How to get hubby over my NUMBER

[BusyBeeMummy1]

LONG story curlt straight down. Im from an indian background. Had my 'wild' years then met a great guy through mutual family friends as a dinner party. We got married 5 months later and really happy. This was a few years ago. However him and I have kept a dark secret which I can only discuss with MN for advice.

I wasnt a Virgin when we married, but he was. I didnt think my past had any place in my future and he never asked prior marriage. A few months into our marriage and he saw some olddddd messages from a guy. This opened a can of worms. He forced me to tell him about my past relationships and sexual partners. I told him and he was devestated. It rocked us and I feel like to this day its affecting our marriage. He isnt emotionally connected to me anymore. We have good days where things feel normal ans we have bad days where he will say oh well Im not the one screwing X amount of people. How can i resolve this problem once and for all because i always try to brush it under the carpet but i see its just lingering. I really feel this is causing a breakdown..he says you lied to me in the beginning how can I trust you

Thanks

Is it typically a part of yours and his culture to wait until marriage to have sex?
He was a Virgin til marriage, he says he feels lied to, so he presumably believed you were too. If it IS cultural, then i can understand why he didn't ask prior to marriage as he just naturally assumed you would be a virgin. Quite honestly, from the way you say you felt your "wild" past didn't need to be part of your future, it seems like you deliberately hid the fact you weren't, like you knew it would be an issue.

Why did you even keep old messages from a man you had slept with once you were in a new relationship anyway, let alone married. Especially given you didn't want your past to be part of your future.

I can absolutely understand his devastation, sex is the most intimate you can be with a person, not just physically but emotionally too, it creates a bond between 2 people thats deeper than any other. (i appreciate depending on your view of sex and relationships this may not be how YOU feel, but it is how i feel, and how OP's husband may feel) As such i only want to be with one person in my life, it is why at 28 i am still a virgin as i want to find the person i want to spend my life with first. Ideally i would want him to be a virgin too, but i am aware this is unlikely given my age and the likely age of my future partner. I absolutely could only be with someone like minded with regards to sex, that its for long term, serious relationships only with someone you genuinely love. The kind of relationship you only have very few of in a lifetime, so a very small "number" of previous sexual partners, and none casual.

Granted i have this talk with anyone who is a potential partner, i make how i feel VERY clear, and if they aren't willing to disclose their "number" or relationship history, then they're not for me. It's just the kind of thing that is important to me to know, if it isn't for you or others, fair enough.

If i found out later on, especially after marriage, that the person i was with had lied to me, i'd be destroyed. Something like a higher number of previous partners than disclosed, i MIGHT be able to work through with time, presuming it is not drastically higher, 1 or 2 maybe. Discovery of a very high number of previous sexual partners, a one night stand/casual sex, or finding out a partner who had told me was a virgin wasn't, would be game over.

I would then struggle with the fact it goes against my OWN ideal of only being with one person, that If i didnt want to spend the rest of my life alone and managed to find a new partner, that id already been with someone else.

If he thought there was a chance you weren't a virgin, he should have asked, but it's understandable if culture is important to your families/in your mutual circle that he reasonably assumed you were.
If you thought it could potentially be an issue to him that you weren't a virgin, you should have told him, BEFORE marriage.
I'm sorry, but if his feelings about sex are anything like mine, what youve done isn't something that he will ever "get over"or come to terms with. You CAN'T "fix" it and make it ok and go back to what your marriage was before he found out. It's never going to be the same again.

Is it taboo to divorce in your native culture? If it is then no wonder he is so unhappy, he reasonably assumed due to shared culture you were both virgins. He married you on this belief, then found out down the line you weren't. He's tried to make a go of the marriage, bought a house, had a baby, but he can't get over the fact that the foundations were built on lies by omission.
You being a virgin clearly was a deal breaker to him, but he can't leave you without bringing down a whole shit ton of shame on both of you, your reputations, your families within your culture. Would he even be able to find another wife within your culture, since he is no longer a virgin, has been married and has a child?
It seems culture and beliefs are at his core, and you've destroyed them all. He stays despite being unhappy as he feels its the best of a bunch of bad options. I feel so bad for him, surely it was obvious to you that he had these ingrained beliefs, you never should have even dated him let alone married him as you MUST have known how important this was to him. Just because you wanted to move on from your past that didn't fit with your native culture and family/communities beliefs, you've trashed his entire life.

No she bloody well hasn't trashed his life. If it was so important to him culturally then he should have been very clear about his expectations. @BusyBeeMummy1 was not asked about her past and hasn't lied.

They are both equally responsible for perhaps rushing into a marriage before really knowing each other, which in hindsight has caused these issues.

@AlmostAJillSandwich you are projecting your own feelings onto the OPs husband and imagining scenarios that don't apply here.

Almost you are projecting here for whatever reason.

It is not reasonable for OP's DH to make these assumptions about her past. If this stuff was very important to him he should have asked about it.

JillSandwich - you are making up your own narrative here...

WE don't know how clear he was, but if a person is "traditional" with their cultures beliefs its usually obvious, so OP will know how clear he was. She even said in her update he very likely did assume she was a virgin due to their shared culture. It is entirely possible and not at all implausible that she has in fact trashed his life based on what he beleived they had, and what hes always envisioned his life being.

It's no different than not telling someone before you marry that you are 100% certain you don't want children. You either want kids or you don't, but the majority either do actively want them, are open to the idea, or have them as part of a natural progression of a relationship. As such, most people naturally assume when getting in to a relationship, that if it gets serious, there will be kids. Then the shit hits the fan later if someone wastes years with someone, building a life together and all those feelings, just to find out when the time comes they broach the subject of starting to try to conceive, that the other person has no intention at all of ever having a child, and never did.
You could argue that the person who wanted the child, should have made sure before they got serious/married etc, that the other person wanted children too. That person is then stuck, the person they love and their marriage but never have a child, or end it all and start over looking for a new partner.

My intention was to put forward the perspective of someone who has the opposite view as the majority of pps.
Fact is, there are some of us who do feel this strongly about previous sexual history, that it DOES matter, and finding out later on down the line can destroy a relationship and its not something we can just "get over". Just becasue thats not how the majority of you feel doesnt mean it is wrong to feel that way.

Basically, it is not wrong that this is something he has such strong feelings about. Yes, he should have asked, i did say that, but he also had a pretty reasonable assumption based on circumstance, why he didn't ask.

OP in my personal opinion HAS done something wrong here, just becsue i disagree with all of your opinions and have a differnt one, doesnt mean you;re right and im wrong just becasue im the minority.

Good post, Unicorn.

If something is a dealbreaker, then you don't leave it to assumptions based on an apparent shared culture. The OPs husband isn't wrong to have a view about sex where he'd rather be with someone who had not had sex with anyone else. But it's up to him to establish if that's the case and to make it clear how he would feel if he was lied to.

What he actually did is make an assumption and not make his feelings known, and then spent years using this issue as a way of manipulating the OP. BusyBeeMummy1 is not responsible for any of that.

If something is a dealbreaker, then you don't leave it to assumptions based on an apparent shared culture

By which logic - everyone asks their intended whether they have paedophilic tendencies, right? Of course they don't. I think you underestimate how deeply ingrained these 'assumptions' run.

This is a problem of miscommunication and not managing expectations. You married after five months and presumably did not have sex before then, maybe his cultural background which you were already familiar with was relevant too. All these things could have indicated to you that his expectations were different to what you were delivering, and it really would have been better to get that out in the open. Just talk openly basically, like any couple should do before they marry.
It's done now and you'll have to see how it goes. I think it's not about misogyny though, it's about him vaguely feeling he's been "mis-sold" something that was very important to him. He may be able to get over it with continued openness between you, and if you love him you should try, but it will need perseverance. Good luck.

My partner now does not know my number, nor do I know his. I don't want to and nor does he.

However I have to ask, did ye communicate at all before ye were married ? Surely it is normal to know if someone had a previous relationship etc. Getting to know someone before you marry them is kinda what it is about isn't it ?

I can't offer you any advice. These seems to be a deal breaker for him and you have done nothing wrong. It is a fundamental difference in who ye are.

If you want my honest advice, hand on heart, I encourage you to end this marriage. Men who think things like this about women just need to marry virgins and live in their own dream world of misogynist nonsense
Exactly this

But he was a virgin himself - so how can it be misogyny? It seems like he just wanted/expected them to be equal on that front.

Thanks for all the posts ive read them all and I think we both have a part to play in this. I should have told him and not assumed that because he didnt ask me that he didnt want to know. He should have also communicated and stated clear his dealbreakers, and after a few months into the marriage he agreed to move on so he needs to try and do exactly that. Its hard because its so hard to tell with him what emotions hes feeling because he doesnt really open up to me. I do want to try my upmost to try and resolve the matter but taken on board from a few posts that just because this happened in the past it doesnt give him the right to use it against me and I matter too.I will suggest counselling (someone familiar with our culture). Keep us and our little bubba in your prayers xx

Well good to luck to him finding his virgin.
If that’s his priority in life. Don’t worry about it. He can try counselling or he can leave if he doesn’t like it. You can’t go back in time, his problem totally. Not yours OP XX

@tutru

He doesn't sound respectful of you.... I am sorry OP.

He might like to know that in your culture women have faked being a virgin ( even down to the fake blood capsule on the wedding night).

At least you are being completely honest! What would he prefer, you to have been dishonest?

Honestly, it's all well and good to uphold cultural traditions on the surface. Below the surface things have always been a bit opaque and if he doesn't accept that then he is living in a delusion.

There are plenty of articles about procedures Asian women have resorted to to pretend they are virgins, just have to Google it!

This isn't your problem it's his. If it was so important he should have discussed it beforehand.

(Anyway, how can you be 100% sure he was a virgin when you married? Maybe his over the top response is him projecting)

Is he not allowed to have 'dealbreakers'?

Of course he can but he’s not saying this is a dealbreaker he’s using as stick to break the OP and that isn’t on.

Op you can’t fix this on your own, he has to be willing but you need to make it crystal clear that you’re done with him using your sexual past as a stick. He doesn’t sound very mature and because of his background it doesn’t sound like he has the skills to get past this on his own and therefore counselling could be very helpful.

I can understand his disappointment coming from a background that has very constricting social and gender expectations and it does sound like you both got married without really knowing each other. However, the toxicity of his feelings can’t go on festering and he has to know that you are prepared to leave his arse if this isn’t mutually resolved very soon.

@agent and @done agree totally. I think he is immature and therefore doesnt know how to deal with this situ logically. Ofcourse id rather have had a broken RELATIONSHIP than a broken marriage a few years down the line.. and a baby in the midst of it all.
@fluffy oh how i sometimes think maybe i should have just been one of them saved all the drama

You have a child and he is still complaining that you were not a virgin ! Where is his respect for you and your family ? If it was that important, he should have checked before marriage and not assumed. He cannot undo the past. It is not your fault and don't let him disrespect you.

The other thing is that nobody lives with a big stamp on themselves saying virgin or non virgin or x number of partners. If this was such a big issue for him, why didn't he discuss this before marriage ?