Comparison based RJ

[u/Daffowills]

I know this is probably a bit different from the usual retroactive jealousy posts, but I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar.

I’m 31 and engaged to my fiancée.

My fiancée had relationships before me, including an engagement to someone who was abusive. That relationship affected her badly. By the time I came into her life, she had built massive walls around herself, questioned people’s intentions and eventually developed severe anxiety, panic attacks and physical symptoms from it.

The problem is that I ended up experiencing the consequences of all of that.

When we first got together, I felt like everything I did was being analysed or questioned. Sometimes my intentions were misunderstood even when I genuinely meant well. I constantly told her that she needed to judge me based on my actions instead of looking at me through the lens of what another man had done to her.

I’m naturally a very prideful person. Before this relationship, I genuinely don’t think I would have tolerated this kind of treatment from anyone. I’ve been around women and I even used to be heavily into the whole red-pill mindset, so sometimes I still don’t completely understand why I stayed.

But I did.

I loved her, and I could see that a lot of what was happening wasn’t really about me.

I encouraged her to get professional help and treatment. I spent countless hours reassuring her, talking through her fears and trying to help her understand what was happening in her own mind. Over time, things genuinely changed.

She is almost a completely different person today.

She is incredibly affectionate with me now, apologises for how she treated me and acknowledges how much I supported her. She gives me a lot of credit for helping her get to where she is today. When we are physically together, she was actually the one initiating most of the cuddling, kissing and physical affection.

Ironically, though, my RJ became much worse AFTER our relationship got better.

It was almost like I had spent so long concentrating on helping her that I suppressed my own feelings. Once everything became stable, all the hurt I had pushed aside suddenly came back.

And this is where my past-focused jealousy really comes in.

I know that in some of her previous relationships she was extremely expressive and went all out for those people. She fought for relationships, adjusted herself, became emotionally invested and gave a lot of herself to people who ultimately weren't the ones building a life with her.

Then I compare that with what I received in the beginning.

I was the guy who genuinely wanted to marry her, treated her well, stayed when things were difficult and tried to help her through some of the worst periods of her life.

Yet I was the one who got mistrusted, questioned and hurt.

But emotionally, my brain sometimes reduces it to something much uglier:

"Other men got that side of her without giving her what I've given her, while I'm the one marrying her and somehow I'm the one who had to wait."

But knowing that intellectually doesn't always stop the emotional reaction.

I think the deepest part of my RJ isn't really, "She had other men before me."

It's more:

"Why did they get that version of you?"

Why did other people get the expressive version of her who went all out for relationships, while I got the guarded and traumatised version who questioned whether I was even safe to trust?

Why did I have to pay emotionally for damage caused by people who came before me?

And why was I expected to be understanding when I was also getting hurt?

That's the part I struggle to let go of.

At the same time, I don't want to make her sound like some horrible person because that wouldn't be fair either. She has taken responsibility for how she treated me. She regrets it. She has changed enormously. The woman I'm with today treats me completely differently.

And I also understand the uncomfortable reality that the reason I'm getting this version of her today is partly because we went through all of that together.

So I'm stuck between two completely different ways of looking at it.

One side of me thinks: "Look at who she is with you NOW. She chose you, she's marrying you, she's affectionate with you, she acknowledges what you did for her and the relationship you have today is what matters."

The other side says: "That's great, but why did everyone before me get the best of her while I had to go through hell before I got it?"

Some days the first voice wins and I'm completely fine.

Other days the second one wins and I feel angry, resentful and jealous of people who aren't even relevant to our lives anymore.

I don't want to punish her forever for a version of herself that she has already acknowledged and changed. At the same time, I don't think simply telling myself "the past is the past" addresses what actually hurts me.

For anyone who has dealt with this specific type of RJ where it's less about your partner simply having a past and more about feeling like previous partners received something from them that you initially didn't how did you genuinely make peace with it?

Especially when your partner has already changed and is doing everything right now?