My husband suffers from retroactive jealousy—a silent, relentless battle inside his mind. No matter how much I reassure him that he’s the one I chose, that the past is long gone, he can’t stop obsessing over the men who came before him. Ghosts that no longer matter haunt him more than they ever haunted me.

It started with small, seemingly harmless questions—curious inquiries about my past relationships. At first, I answered honestly, thinking nothing of it. But as time went on, the questions became more frequent, more pointed. “Was he better looking than me?” “Did you love him more?” “Did he make you happier?”

I tried to laugh it off, then reason with him. “I married you. I chose you. That’s what matters.” But my words never seemed to reach him. Instead, he spiraled deeper, scrolling through old photos, dissecting moments that belonged to another time, another version of me.

I started feeling like I was on trial for a life I had lived before I even knew him. No matter how much love I poured into our marriage, it was never enough to erase what had come before.

Is this just insecurity, or is it something deeper? A wound he refuses to let heal? A fear he doesn’t know how to silence? Or is he simply a prisoner of his own making—trapped in a competition that only exists in his mind?

And if he can’t let go of my past, how can we ever build a future?