My husband has retroactive jealousy, always feeling like he’s in competition with my past. No matter how much I reassure him, it lingers—a quiet, nagging presence in our marriage. It started with simple curiosity, questions about who I dated before him, what those relationships were like. I answered honestly, not thinking much of it at the time. But as the months and years passed, his curiosity became something else entirely.

Now, it feels like he’s measuring himself against shadows. He constantly wants to know if he stacks up—if he’s better, if I loved them in a different way, if I ever think about them. He brings them up in casual conversations, in moments of intimacy, even during arguments. “Would he have done this for you?” “Was he more romantic?” “Did he make you happier?” It’s as if he’s trying to rewrite history, to prove that he is the ultimate winner in some imagined competition.

But there is no competition. There never was. I married him. I chose him. My past was simply a path that led me to him, not something I secretly long for.

I don’t know how to make him see that. I can reassure him a thousand times, but his insecurity always finds a way to creep back in. How do I handle this? Can I help him overcome it, or is this something only he can fix? And if he doesn’t, how long before his jealousy suffocates the love we’ve built?