Previous relationships

[m4rdybum]

Does anyone else's DH take it badly that they've had a previous sexual partner before them?

I have been with my DH for six years and we met in Uni. Before I met him, I had a relationship fling with someone, who was my first. Fling is the wrong word but essentially it wasn't a relationship (but I wanted it to be because I had the virginity rose tinted spectacles on). It had ended about four months before I met my DH and there were no lingering feeling it anything like that and I haven't seen him since - although I don't regret it and I'm glad it happened (as it made me realise I could be attractive to some people).

In mine and DHs relationship, there's been a couple of occasions where DH has really lost his mind, heads a shed etc and not spoken to me because he doesn't like the idea of me being with someone else before him.

Bit of background - I was his first.

Although I obviously have never gone out of my way to mention my previous relationship, certain things will trigger him remembering (a film we've watched being one, or meeting up with my friends and him trying to guess who it was - like I would casually arrange a pint with my previous lover ).

I absolutely adore my DH and in the early days, offered him a 'hall pass' to sleep with someone else so we're 'even but he was horrified by the idea and I really don't think it's that he wants to sleep with someone else.

But honestly it's like standing on eggshells sometimes.

He probably knows he's being a twat and adding on shame to pile of emotions.

Although not much of a defence, I think he doe know he's being a dick. I think he does try not to make a big thing about it, but goes about it the wrong way - so he doesn't actually talk about it, but is silent and brooding.

If he isn't abusive and your relationship is otherwise healthy, then why do you seem to be hesitant to confront him about this behaviour?

Because I don't want to hurt his feelings - god, I am a fucking wet lettuce.

Jeez, you’ve slept with two people, one of them being your husband...

He needs to get a grip, a huge grip.

Because I don't want to hurt his feelings - god, I am a fucking wet lettuce.

He doesn't seem to mind hurting yours, though, does he? I think he's concerned enough about his own feelings for both of you.

It's time to lose your shit at him. He is way out of line and you are enabling him and encouraging him to think that his feelings are the only ones that matter.

You're both still young and your dh sounds a bit immature.

There is pressure on guys to be sexually experienced but in reality (ime) it's usually girls who get their 'sexual debut' first. Guys often lie to each other when actually & normally they are later to the party. Unfortunately guys only really start being honest with each other in their thirties if ever at all.

If your dh was my friend/teammate/colleague and confided in me I'd tell him these three things.

1. Your situation is the most normal/common for couples the same age (I'm assuming you are, since u met at uni)

1. Grow the fuck up because he will regret losing the love of his life far more than the random chance that his penis wasn't the first suitable one to appear.

1. What makes his penis 'special' is the fact that it is your last penis not your first. There are 2 billion+ eligible penises out there (including NewDaddie's very own, very special penis) but you're not interested in any of them, and you made vows before God/law to that fact.

Look OP there are loads and loads of women on this thread, with personal experience of this, pleae listen to them.

My ex was like this, I had a very active ex life before I met him, and he fucking hated it. (He'd had sex before me as well btw!)

I remember once sitting there open mouthed in complete bafflement/anger/shock as he went on and on at me about my past, about how it made him feel, about how he couldn't bear going out with me because everywhere we went I mught have slept with someone.
When I asked him what he expected me to do about, he wouldn't have an answer, he just wanted me to feel shit all the time, and it is a form of abuse and control.

If I spoke to any man at all, I'd be accused of having slept with him, so I stopped speaking to men, even my friends.
If I went out with friends he would go mental and accuse me of only going out so I could pull- just like before him- so I stopped going out with friends.
If I went out in revealing clothes he would go mental and accuse me of trying to attract attention, so I stopped wearing those clothes.

By the way, I'm not saying your's will do this, but this was all a prelude to going from control and guilting me, through full on emotional and financial abuse to finally physical violence when he didn't get his way.

It was a simply a great excuse to control my movements and have me treading on eggshells, I was a cowed and completely different person when I left him.

It is never acceptable, ever to make someone feel guilty about their past, or use it as emotional manipulation.

I wish someone had sat me down all those years ago and said "Look, it is not passionate, sexy or dramatic to be paranoid and controlling. It is not a sign that he cares deeply for you, it is a sign he thinks of you as property, and that you have already failed as his 'perfect woman'"

Being older and wiser, there is absolutely no way I would tolerate an even vaguely negative mention of my colourful past, don't like who I am?? Fuck. Off.

If you are worried about his feelings, why isn't he worried about yours??

And how fucking dare he give you the silent treatment for something you did before you even met him!

He has absolutely no right at all to do this to you.

in way I think it comes from love that he gets chewed up about it

Aha.

OP, I think the sentence above says a great deal - about you. It is 100% his problem (and total bullshit) that he is hung up on this, but I think you need to think about why you tolerate this, and why, in your head, you have mixed this up with "love".

Let me be very, very clear here: I'm not saying that this is for the slightest second your "fault" for putting up with it or that you deserve it, but I am saying that - for the future - it's worth thinking about your own ideas of "love", and what you have absorbed on that topic. Love isn't possession. Love isn't thinking you own someone, even before you met them. Love certainly isn't driving someone out to the sofa because you're sulking - AGAIN - about something they did years ago. Love certainly isn't punishing someone for having the temerity to have existed before your relationship. That's selfishness, self-absorption, and misogyny. Not love.

Would someone who loved you be happy for you to be sleeping downstairs on the sofa while he starfished upstairs in YOUR bed, thinking he had the moral highground because he couldn't find anyone to shag him before he met you?

That's not love.

Get angry, OP. He's treating you very badly indeed.

^^ what tiramisu said, great post.

I feel so infuriated by this man and I don’t even know him.

Even the use of the word “trigger”. A trigger is something that might remind you of an awful of traumatic event in your life. “Trigger” isn’t a word to apply to something that is none of his fucking business and a complete non-issue anyway.

I think many of us, if we’re honest, don’t particularly like to think of our partners fucking other people (unless you’re a bit kinky like that, in which case good for you!)

The thing is though, most of us know that it’s a ridiculous and pointless thing it’s get hung up on, and so we choose not to get hung up on it. Feelings may not be a choice but behaviour certainly is.

Your H is being very immature and unreasonable, and instead of hiding away in shame and grovelling you need to read him the riot act. You say you won’t confront him on this because ‘you don’t want to hurt his feelings’. Yet you’re allowing him to hurt yours. I think you should have a good think to yourself about why this is.

The more you make this behaviour work for him the more he’ll do it. Stop rewarding it and get angry! He’s being a massive twat!

Yes at the very least he needs therapy - read up on Madonna/whore complex - he's cast you in his mind as a whore.

I've experienced extreme jealousy and PA behaviour from my first ltr even though we were each other's firsts.

My current guy couldn't care less, I've had about 3 X as many lovers as him and he's not exactly shy himself! I worried at first as I'd had this be an issue for people I've dated before (it's not just men can be like this).

But I would not tolerate this.

Your experiences - all of them - have made you who you are and that is supposedly the woman he loves.

Also you DON'T Just have one small problem you have at least 2 because he also communicates very poorly. Sulking and PA crap like 'I think you know why' resolve nothing, every relationship inc friendships - have conflicts, what's healthy is handling that properly.

Take time out to let tempers cool if necessary and then discuss WITHOUT BLAME.

It's his issue to deal with op...and he must deal with it... you are hardly abnormal to have slept with more than one person... he is making this a big thing when it absolutely shouldn't be.
Trying to give him the benefit of the doubt-obvs something in his upbringing or his past experience is making this hard for him-but he needs to seek help with that and address it-you have done nothing wrong at all and shouldn't be expected to (and can't anyway) change who you are and what you've done way back when.

I've just now read the update where you asked him what was wrong and he said 'I think you know'....
And now I've lost any small sympathy for him...patronising much? As if it's an accepted norm to be annoyed by your wife having had a life before she met you...it isn't sonny....
so I stand by my pp on the fact that he needs some help, but he does also need to be told not to be a massive knobhead as well....

Uh, no, he sounds insecure. I wasn't my husband's first sexual partner, but I have about twice as many sexual partners as he does (I'm also 6 years old, when we met he was 21 and I was 27 about to turn 28). I am his first serious relationship though. He dated/hooked up with a few people and had I think one girlfriend before me (like 6 months, in uni, not serious, never lived together, etc.). I had two serious relationships before him, lasting about 4-5 years each, where we lived together, were planning to get engaged, etc. and several other less serious/dating relationships or guys I hooked up with. No, my husband has never so much as raised an eyebrow about it. In fact, I think he's quite pleased to have landed someone more experienced than him. We even went to the wedding of one of my serious ex's and his now wife. It wasn't weird and not an issue. Because he's secure and not a jealous person and he trusts me and respects me. It sounds like your partner is insecure and jealous and feels uncomfortable with the fact he's had so little experience, which he's projecting onto you.

I think he will eventually use this a reason to cheat. Me and a lot of my friends married our first boyfriends, when we were very young. Every single one of them hit their mid 30's, and decided that they needed to sample a variety of vagina's, as clearly, they were getting older and it would be inconceivable to die having only slept with one woman.

My now DH, who I met after I left my ExH (for cheating), has had about 35 sexual Partners and whislt that is more than me, my number is in double figures. I actually like that. We've both sampled a lot of what's out there and have chosen each other to settle down with.

His treatment of you is utterly vile.

Username324's post was genius:

Did the deluded fool think that the universal womanhood was standing cross legged to protect their virginity until he deigned to choose one of them then?

Tell him he either packs it in or you’re leaving him and condemning
him to celibacy for the rest of his life. Because he couldn’t have another partner after you, could he, because that would make him a hypocrite.

I absolutely agree with the pp who said that an even bigger problem than this is your ability to communicate as a couple. You seem scared to ask him about this (scared of his reaction?) and he’s a stonewalling sulker. Not a great combination for good communication is it?

Because I don't want to hurt his feelings - god, I am a fucking wet lettuce.

No, you are not a wet lettuce. You have had your head fucked. We are unfucking it for you and it will be a shock at first. Now you can let yourself get very, VERY angry.

And you know what? If you really love him as you claim then you will give him such a head wobbling that he will never, ever fuck with anyone's head like that again. He will be a far better person for it.

We get into bed and I ask him what's upset him and he just says "I think you know."

Oh OP.
I know this script. This was my marriage.

You need to understand... you see this as "this one small thing". But this is HUGE. I know because in my own marriage, I watched with my own eyes as this "one small thing" mushroomed into an uncontrollable monster.

When the "one small thing" is his view that you somehow need to pay for the fact that you've had sex with someone besides him... oh my God, the pain that you are in for.

This kind of thing doesn't go away. Because it's in the past. So you can't change it, can't take it back. You pay for it for as long as the relationship exists.

This is perfect for him - you will never be able to make up for your "shortcoming" - which means he can use it to extract love, attention, favours, anything he wants from you. And he can also use it as an excuse to withdraw his own love from you, whenever he wants to. Look, he just did it there, making sure you'd leave the bedroom! All he has to do is pull this issue out of his pocket whenever he needs extra attention, or special treatment, or a decision to go his way, and boom there's a perfect amount of drama, ready for use.

It is the perfect strategy for beginning to exert control over every little thing in a relationship. It puts him in a position of power and disapproval of you... one that is his as long as you agree to remain in the relationship. And you will... because you love him, and I believe that you think he is right, in some way, to feel as he does.

Again...
I've been there

OP my ex was like this. I'd slept with 2 other people before him and I got the same treatment. Bouts of silence, anger, the nervous terror of walking on egg shells in case there was something that triggered him. He used to tell me I was causing him depression to think about me having been with men before him, and that he'd have preferred me to have been raped that voluntarily have slept with them.

This won't get better. Please, please run like the wind

he'd have preferred me to have been raped that voluntarily have slept with them.

that's one of the most repulsive things I've ever read.

There is never going to be a time when you havent had this history, so whatever his feelings about it, its pretty weird that hes still trying to make you feel shit 6 years later. Its not like you cheated on him.
It looks like youve actually taken it on board as if youve done something wrong. You havent, and he needs to get over it fucking pronto.

This is ridiculous. How dare he give you the silent treatment for this! You need to get angry, OP, and tell him in no uncertain terms that his behaviour is absolutely unacceptable. If he has an issue then it's his and his alone, and if he has trouble dealing with it it's his responsibity to find a way to resolve it without hurting you. I'm sure a counsellor would be an acceptable course of action. Do not be manipulated into feeling sorry for him or feeling ashamed yourself. Sex is a normal part of life and you were alive before you knew him. He needs reminding that he doesn't own you or your sexuality.