My husband suffers from retroactive jealousy, and no matter how much love I show him, he keeps measuring himself against my past lovers. It’s as if he’s in a constant competition—one that only exists in his mind. He asks about them when we least expect it, as though the answers will somehow change the present. Were they more attractive? More successful? Did I love them more? At first, I thought it was just a passing insecurity, something that would fade with time. But it hasn’t. If anything, it’s gotten worse.

It seeps into our daily lives in the subtlest and most frustrating ways. A romantic evening can turn into an interrogation. A compliment from me is sometimes met with suspicion—Did you say that to them too? I can see the way it eats at him, how he rewrites my past into something far bigger and more significant than it actually was. The irony is, I barely think about these men—until my husband forces them into the conversation.

I don’t know if this is just insecurity or something deeper. It feels like he’s at war with his own self-worth, convinced that he will never measure up to an invisible standard he’s created. And the saddest part? He doesn’t realize that he was always the one I chose. That the only person standing in the way of his happiness is himself. But how do you convince someone that they are enough when they refuse to believe it?