, where my husband’s fixation on men from my past seems to drive his constant need for reassurance and comparison? It feels like he’s perpetually searching for validation, never quite able to accept the love I give him in the present because he’s too fixated on the past. This neediness has crept into our everyday lives, a persistent, unwelcome presence that colors even our most intimate moments.

At first, I thought his questions were rooted in genuine curiosity—a way to understand me better. But over time, the questions became more insistent, more frequent. He needed to know everything about the men I had dated before him, about the experiences that shaped me, about the ways those relationships unfolded. No matter how many times I told him that those chapters were long closed, he would bring them up again and again, as if hoping to hear a different answer, something that would soothe whatever anxiety was eating away at him.

It’s become a constant undercurrent in our relationship, his clinginess pulling at me like an emotional weight. He’ll ask, seemingly out of the blue, if I ever felt the way I do about him with someone else. He’ll worry that a lingering memory or fleeting thought means I’m still holding onto a past love. If we’re out together and he sees someone who vaguely reminds him of an ex, his demeanor changes. He’ll become more withdrawn or, worse, overly affectionate, as if to stake his claim.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve reassured him that he is the one I love, the person I chose. I tell him that no past relationship compares to what we have now, and I mean it every time. But my reassurances seem to provide only temporary relief. The next trigger—whether it’s an old story I share, a song that reminds me of my younger years, or a passing comment from a mutual friend—sends him back into the spiral of doubt and comparison.

His clinginess has affected more than just our conversations. I find myself holding back, avoiding certain topics, or editing my own stories to prevent him from finding something to fixate on. I used to love sharing stories from my past, letting him in on the experiences that shaped me. Now, I feel like I have to censor myself, always on guard against saying something that might set off his anxious questions.

What’s worse is how this need for reassurance is eroding the trust and intimacy we’ve worked so hard to build. Instead of feeling safe and secure with him, I sometimes feel scrutinized and even guilty for things that happened long before we met. It’s exhausting, this endless cycle of comfort and doubt, of reassurance and jealousy. I know he loves me, but his clinginess is becoming a barrier between us—a wall made not of distrust in me, but of deep, unshakable self-doubt in himself.

It’s not that he wants to be clingy, I know that. It’s just that he’s so afraid of losing me, of not being enough, that he clings to the past like a lifeline. And I’m left wondering if I’ll ever be able to break through his fears, or if this need for validation will always stand in the way of a truly open, trusting relationship.