how much should you tell a new partner?

[habbledu]

I am torturing myself with things that I did before we got together. Do i need to give myself a break or is it important to reveal all?

Give yourself a break - it's not relevant to this relationship now, IMO.

Depends what those things are really.

New relationship, you don't owe anyone accountability for your life. Also, IME if they are overly interested, and it seems to be a bit deal for them, run for them hills...

Ok specifically, I had a fling just before we got together and I wasn't completely honest about the time scale, I said 2 weeks it was 10 days. Do I sound completely mad lol?

We've been together over a year now, but it still pops into my head every now and then and I feel like shit.

Its 4days. Dont beat yourself up.

What do you feel shit about?

Oh god don't worry about it.

I'm gutted that the whole thing happened and my new partner knows that but at the moment I'm bothered I lied about the time scale.

An overlap, I'm guessing. I can't think why else you'd wind yourself up into this state. But an overlap between a fling which lasted 14 days and a new chap who, for all you knew at that point, might have also only lasted 14 days. Ask yourself honestly now it's a year in rather than just the beginning of something which might or might not turn into something serious, would you two-time the guy? If the answer is no, then there's no problem and keep stum.

No not an overlap. I had met my new partner on a night out but we hadn't been on a date. I didn't think anything would come of it so I had a fling with a complete idiot. It ended 10 days before our first date.

Not normal behaviour for me but I was lonely and not in a good place.

I think it's naïve - foolish even - to share everything with a new partner and you've probably said too much already. Anyone who has lived a little has made a few mistakes along the way and there's really no need to hash everything out. It doesn't affect him who and when you were with someone does it? Are you the kind of person who enjoys feeling ashamed or something?

If you're feeling so worried about keeping it a secret, just tell him. He will probably be totally as to why it was such a big thing for you - really, 2 weeks vs 10 days is NOT a big difference. Plus it's not like you were together at the time.

I had a similar thing although I didn't realise - I had a sort of casual FWB situation with someone just before I got together with DP. FWB was sort of fizzling out anyway, but it only finished about 3 weeks before I got together with DP. Anyway I then did my usual ridiculous "Oh my god I'm pregnant" fear (I wasn't) and of course I had to tell DP that if I was pregnant it could be the other guy's. TBH I'm a bit thinking back to this because I don't know why I bothered to tell him about my pregnancy fear at all but I think it was just that before FWB I hadn't been in a relationship for a long time and so I hadn't done the whole pregnancy scare thing (which I do regularly, about every 3 months, despite not having unprotected sex...) for a long time and it felt SO convincing that I was genuinely scared.

Anyway at the time DP was a bit that it was far closer together than he'd realised, but he's never ever been bothered about it even though he had assumed it was months when it was actually a few weeks.

I'd say I have a huge guilt complex and find it hard to enjoy the moment as life has not been kind to me in the past.

If you have a big guilt complex and are tying yourself in knots like this, I hope your partner is a decent person. Otherwise you could be making yourself very vulnerable and it could easily get exploited. After a whole year how did the subject even come up?

Tell him. It is not a big deal, but clearly to you honesty is a very big deal. So go with your gut and tell him. He won't care, you'll be relieved.

It hasn't come up recently, it was dealt with very early in the relationship. It just pops into my head every now and then. I think he will be happier if I don't mention it, I just need to learn how to erase it from my head.

OK - (sits down and holds OP's hands). We are not in the 1880s anymore, or even the 1950s. It is OK for a woman to have casual, consensual, enjoyable sex with a man she fancies. It does not make her a slapper, slut or any other nonsense word you care to come up with. It just puts her somewhere on a spectrum of normal human sexual behaviour somewhere between very shy and very outgoing. There was no overlap, therefore nothing to beat yourself up about.

Also, from the sound of it (fingers crossed) your partner is not in the slightest bit bothered by it (nor should he be - it happened before he was on the scene and, provided there was no risk to him of contracting an STI, it was none of his business).

I know it's easier said than done, but you really need to get your head round the fact that it is no big deal. If you think there's deeper issues here than you're letting on about (a childhood where you've been brought up to think sex was dirty, an ex partner who was very controlling and jealous, some reason you think might be behind you letting this get out of proportion), then it could be that you need to find a counsellor to talk to.

I think you are a being a bit irrational. You did nothing wrong. This isn't even one of those situations where there is ambiguity but we decide we're all human. You hadn't even had a first date with him when you slept with someone else, who meant nothing to you.

Are you looking for reasons to be unhappy?

"I just need to learn how to erase it from my head."

You can't forget things that happened. But you can tell yourself that they are unimportant, private things that don't concern anyone else. Do you feel secure & happy in your new relationship? On any level you feel that you don't deserve happiness? Do you fear that you aren't good enough and will be exposed as a fraud? You mention an unkind past to your life.... have you ever sought counselling for those experiences?

Yes to all of those cogito. I'm finding it hard to get my head round the fact that I'm finally in a relationship with a lovely man that loves me.

The thing you have to remember is that "lovely man" and "loves me" are the absolute basic starting points for a relationship. Your expectations have clearly been crushed, but really you haven't fallen in unicorn shit. Enjoy it, don't second guess it because you think it's too good to be true.

It's none of his business what you got up to before him. You can volunteer info if you want but I always think its best to keep that stuff in the past where it belongs.

I really wouldn't dwell on this. It's not like you got pregnant by or are still intimate with that fling. You weren't dating your DP so it wasn't a conflict of of interest. Life can be complicated enough without us looking for problems that aren't there.

That was then, this is now.

If you're finding it hard to relax in a loving relationship and if you think you don't deserve happiness that's often because of things like low self-esteem, lost confidence. Hashing up old mistakes is not really the way to boost either of those things.

Dear Habbledu, it was about 1.5 weeks. I can't see anything wrong with rounding up or down to the nearest number of weeks, it's just a manner of speaking, a bit like how you didn't say, and had no need to say how many hours or minutes the fling lasted. Honestly, I'm struggling to see what the issue is, and I'm not saying that to be critical of you. If you mentioned it again to your partner and referred to it as 'you know that fling I had for a couple of weeks with x...?', would he say 'A couple of weeks? But you said it was only ten days!' I seriously hope not, and surely the problem would be with him if he did?