How do I deal with the fact that my partner dated somebody before me long-term? He said he didn’t feel happy and the relationship was toxic. But I still think about it from time to time. He is my first official romantic partner, so I think this is why it bothers me. Also, we’re long distance, so I’m very jealous that this ex of his had gotten physical time spent with my partner that they didn’t deserve.

He told me about how she was manipulative and the things he described were textbook emotional abuse. She wasn’t good to him, and he told me it was mostly miserable for him. He felt trapped. He said when he ended it he blocked her on everything.

But I don’t have this girl blocked. I’ve looked through my partner’s twitter before early on when we were first talking, because I wanted to sus out what he was like since I didn’t know him that well yet. What I found was that his ex was all over his twitter. We were so early in the talking stage that he hadn’t even told me yet he had an ex. I felt bad because now I just knew this girl’s name and that she existed, but I quickly exited out of it, made sure not to look through her profile and tried to never think about it again.

This worked but from time to time he has a reaction or a moment where he’s triggered which forces us to talk about his past abusive relationship, which makes me think about the ex. Today I kind of told him that I felt almost behind because I hadn’t had been with somebody officially before and he has, and that they got to spend consistent quality time with him and I don’t because of the distance. He was upset because he once again reiterated that the relationship wasn’t good for him and that the time spent with his ex was not valuable or quality time. I want to believe him but I began thinking about all the flirting and shit I saw on his twitter, which honestly isn’t something that crosses my mind a lot, but it did in this scenario to the point where it was intrusive. 

Here’s where I’m stupid. I went through his twitter AGAIN after our conversation. All the stuff is still up because he likely doesn’t know that other people can see it, since he can’t because he has her blocked. I scrolled through it and felt the pain in my chest and stomach but kept doing it. This honestly felt like self harm to me. It was, just not physically. Although it did make me physically ill. 

I deeply regret hurting myself in that way. I feel like I went backwards in my progress. I wish I wasn’t like this, I mean who the fuck gets this jealous? Why am I punishing myself by looking at evidence of his last relationship? Why do I even care, considering he’s dating me, in the present, and that’s all that should matter? I feel terrible right now and I hate myself so much. I wish I didn’t care. Normal people can date people with exes, and not get insanely jealous or weird about it. They didn’t even have a good relationship from what he’s described. I know I can be good to him and treat him well NOW. I really try my best to, and I do think I am a good partner to him. I’m just mad because his ex has spent so much physical time with him, time that she didn’t deserve. I can’t see him until COVID restrictions ease, and even then, it’s just for short amounts of time. Most of the time it’ll be physically apart. We won’t live in the same place for a very long time.

I feel like a fucking nutcase for being jealous like this, and for creeping in the first place, then creeping again just to hurt my own feelings? Like WHY? I want to get better but then I turn around and do this shit. 

I guess I want some validation or reassurance that I’m not the only one that deals with intense jealousy. I feel so alone and crazy right now.