Let me start by saying I go to counseling and I know this is 100% my issue, but I really feel like I’m suffocating by this problem and I can’t figure out how to stop, so I’m hoping for practical advice.

My husband has a more colorful dating history than I would have expected. He is charming, friendly, and an avid traveler. We have only been together about a year and a half, married since January.

My dating history is mostly long relationships, and what he says is that my past has more meaningful relationships than his has had. He’s made comments about his many trips to Cancun for Spring Break, I’ve seen pictures (unintentionally and I haven’t told him) of his trips with past girlfriends or flings. We live in a city with nearly his whole dating past, where my past is elsewhere, if that makes sense.

I feel like I’m suffocating by not being exciting enough (I’m very responsible, predictable, loyal, and super loving/affectionate). I fear running into a previous lover of his, I have minor anxiety attacks when he is on his phone, or his laptop, out of fear that he is looking at old pictures with flings and reminiscing about it or having them on his social media. My heart feels like it might implode thinking about some half naked pictures I saw of a girl he dated shortly before we did. She was much smaller than me (not that I’m big by any means) and looked so different than me. I feel sick thinking about the places he’s traveled with other girls, as though anywhere we go is just another on the list.

He tells me he loves me, he’s with me, I have nothing to worry about, that nothing in his past compares to me or our relationship, that he wishes he found me earlier. But then he also makes comments about how the pictures he’s taken were because they were special moments. He also hasn’t been completely forthcoming with how many women he’s taken trips with.

So the only thing I hear is the “special moments” he has had with other people. Like it takes away from us.

I’m a logical person, so I recognize how unfair, ridiculous, unproductive, and damaging all this thinking is for me and us. But I literally can’t stop FEELING it. I try redirecting my thoughts or doing other things and I can’t shift gears. It eats me alive and it feels like my bones might crumble under the pain I feel thinking about it.

Nothing he says changes it, which tells me this is a more serious issue that I have to get under control.

I feel like I’m allowing his past to change how I see him and what I believe of our relationship... as though his past somehow defines our relationship. I think that’s what it really comes down to.

Does anyone else suffer like this? How do you deal with it?

Everything else in our marriage is solid. We don’t fight about money, chores, parenting, work, how we spend time, and have no issues with other people impacting our relationship. We have a strong connection and I believe we’re pretty perfect for each other.

But I cannot get past this. I’ve been struggling pretty much our whole relationship and I’ve never experienced this kind of anxiety before.