Long post but any help will be appreciated guys (21M)
I’m a 21M from Mexico engaged to my 30F Korean fiancée, and I think I’m struggling with severe retroactive jealousy and obsessive comparison.
Before me, she was in a long toxic relationship with a guy in India who financially and emotionally hurt her badly. She lost a lot of money because of him, struggled emotionally for a long time, and admitted she’s the type of person who doesn’t cut people off cleanly — she slowly distances herself instead.
When we first started dating online, she later admitted she hadn’t fully emotionally detached from him yet and wasn’t 100% sure about me at first because of our age gap and bad past experiences meeting people online. During an honest conversation, I asked her if she would’ve stayed with him if things had worked out, and she said probably yes, which completely shattered me and made me feel like I was the “second option.”
Now she says she loves me, chooses me, introduced me to her family in Korea, and only talks to him rarely because of unresolved money/debt issues. She says she doesn’t love him anymore and only felt pity and guilt toward him near the end, but my mind constantly compares myself to him anyway.
One thing I obsess over a lot is the fact that she went to India in July 2024 specifically to be with him and stayed there for almost 2 months. I saw all the pictures of them traveling around India together, including places like the Taj Mahal, and those images got stuck in my head. Now she came to Mexico to live with me, and we’ll probably get legally married next month, but part of me still feels uncomfortable because my brain keeps comparing the situations. This is only the second time we’ve physically seen each other, while she physically spent that whole period with him in India. At the same time, she’s now planning to stay in Mexico for at least 6 months and even moved away from her home in Korea to build a life with me, but my mind still fixates on the parallels between India and Mexico.
I obsess over old photos, whether she looked happier with him, whether she loved him more, whether our relationship is just a replacement, and whether intimacy with me is just a repeat of what she already experienced before. Sometimes even when we’re cuddling or spending time together, intrusive thoughts appear like “maybe she already felt this exact thing with him.”
I compulsively checked her phone and old pictures even though I know it only hurts me more, and every time I stop myself my brain tells me I still “don’t know the full truth.”
Logically I know she’s with me now and actively choosing me, but emotionally I still feel “less than,” like I need proof that I’m more special or more meaningful than her past, and I can’t seem to stop mentally competing with a relationship that already ended.