Did I taint my relationship?

Need support/advice

Not sure where this even fits, but I’m wondering if anyone has experienced something similar. When I met my current partner, I think I was still a bit affected by a previous situationship that never turned into a relationship. I met my partner about 5 months after ending things with that person.

Now we’ve been together for a few months, and I genuinely love him so much. He’s kind, thoughtful, and honestly the best person I’ve ever been with. I feel so lucky to have him and would do anything for him.

But lately I’ve been having a lot of guilt and shame about the beginning of our relationship.

At the time I wasn’t fully over what happened before. I had occasional intrusive thoughts/flashbacks about that situationship, and sometimes I would check that person’s social media not because I wanted them back, but more because I felt hurt and like it was so unfair that he just got to move on and live life, and probably go traumatise other women…

But now my brain won’t stop looping through thoughts like: what if I used my partner to get over the previous person? What if I didn’t start clean and it taints the relationship? What if he knew about it and wouldn’t want to be with me? What if I deceived him without realising?

It’s like I can’t tell whether this is something I should feel guilty about, or if this is ROCD or my moral scrupulously making me overanalyse a pretty normal situation. The guilt and shame about myself and my past are eating me alive. I feel like I’m trying to understand if I’m a bad person or not, but can’t quite figure it out…

Has anyone dealt with something like this? How do you move past the feeling that the beginning wasn’t “perfect” or “pure”?

Posted Apr 1, 2026, 8:28 PM UTC

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