Can't accept my past: are we doomed?

[willowwool]

My first post, so please don't be too mean.

Joined MN as was thinking about tcc with DP but now think that may be a bad idea...

We were both the wrong side of 35 when we met and therefore both had pasts. Admittedly mine was more, err, extensive than his. Partly as he was in one relationship for a long time, and partly because I was a bit promiscuous in my 20s. Mostly shortish/doomed relationships but a few one night stands too. I have accepted that some of the encounters I had were a bit sleazy but for the most part do not regret the life I have led (except for trying to make a relationship with an emotionally abusive git work - a whole other story!).

Dp, however, gets very upset if ever the subject is alluded to. Our relationship was very good for the 1st year but once my 'total' became clear (and I only admitted it when directly pressed on the matter), things have never been quite the same. For months he wanted me to admit I had been wrong to 'sleep around' but I can't and won't. My view is that what happened before we met is not his business, and besides, he was no angel either.

Every time I think the subject is dead and buried it comes up again. Happened again last night when we were on the phone to arrange our weekend (we do not yet live together but the plan has been that we do soon). Frankly, I'm sick of it now. He gets angry and upset, and I get very defensive.

When not being upset about all this, he is very loving. It probably doesn't help that I am not particularly in touch with my emotions and prone to bouts of depression.

So, are we doomed? Should I end it now and accept my life as a spinster with a cat?

ooh. like the new spooky name FA

i do know what you mean but as you say, it takes you to be very determined to carry it through. tehn again, if you are that determined, why couldn't you just end it there and then?

Hey I think it is normal for a lot of people to feel insecure about past relationships and encounters. People have different moral standards and what it ok for one person might be a problem for someone else. Some people think one night stands are unacceptable, some people think paying for sex is and others may think sex before marriage is a no no. He probably thinks it is not morally acceptable to have casual sex and therefore feels that if you at least acknowledged that it wasn't right then ye could move on. As you are ok with it and do not think there was anything immoral or wrong about it I think he is finding it hard to accept this.

I would not agree with others that you should leave him and I would hate for someone to end a relationship based on a few pots which only respond to one side of a story.

But you do need to find a way to move on. The past can't be changed and if your relationship it good in all other areas then you both need to find a way to get through this.

You say you are not in touch with your emotions. Maybe this is contributing to the issue as much as his attitude. If you were in touch with them maybe you would feel differently about casual sexual encounters.

Maybe you need to concentrate more on connecting your body with your mind and feelings.

I am not judging you or saying you should feel or act a certain way but he obviously is struggling with your past and he is not the first person to do so. I have often heard of others struggling with this issue. Maybe he is a bit insecure or maybe he is worried that you might stray don't place the same value on sex as he does. I think these are all reasonable concerns.

Hope you can both find a way to work though this and come out stronger the other side.

I suppose it felt less confrontational.

The 'do nothing until you have to' approach. Less stresful than ringing up deliberately to finish it. Just being vague, being there less and less...being boring. It's the same advice as is given on that 'losers' link about escaping. You just become very dull.

Very effective if you are frightened of the person, too.

Sariah, how is crying on the phone and demanding she confess and say sorry, reasonable behaviour in any way?

I don't know it just seems from reading threads on the relationship board that if someone acts in an unreasonable way or a way that is not fully mature then the advice seems to be to leave that someone can not change etc.... Maybe his reaction is not that of a fully secure person but then lots of my reactions, depending on my life experiences and views can be unreasonable, sometimes to start of with but they mature as I feel more secure or as we talk about things.

I can emphatise with her dp. Even though I have had a promiscous past I still found some of my dhs past difficult to deal with and so has he on occassion. Some people are better at dealing with things like this others are not.

As I said they need to find away to move on from it not necessaily split up because of it.

When I met DH he had an understandable natural curiosity about my sexual history. But he repressed that. Funny to recall he dangled a conversational opener, which I sidestepped and the subject was never raised again.

It's generally neither healthy nor polite to enquire. Bad manners IMO

It may not be healthy or polite but sometimes you just can't help yourself.

This bloke is obsessed with her sexual past. Obsessed.

There is nothing healthy about that.

Some degree of insecurity is of course acceptable but to become obsessional about it in the way the OP's partner has is NOT on and is frankly abusive.

Finding something 'hard to accept' does not give anyone the right to harrass their partner about it on a regular basis.

If he's having that much trouble with it he should find someone he likes the way they are.

It's desperately unfair and unhealthy to go on and on and ON about the subject.

'sometimes you can't help yourself'

It's a red flag for insecurity and slightly obsessional behaviour, IMO.

Insecurity, slight ob behavior etc all seem like fairly standard human conditions and need to be worked through. The op has admitted that she is not in touch with her emotions to me that would signal that all the issues are not just on his side.

I have had insecurties, obsessions etc in the past as has my dh but we have worked though them and some do raise their heads now and then but I think the more secure you get and the more you trust the other person the less insecure you become.

I don't think it is healthy for him to go on and on or to harass the op but I don't think its terminal either. I think they could work through it either themselves or with some professional help.

He would have to want to though. It doesn't sound as though he has a millionth of the self awareness the OP has.

He thinks it's all about her past. It isn't. Counselling won't help him unless he accepts he has a problem.

Well maybe they both have a problem. My experience would be that if the op gets in touch with her own feelings and emotions that she might view some of her encounters in a slightly different light and that they might be able to meet each other half way which is what it is all about ulimately.

Sariah, nobody at all has said it's unusual for someone to be interested in, or insecure about, their partner's sexual history. The alarm bells are ringing here because of his attempts to make her feel sorry - and, indeed, to apologise for choices she made, independently, before she met him. He wants her to apologise to him. Think about it: this could only be reasonable if she's cheated on him. She didn't know him then. What she did has nothing to do with him. She's pointed this out, many times, she tells us. But he persists.

It's slightly mad, don't you think?
Perhaps you don't see this as a harbinger of worse to come - please consider this might be because you've been fortunate enough not to fall in love with a 'mad' person. Those of us who have done try to share the warning signs in order to protect other women from our fate. That's why there are so many 'red flag' articles on the Web, in women's magazines and in bookshops. The behaviour willowwool describes is one of those red flags.

I totally disagree that it's about 'meeting each other half way'

It would be perhaps if his behaviour were in any way normal or of concern to HIM
but it's not

The OP is aware she may have her own issues but they are nothing to do with her partner's.

Thanks for the nice words FA - I am happy to be labelled intelligent and sensible. [How did you know? Sensible is practically my middle name!]

I think Sariah may have a point. I am not blameless in this. And I'm sure my bluntness has contributed to the failure of past relationships. My last relationship was with a very emotionally-repressed man who, looking back, I realise I was not sexually compatible with. I am very sexually compatible with my current DP! And he is, as you may have gathered, too in touch with his emotional side.

We just spoke on the phone and I am not going to see him. We are both unable to change our view points. He wants me to say that I would not have 'meaningless' sex ever again, and says he can't let my past go, only bury it. But he admitted that my throw-away comment last night brought his feelings back to the surface.

We have agreed to talk again later today. He wants to come over to mine now, but am not sure this is a good idea.

Oh willow you need to get out of this one. He will make you feel guilty about this forever if you stay with him, and right now you are able to stand up for your actions, but the longer you stay with him, the more you will start to soak in his views and perhaps develop your own sense of guilt and that is just so sad, as others have said, you should never need to apologise for who you are, and the only way for you to have a relationship with him seems to be if you accept his view of sexuality, which is undoubtedly warped.

It won't get better, and it could get so much worse the longer you stay with him. Don't let yourself be damaged by this man.

Don't agree to it. Remember what I said? No discussion. It's pointless. Just ring back and say you don't think it's a good idea, you wish him well, thankyou for the good sex times you shared.

Don't be conned into discussing or dissecting WHY it won't work. You know, he knows, we all know it has almost no chance.

It's upsetting you too much, his behaviour is compulsive, he can't see what he's doing.

Don't let him come round, please don't. He'll use the opportunity to have another go at you.

and fwiw your past isn't his to 'bury' or let go. It's yours.

He has zero rights to your past.

Do you want me to ring him for you?

I don't think he is asking for her to apologise for who she is but is asking her to understand why some of her actions, even though they are in the past are hurting him.

There are some things that my dh has done in the past that I hate and that make me feel insecure but the longer we have been together and the more trust and secure I feel within this relationship the less things like that matter. Dh would have similar issues with things I have done.

Burying it won't work though it will just keep coming up when you least expect. You both need to work it out and come to an understanding.

There are certain things in my life that I am not sorry about but I am sorry if they hurt someone else.

Would he consider counselling and trying to work through this? I think it would do both of you good.

i totally agree with FA on this one.

i have been through teh whole "what went wrong? why can't it work, we can try this etc" but it is all jsut stalling tactics. teh more you sit and discuss the longer he is keeping you where he wants you and the deeper involved emotionally you are becoming.

just cut the contact, make it clear and to the point.

Sariah, he is asking her to promise never to have what he calls 'meaningless' sex again. What right does he have to demand this? He's a fruit loop.

and you can't benefit from counselling if you start off with zero self awareness.

OP might want some on her own but I don't think she should take along meaningful sex man because he will just hold her up to the counsellor as a dreadful example of a loose woman.