Struggling to deal with partners past.

[Beckiee12]

Me and my partner have been together nearly 3 years. At the beginning he was very honest about his past, I chose to stick with him as I understand everyone has one and most arent proud. My partner is a bit older than me and let's just say his past is a very colourful one when it comes to women. Hes had a LOT of one night stands but if I'm honest it's not this that bothers me. What bothers me is that they are still around.. we live in a small town and they are just everywhere, he owns a business and the other week one just popped in to have a chat. I was there and I had no idea who she was just assumed she was a friend. I questioned it as in the nearly 3 years we have been together he has never mentioned her and I've never met her before. He was honest and said hes known her and her family for years and that they did sleep together in the past. I dont know if it's my own insecurities that make these situations bother me but it really is starting to get to me. Why does he feel the need to keep people around him that hes slept with? Why are they popping up all the time? To me these are the things that happen at the start of the relationship not still 3 years down the line. I told him it makes me feel uncomfortable but he doesnt see a problem with it as there is nothing in it. In my eyes there might not be anymore but he has slept with these people, he keeps saying it's in his past but it's not the past if they are still hanging around. Am I being unreasonable to let this get to me, should I just ignore it and move on? Or am I right.. is it strange to have all these one night stands and women you have dated still in your life?

Now we seem to have drifted through no fault of my own. I am trying my best to make him happy and to help. I’m trying to keep the spark alive.

Beckiee, your DP is putting emotional and physical distance between you. He knows that this will cause you to feel uncertain and insecure.

I see him as entitled and manipulative. While you are making efforts for your relationship, he has stopped affection and sexual intimacy with no real discussion, presented himself as single on social media, and insisted on divulging details of his sexual history even though you’ve asked him not to. He is also flirty with exes. Where is his respect for you?

You swallow your doubts and hesitate to question him for fear of pushing him away, but it sounds like he is intentionally pushing you away. He has likely been seeking new sex, as that is his pattern.

You mentioned his former lover, a stranger to you, who stopped by to visit him. You said that she was holding your newborn. How did that come about? How did she and DP behave to one another? How did she behave to you?

Shocking that he doesn’t show you any affection - you must be v lonely. Do you work? Are you from this small town originally?

Really sad that you don’t have any friends and are not in contact with your family - why is that?

How was your previous relationship and why did it end?

There is ample time in his long “working” day for him to have the kinds of liaisons that suit him (hook ups) especially if he is running his own business.

Are you on speaking with his daughters DM - his x wife? If so she might be an ally at this time - she might be already via his DD.

@MsDogLady he was holding our daughter at the time and she asked to hold her so he gave our daughter to her. The conversation seemed normal I guess... just general talk of how they had been and about our daughter. It was more when they said goodbye, hugged and kissed each other on the cheek which wouldn't bother me normally if it wasnt this situation.

@another20 I dont really know why, i dont drive and my family like 30-40 minutes away from me and never seem to have the time for me to visit them nor do they have time to visit me.. I would say anything to his x wife as it would get back to him as she would tell his daughter who would then tell him so I haven't even considered it to be honest

@MsDogLady Sorry I forgot to answer one of your questions.. my last relationship ended as I went to use my partners laptop like I did most days with him knowing but this time he forgot to log out of his Facebook.. turned out he had been cheating with multiple people for literally the whole 5+ years we had been together. Even at times when I was in hospital. So yeah thay ended pretty quick after I found this out.

@Beckiee12, under the circumstances it is entirely reasonable that you would feel uneasy with his showing affection to a former lover. I can understand how that would sting.

Your ex partner was despicable.

MsDogLady I did tell him it made me feel very uncomfortable and I was basically told I'm being stupid and hes fed up of me always moaning which is why I thought maybe I was being a bit over dramatic

Although I agree it's probably not my fault my opinion on people sticking their dicks in everything that breathes is pretty gross lol.

I totally agree with you, which makes you staying and having a child with him perplexing.

Your responses to his past has been all over the place. Veering from “everybody has a past’ to ‘ewww, how gross’ and then ‘I don’t want to know’ to ‘who is she and how do you know her’ interrogations. You live in a small town and he has a high number, the likelihood of you not meeting one of these women on a fairly regular basis is slim, especially when he’s proud of his high number enough to have a damn book 🤮.

He has a past he can not change, either accept it or move on. Your anxiety over his past being ever present isn’t going to get better, especially given your relationship history.

AgentJohnson I know, that is my problem. Most of the time I do sit and think it's his past so get over it but then sometimes I just cant stop thinking about it and have all the negative thoughts. It isnt right to be so on and off about it. I do need to either actually move on from it or leave, it's just figuring out if I can move on from the next one that pops up.

There will always be a next one though. You have to decide, do you want to know or don’t you. The flip flopping and the resentment will poison your relationship if you carry on like this.

If you have to try this hard to be ‘cool about it’ then you’re not cool about it.

This is what I have said a thousand times to him. Keep it in the past, dont keep bringing it up. What I dont know wont hurt me. I'm at fault for asking who that woman was I know that but after 3 years of someone not being mentioned or in the picture then acting like someones best friend and asking about/holding your child curiosity got the better of me. I just expect it from any female now.

I don’t think it is in his past - I think it is in his present. It’s just time before you chose to look and find out.

However even if it is in his past he has moved the goal posts - and deliberately withheld information - he has not been transparent until recently.

Did he tell you before or after you got married?

You have a decision to make now. This isn’t where you would be if you had known in advance, pregnant and married to him. That doesn’t make it a trap. This has happened before with your previous relationship and your walked immediately.

Every day that this eats away at you is another day that your mind is preoccupied with his negative stuff and this means that you can’t be fully positively attuned to your DD. So at some point you need to decide to let it go or let him go.

This is what I have said a thousand times to him. Keep it in the past, dont keep bringing it up. What I dont know wont hurt me.

But it does hurt you. He know he knows this, so brings it up to hurt you. You don’t need to tell someone 1000 times not to hurt you. You say it twice I the third time you walk. Your DD doesn’t need to absorb your frustration and pain - it will emotionally harm her.

The thing is you can either accept his past and stop asking about it or you can split.

The man doesn't have a time machine and casting someone's past up to them is actually quite abusive. You are not unreasonable to tell him you don't want to hear about it anymore but you WOULD be unreasonable to ask him how he knows people and expect him not to tell you. Imagine he had lied about how he knows this woman and you then found out the truth?

@another20 although I'm not good at letting small things get to me, I'm good at hiding it. I dont let it get in the way of my parenting as no matter what my daughter is my priority. I'm not sat there crying or getting upset and letting it get in the way of me taking care of her. At the end of all this I need to make a decision on what to do as I cant hold his past against him like I said, but I also cant help the way I feel about it.

@twattymctwatterson yes I should stop asking, this is the only time I have asked. I dont see me getting a but upset about him shoving his past relationships and going into detail ad me getting upset abusive. I've never once sat and made him feel like crap about it ( not that I know of anyway ) I've not called him names I've not voiced my opinion on it to him like I have on here. I've made him aware that I dont need to know and I've made him aware i do not like it. I did in fact accept his past when we first met and he told me. Because he did not tell me everything at the start. If it had been kept how it was then I would not be questioning my relationship.

OP - you keep going in circles.
Whether or not you accept his past - doesn’t really matter.
What about your PRESENT?????

Or - in your mind - does accepting his past mean that you stop caring about this relationship where your needs are totally ignored?

You are so so young and inexperienced. You barely had any normal relationships with men. It is sad that you were so vulnerable when you met him. He really did a number on you. And he continues to keep you in this warped reality.

You are living with a man who may love you in his own way. But he sees you as a roommate and a career for his child. Not a romantic partner that, I think, you want to be.
If you are OK with that - great. It’s your right to live any way you chose.
However - it’s a sad, sad, sad way to live a life in any age. Certainly as a young person.

@another20 I know I keep going in circles. I feel I'm trying to convince myself this could work, or make excuses for the way things are. I suppose I'm just finding it hard to let go of the relationship though in my head I am nothing more than a friend and the mother to his child at this point. I know in myself this isnt what a relationship between 2 people should be like, but letting go of how it was and the fact it probably wont ever be like that again is hard.

What happens when you talk to him? Tell him where you are, that you are questioning your relationship because of things you have found out since your marriage and that you miss the intimacy. It's not really fair for you to be making a decision about whether you continue with your marriage without involving him in the discussion.

@HairyDogsInUnusualPlaces I have and he tells me he cant do anything right and I'm being stupid, goes from telling me they are friends to just people he knows. I dont moan at him, im not a nagging wife. I do what I can for him this is the only thing I've ever said I have a problem with. He says I'm trying to change him which I'm not. I said I will just no longer go visit him at work as it would make things easier as then I dont need to know who is there or not.

OP this is a very sad read. Not because he had 400 or 600 partners in the past, but all of it put together. We all have a past. Lets imagine he has been sexually active for 35 years. 600 women over 35 years, that is around 17 partners a year. In itself I don't feel horrified by that number , because I essentially believe if you have two consenting partners and no one else to hurt, what does it matter if you are sleeping with so many people? But add in times he has spent in relationships, thats a preetty high rate of cheating (and you know he has cheated in the past).

On top of that he keeps some kind of weird log of all the women he has slept with. And he tells you about it. You have to wonder why that is. Then you say you haven't been sexually active for a year (co-incidently must have happened while you were pregnant or had a small baby). When did he start cheating on his ex wife, do you know? Was it while she was pregnant/ had children?

You are not nagging him, you are trying to find out where you stand. I feel for you, I can't imagine what your thought processes are. It sounds to me like he loves the thrill of something new, and perhaps he thought he had found the one person he could be faithful to for the rest of his life. But leopards don't change their spots that much. To go from being a serial shagger to not having sex with his own much younger (and I bet you are gorgeous) wife for a year? Nah. Doesn't add up. He is giving you information so you can't see what he is doing, but I would put money on him not having given up sex all together.

By the way, you are entitled to have insecurities based upon his past, especially as he seems to be showing such little affection for you at the moment, no wonder you are questioning everything. You are very young still, you have your whole life ahead of you and you deserve to be cherished with affection going forward.

I have been in a relationship with a guy who I know has probably had a lot of sexual partners (I have never asked him about his past and vice versa), and never settled down for more than a few years in the past. We are the same age, I was in a relationship from the age of 21-38, and although it did cross my mind at the start that he may have difficulty being with one person, I know he is happy to be with me and not elsewhere. We have a great sex life, I trust him. I know he cares about me deeply, and I know that he feels safe and secure and we have a lovely relationship. If the sex suddenly dried up and stayed dried up, the first thing I think I would think about would be, had he had his head turned elsewhere?

Have a look at the madonna whore complex. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna%E2%80%93whore_complex

@pudding21 Thank you for taking the time to reply. It did dry up when I was pregnant, when I was 2 months gone so it has been just over a year now. I dont need constant sex to feel secure im in a relationship I just need some affection. See that is the confusing part and the part that makes me question if he is looking elsewhere.. the fact he had gone from what me and many others consider to be a sex addict to not having sex at all ( from what I know ) Now what I dont want to do is accuse him of anything. Maybe he has lost attraction or feelings towards me which is why this has happened, but as he hasnt said this I'm left wondering. I have asked him this and he denied it he just said he doesnt know why its stopped. If the affection was there I wouldn't have my worries. I think I'm letting his past bother me so much because of the fact I feel im just another one to his list now. I think I need to sit and talk this all through with him and then hopefully I will get an honest answer, and either leave this relationship or us both work on it. I will be sure to look at that, thank you.

beckiee I don't think you have to accuse him of anything, but I do think you need a good honest conversation about where he thinks your relationship is going and why the sex has dried up (and all affection by the sounds of it).

This isn't you by the way, so don't put any blame on yourself. He has had a massive upturn in his usualy behaviour, you are not having sex together and you need to know why. Do you really want to be in a sexless relationship at the age you are?

At the moment maybe you don't feel the absence so much as your baby is still tiny, but lack of affection in a realtionship (not just sex) is soul destroying (I have been there, I was in a relationship where he only gave affection when he wanted sex and at times there were big droughts, nothing in between).

@pudding21 See there has been yet another mention from him about an ex after me talking and telling him to just stop. The problem is not that he makes jokes about them but the fact he is choosing to make jokes about certain ex partners that have caused me grief. This particular woman was texting me insults when we first got together, then kept texting him being flirtatious knowing of our relationship. This makes me think he likes to get a reaction from me. I will have another talk with him, maybe I need to seem more serious this time.

I think you should take all the other women off the table at the moment and talk about your issues at home. Why has his sex drive dwindled so much when it was clearly very high before.

If you keep asking him to stop mentioning previous lovers and he continues, it sounds like he wants to keep hurting you as he knows it does. You need to think do you want to be a man that not only withholds affection, but who pushes YOU to feel insecure about your relationship by constantly bringing up ex lovers (when you are not currently his lover, and haven't been for a year). Its gaslighting in a way.