Something really lovely ended after only a week, and I’m gutted.

[HelpMeComeToTermsWithThis]

I know this probably sounds ridiculous, but I’m absolutely gutted over a man I only dated for about a week.

Im 38, had completely gone off dating. Happened to take a look on a dating app, spotted this handsome guy, and realised we actually lived really close by. He asked me out for dinner the following week but we ended up meeting for a cup of tea the following day and just clicked incredibly quickly. Spent 9 hours together that first meeting and there was loads of chemistry, we laughed constantly, and we both said there was something really lovely between us.

Met a few more times in the space of that week and it was just so lovely. The we went out at the weekend for dinner, had a few drinks and sexual history came up.

Mine is considerably more extensive and out there than his, and he struggled with it.

He has apparently always had an insecurity about his partners’ previous sexual partners. He has been cheated on in the past, and says it makes him feel inadequate.

He knows I’m trustworthy and has explicitly said he doesn’t think I would cheat. He also apparently knows that his reaction is an insecurity of his own.

He ultimately decided he couldn’t have a relationship with me because he knows the thoughts about my past would “fester”.

I tried to understand it and asked whether he thought this was something he could ever work through. He said he’d never really thought about it because he’d been married for so long, and that while he wasn’t happy to accept it, he was stubborn and probably wouldn’t work on it.

I gently said it seemed sad to let an insecurity make the decision without ever challenging it but he seems to have closed the door.

And that was it.

I know I need to accept that he has made his decision. I’m not going to chase him. But I’m really struggling with it because it felt so rare to meet someone where the connection was that immediate, and it hurts enormously to think that something about my past has ultimately cost me someone I really liked.

I don’t need to be told that I should be grateful I dodged a bullet. I’m just really sad and wanted to let it out. Tell me the things I probably need to hear right now.

I do understand biology and I also understand that, ultimately, we are animals, but we don't have to behave like them.

Calling judgements on a woman's sexual past little more than biology is pretty far down the ignorant misogyny rabbit hole.

You did the right thing, honesty is best I think, otherwise it might come back to bite.

Its probably saved you further heart ache in the long run as he is obviously not the one or he would have accepted you as you.It does sound like he kind of used you for sex afterwards which says something about his morals, and he wasn’t really thinking of your feelings.

I also suspect he may have felt a little threatened by your experience and skills, maybe that’s why some men like women to have a low body count, because they like to feel the more experienced and want to be the best that woman has had?

You are brave posting this on here,I have read all your posts but only some of the responses 😱

You have handled the judgement well on here and there are some lovely responses but it’s a harsh forum and there are also some nasties in there.

You seem to know yourself, sound very strong, resilient and intelligent, so no doubt this will be a minor blip and you will find happiness.

Because you are honest and true to yourself it will be real and true when you find it 😊

Not unless you're expecting him to continue "swinging" with you.

I’m guessing 50s a lot of them on SM are around that age. For example one guy said the other day about Taylor Swift: yeah luv you’re not much of a looker. I mean FFS most people would say TS is objectively pretty but middle aged men who she wouldn’t look twice at seem to see this as an affront. I mean I wouldn’t be offended that, say Harry Styles, wouldn’t look at me and feel I need to bitch about him or say he’d had too many sexual partners.

It’s become a bit of a hobby on SM for weak men to bait women. Bit pathetic really but then I guess that’s the point, they are.

Urgh I am so mad he tried devaluing you into a FWB category. I’m not too sure it’s about the number of people you’ve slept with … or the swinging. He’ll feel inadequate at the lack of experience he has compared to you.

I think you told him too soon, it moved too fast, you saw one another too much and you overshared too early. Pace yourself next time!

I had thunderbolts and lighting chemistry loads when I was younger. Never lasted. Slow burn 🔥 is what sticks. Love the multiplier effect!

I’ve done a lot of dating this past year and did have a mega date (24hrs) and I was like wow I have met ‘the one’. Didn’t sleep with him though … something stopped me and so glad I went with my gut! Because immediately after what was an amazing date … it imploded with a fake illness and distancing etc… and it should have grown but he killed it off. I stopped responding to the messages one day and felt significantly better and totally over it 3 weeks on.

Nearly all the guys I went on dates with in their 40s had explored swinging, 3soms etc… I have not done those things but heard it so often that I don’t think anything of it - all seems normal in this day and age 😂

I didn’t say that, I said don’t spend so much time with a man at the beginning.

Get to know someone over time is much better. In a week op went on a date, coffee, spent 9 hours with him, hooked up with him and went for dinner.

Op is well meaning and it’s unfortunate that it ended up like this, but it’s entirely too much for a week.

Im not saying the guy was great because his sheer hypocrisy and subsequent objectification of op is disgusting. It’s fine if you have your own moral sexual standards everyone does. But to then on one hand demonise her and on the other hand use her for sex and suggest fwb is low life behaviour.

THIS IS NOT TO BLAME OP

When you don’t rush into things, people’s true behaviour starts to slowly come out and hopefully she may have seen him for the loser he was. Ofc there are cases where you never truly know someone, even after a lengthy amount of time.

Also unfortunately a lot of men value challenge. When seemingly unlimited access and sex is given to them, they’ll gladly take it and move onto someone who makes them work for it. It’s a sad thing, but must often times it’s true

slow and steady most times, wins the race

I think you are going to have to treat this one as a 'learning curve'.

It's 'too much too soon'.

I know it's difficult to not get carried away and giddy with the excitement but this is what happens.

Forget it and move on.

💐

”A ROLE MODEL ON SOCIAL MEDIA”
LOL

This thread is such an example of that. Some people are feeling very threatened.

@HelpMeComeToTermsWithThis Glad to hear you're feeling better about what happened. You got love bombed and slut shamed and were obviously inco. Patible with this guy. I think being honest early on about sexual preferences is important, but men asking your exact number of partners are usually the ones looking for something to hold over you, in a sense. Just say a lot and if they badger you for the exact number, know that's a red flag.

Are you quite ok?

Insulting posters and telling them they’ll never find a man who wants them is not ok, and it’s not a critique of their idea or ideology or even way of life.

If you think that’s ok, you’re entitled to. I think it smacks of insecurity myself.

Why does every thread turn 'sour' this week? 🤷

Because there’s no so much misogyny knocking around on mumsnet!

So no need to bring it up is there? It's something you did years ago and totally irrelevant

It's doubtful you'd ever be asked a question about it in normal dating so nothing wrong in leaving it out. It's not lying , it's just not bringing up the subject

I'm not telling you what you should do 🙃

I'm making the point that you get the rough with the smooth in life.

You realise that despite what we sometimes say, MN isn’t actually a hive mind? It is many separate people with their own opinions and views. Mind blown!

FWIW OP, my DP and I had some big conversations in the early days around past relationships. He told me some things that I would have thought were deal breakers before hearing them, but the way he delivered the information, his humility and honesty, his desire to be fully known and understood and not to have any ‘skeletons’ to pop out at a later date, actually made me respect him more.

I haven’t ever been concerned about his extensive experience or whether I would be enough for him, as I’m confident in myself and my sexuality. For the right person this is a complete non issue.

I’m also confused about this man’s assertion that your experience would make him feel self conscious or in some way unconfident in a relationship, and yet he’d be fine to have no strings sex with you? How does that work? Surely if his concern is whether he’s matching up to your past lovers he’d be happy to be actual friends but not to be FWB, where the ONLY relationship he has with you (a sexual one) is judged against your past lovers. I call bullshit - he’s a judgy prick who thinks you’re not wife material, it’s nothing to do with how he would feel about the sex part, it’s how he feels about your morals that’s the issue. He’s no better than the ‘agile’ poster on here tbh.

Sorry, because of drip-feed I retract what I said in this post - when I was posting it, I did not know that the OP was into swinging and had 80 partners. I think that information as such, very much like being a sex worker, has to be disclosed to a prospective partner immediately. When I was originally commenting, I thought that her 'larger number of partners' was nothing like what disclosed subsequently.

A lot of men wouldn't mind that. The equivalent would be: you are shit in bed and a boring man, but I'm happy for you to buy me presents and take me out to dinner

@YRGAM Well this is true. Look at the absolute losers that some women put up with just beause they have money! Earn your own and solve the problem!! 😀

@HelpMeComeToTermsWithThis I think sadly the idea of something lovely has come to an end, but this chap was actually deeply misogynistic. Sadly I think many men are and still see female ‘promiscuity’ as an issue due to a societal and patriarchal perception of women as madonnas/whores. As a 20 something year old the fact that I had only had one boyfriend and was open about it meant that men avoided me like the plague as they put me in the ‘marry/have babies with’ category and none of them were ready or interested in that - they openly told me this as they were happy to have me as a friend while picking up girls in the bars we were drinking in or shagging the temp secretaries. I married my second boyfriend and my DH is very open about the fact that he found (finds) it charming that I was rather oblivious to male attention and somewhat ‘chaste’. Yet all the same men pay lip service to it being fine for women to be sexually independent, about it being their bodies, their choice.

On that basis, I really would not offer the openness that you did going forward - not least because if it is important enough for a man to ask, then that in itself is a ‘red flag’ because it signifies that the answer matters to him. It truly is no one’s business and no one has the right to ask for your number. No one. If asked say that you were as wild as other people in your youth but will not be sharing specifics.

Openness is fine - but it doesn’t mean they need to know everything, does it? I mean would you share details of all the teachers who ever taught you, what grades you got for exams, your bank balance, mortgage payments, your PIN number? No. It’s dating not an MI6 pre-employment screening session.

They need to meet you and know you where you are now. They need to get to know the WHO you are now. Everything else is irrelevant. Not declaring it is not dishonest. It’s preserving and respecting your own boundaries.

When I got with my partner we had this kind of conversation and it did get weird. We never did actual numbers.

He was embarrassed to admit some of the things he had done but felt like he should tell me, sometimes I wish he hadn’t but it was the way he told me that I understood and gave him a chance. He wasn’t bragging about it and didn’t want that lifestyle now he was older.

My count is pretty high but I haven’t done swinging or partner swapping or threesomes. I just was up front with him that if that was a life he wanted, it would never be with me and gave him the option to find someone who did!

He didn’t take the option and we worked through it to a good relationship but I can’t lie, I did struggle initially so I think this guy did the right thing having enough self awareness that he couldn’t handle it

but I would be careful how much you say, numbers are never required in my experience. You can just say the types of activities you took part in

This is all quite simplistic.

I used to be pretty rampant as a young woman. Couldn’t get enough of it and enjoyed many shenanigans with a variety of partners.

Then life happened. A double bereavement + antidepressants + perimenopause = no libido.

I laugh at my past antics and remember most of it fondly (or at least without regret) but have no interest in any of it now.

The fact he suggested fwb is making me think he is just incredibly manipulative. Look at the facts:

• Long first date, lots of meet ups created a false sense of intimacy
• You slept together, and he then pulls back (claiming it's to do with you, but, if it really bothered him so much, why would he want to sleep with you again??)

I think he just wanted fwb all along, OP. Some men will lay on the charm to get you into bed, then find a way to keep you close by in case they feel like shagging you again. I suspect this is what is going on here.

You dodged a massive bullet.