My partner and I had been together for a year and a half when we split in October. Bear in mind we both believed that that was it, no going back. But two months later, after both going on our own little self discovery journeys, we decided we wanted to be together. We took it slowly and now a month later, we’re in a relationship again.

Now he was seeing someone else during this “split” or whatever and they were semi serious. I have no issues with that obviously because I like to think I’m a decent person and I’m not going to attack him for doing what he had every right to do when he was single just because he’s back with me. I’d also be a hypocrite as I did fall into bed with my friend a handful of times during that period but I realised that it wasn’t what I wanted and wasn’t fair to the friend and I ceased contact with the friend when we decided to give things another chance to avoid any messy feelings.

My issue is that I can’t for the life of me stop tearing myself up over my partners relationship with this girl. The logical side of me understands and appreciates the fact that he chose to be with me over her and their relationship had some issues and he wasn’t happy but I regularly internally compare myself to her and when I get caught by a random thought about a specific memory he now has with her that I can’t compete with, it literally causes a pain in my chest. For example, they went to a market in her home town and had a nice day shopping and looking around and yes, we could do the same activity but it would remind him more of the previous experience than it would create a new fond memory of me.

I don’t want to erase her and replace his memories, I just keep hurting myself with the thought that he has them and there’s a very good chance that a fair few of them are much better than I could every pull off. Almost every time he touches me, I wander if he touched her the same way and got more enjoyment from it.

A viscous part of me that I hate and try to ignore, kind of wishes that they didn’t end amicably so he had more resentment towards her. That’s a terrible thought and I’m ashamed to say it.

I know you can’t turn back time but I can’t even express how much literal physical pain it brings me to think of those two months I wasn’t in his life, I wasn’t the one to hold his hand through all the experiences, it was someone else. I lay awake at night just yearning for us to have never split in the first place so I can stop hurting.

Any advice on moving past this? And please don’t see this as ungrateful but advice like “focus on this instead” or “just try not to think about it” really doesn’t work for me, I’ve tried so hard to do those things but I have mental illnesses that make it harder to stop fixating on things and thinking about them all the time.

Thank you beautiful ladies in advance 💕