Learning new details about my husband’s ‘34 M’ past after marriage is affecting me. How do I ‘32 F’ process this?

I ‘32 F’ and my husband ‘34M’ have been married for 2 years now. We met in Jan 2023, and we connected instantly. We were both at a stage in life where we were intentionally looking for partners to get married. He had ended a long-term relationship about six months before we met, though his ex ‘32 F’ was still his roommate along with another roommate. Since we were in different countries, we decided to do long distance for a year before getting married in Dec 2023.

He shared that he and his ex had both moved to a new country around the same time and naturally ended up doing many things together like attending lectures, looking for jobs and apartments, and exploring a new country. They were friends and dated for 4 years. During COVID, when he was very sick, she supported him significantly, and when he lost his job, she provided emotional support. Because of this, he said he felt a sense of emotional indebtedness toward her, and for a brief period, he did consider the possibility of being with her long term and settling down. However, he also shared that in the last one to two years of their relationship, she began mistreating him and frequently insulting him in front of others, which made him stop seeing a future together and that he was never really attracted to her physically and their relationship was more platonic than romantic and that he saw her as a family member.

He told me that when she asked him to get married during the last year of their relationship, he said no and asked for a break instead. After that, they briefly got back together before eventually breaking up again. He also shared that she had arranged couples therapy in an attempt to fix their relationship, and that they attended their final session in Dec 2022, shortly before he met me. During that session, he told both her and the therapist that he intended to start looking for a long-term partner, as he felt it was the right time in his life.

According to him, she continued to hold onto hope that they would reconcile. He explained that he had very few friends in the country and was socially dependent on her at the time, and that she was aware of this and used it to her advantage. He told me that she had difficulty accepting him becoming distant as a friend once she learned that he was planning to marry me, which often led to arguments between them. At the time, I understood this as a strained friendship and was not aware of the full emotional context.

After our marriage, I moved to his country in Jan 2024. About six months into our marriage, I came across emails and messages from his ex where she was attempting to reconnect and asking him to speak with her to resolve things. It was only then that I realized that what I had previously understood as a strained friendship was, in fact, her actively trying to get back together with him.

When I questioned him, he came clean sharing that for approximately six months, she repeatedly tried to reconcile with him while also dating other men during that period. He said he felt relieved when she started seeing someone else, hoping it would reduce the emotional strain and her threats. However, whenever those relationships ended, she would return to him emotionally overwhelmed, crying and asking him to get back together with her. He further explained that she had difficulty accepting that he had truly moved on and became emotionally volatile, often crying, arguing, and making threats about harming herself or giving up her career. He said he was afraid that if something happened to her, he would be blamed, which is why he tried to manage the situation calmly rather than cutting her off abruptly. Eventually, she moved on and began dating someone else, and he is no longer in contact with her.

While I have largely moved past the situation and he has assured me of complete transparency going forward, I still feel unsettled at times, not because of her, but because I learned the full emotional context only later. I hope that I wasn’t a rebound and that he genuinely values the life we are building together. Even now, despite things being stable, I sometimes find myself overthinking.