I'm jealous of his ex-wife; advice needed

I'm engaged to my boyfriend - we're planning to be married later this year. While I love him deeply and am very happy with him in almost every way, the one thing that really bothers me is the fact that he has been married before. My rational self knows that it is not a big deal because he has no kids with his ex, was only married for about 1.5 years before they started the divorce process, and has zero ties with her now (no alimony, no contact) but my emotional self gets competitive and angry irrationally.

For example, I'm annoyed that for our wedding he wants to invite a much smaller number of people than he did for his last wedding. He has explained that he's no longer close to a lot of people (just grew apart over the years with age) and that it means more to him to celebrate with family and intimate friends only. My rational self understands this, but my emotional self feels like he had his "real" wedding last go-around and now he just wants a washed down version. I also can't help wanting him to invite more people who attended his last one just because I want them to see that I am his real/legitimate wife now (vs. them just seeing vague photos on social media and thinking of me as the girl after the wife).

Bottom line is that I hate that he once loved someone enough to marry her, I hate that I'm not the only person he loved this much (though he always assures me that he loves me far more than he ever loved his ex-wife), and I don't know how to let this not bother me.

Any advice or insights appreciated!

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Here is how to solve this problem:
Grow up!

Im being serious here. You have a man who wants to marry you and you love him
And you think it matters what some accqaintance thinks about you being a „real“ wife or not ?
Well stop being concerned about other people and start being concerned with the things that matter. His feelings for you for example. Or your feelings for him. Or your relationship

If he wants to only invite the people that matter then this could also mean that he has learned from his past mistakes and now wants something deeper and not as shallow as before.
You are the one being shallow here.

Also the love of a person is not limited to one person. Let’s say you get a sweet little daughter together
Will you be jealous if he loves her as much as you?
What if you marry and then he dies. Does that mean everyone has to be jealous because you once had a husband?

Indeed .... Grow up !!!!

Honestly, I do side with the others here. Don't get me wrong. I certainly understand how you feel. I think just the very fact that you acknowledge yourself that your doubts/concerns are unfounded shows that you are mature enough to realize that method of thinking is wrong. So, I certainly don't mean to be harsh.

But, there really isn't much advice we CAN offer. Hopefully, though, it at least helps hearing us rationalize for you some of the things that are bothering you. So, I will start off with the thing about him wanting to invite less people to your wedding than were maybe at his first.

Quite frankly, I'd feel just the same way as him. If it were up to me and I found somebody I wanted to marry, I'd honestly be happier just to have the people on my guest list be the ones who are ACTUALLY close to me rather than just inviting everybody ever a part of my life like some people do. To me, I'd actually agree with him that this would make it MORE special, because you are sharing it with the people you actually are close to rather than just a bunch of people you barely know.

On the other hand, though, you are also allowed to offer an opinion. So, if you want a bigger wedding, you can certainly at least talk to him about it. Maybe he's not set on it having to be small. But, even if you two can find a middle ground, I'd still suggest letting him handle HIS side of the guest list however he wants. Even if you do go for a bigger wedding, why force him to invite people he really doesn't care to have there? So, there I personally see no reason to worry.

Beyond that, I think you are thinking about his past in the wrong way. Think of it like this. He was once with her. In fact, he was married to her. ....and now he's not. He learned that she was not right for him. And now, this more adult, more mature him who has learned from his past mistakes.... has chosen YOU not her. As much as I know it would be swell if you were his first and only ever wife.... things don't always work that way. In the USA, OVER HALF of marriages end in divorce. That means these days you are much more likely to wind up with somebody who has been married and divorced than you are to wind up with somebody who never has.

Believe me, I don't mean to imply it is as easy as just saying "Okay, I'll stop thinking like this." If it were that easy, I'd venture to guess you'd have done that by now. So, I don't mean to over-simplify things, but it honestly does really just boil down to that. He's given you no reason for doubt. In fact, many of the things that worry/bother you are actually positive things if you just look at it from a different perspective.

I hope we were able to help you even to a small degree. I definitely get how hard it can be to silence negative thinking, even sometimes when you rationally know there is no reason for it. I wish you the best of luck.