Wife keeps telling me about presvious sexual exploits

[Ana the Ist]

She said she brings this up because it’s just the past. It doesn’t hold a candle to me. She said she doesn’t want to walk on eggshells around me though. I told her that I would talk to her if she need to. She’s very sorry for her past and wishes she had waited too.

I did know about her past before we were married. I told her it didn’t matter and that i didn’t need to know the details.

She sounds like she loves you a lot...I understand it may be a point of insecurity for you, but it doesn't sound like something she does to hurt you or make you feel inadequate.

I understand that this all comes from beliefs about marriage, purity, and the like...but you're married now. Clinging to guilt or regret over the past won't help your marriage out now. I'm not sure what would be a successful way for you to move past that...but I would try. Dealing with insecurities can only help your marriage.

 

[DZoolander]

TBH the whole thing is kinda wacky IMHO.

I don't share my previous experiences with my wife because it just seems tacky to do so. She had her experiences, I had mine, they're in the past and I see no point in either of us bringing it up. I don't want to know what this guy did, or that guy did...and I assume she doesn't want to know what this girl did or that girl did.

It's not because we're prudes, it's not because we're ashamed that we "didn't wait", it's because it's just tacky. No more, no less. It's really not hard to do. I've been with my wife for about 13 years now, and never once has a past experience been on the tip of my tongue.

Now, the fact that she smiles "to possibly hold back a cry" is equally bizarre to me. So long as the past experiences were consensual, she ought feel absolutely no shame or embarrassment about them - and (as weird as this may sound) - I think it's incumbent upon you to make sure that she doesn't walk around beating herself up over things that happened ages ago. That means - "while I don't want to hear about it, because it's just tacky to talk about those things with your current partner, your past made you who you are, and that's the person I love. You ought feel no shame about any of it." And leave it at that.

 

[WolfGate]

TBH the whole thing is kinda wacky IMHO.

I don't share my previous experiences with my wife because it just seems tacky to do so. She had her experiences, I had mine, they're in the past and I see no point in either of us bringing it up. I don't want to know what this guy did, or that guy did...and I assume she doesn't want to know what this girl did or that girl did.

It's not because we're prudes, it's not because we're ashamed that we "didn't wait", it's because it's just tacky. No more, no less. It's really not hard to do. I've been with my wife for about 13 years now, and never once has a past experience been on the tip of my tongue.

Now, the fact that she smiles "to possibly hold back a cry" is equally bizarre to me. So long as the past experiences were consensual, she ought feel absolutely no shame or embarrassment about them - and (as weird as this may sound) - I think it's incumbent upon you to make sure that she doesn't walk around beating herself up over things that happened ages ago. That means - "while I don't want to hear about it, because it's just tacky to talk about those things with your current partner, your past made you who you are, and that's the person I love. You ought feel no shame about any of it." And leave it at that.

I was going to get to a similar place a slightly different way, but I agree in principle. I think part of the reason, perhaps subconsciously, she keeps bringing it up is because she understands your reaction as you haven't fully accepted her as your beloved despite her flaws. Your insecurity is fueling hers, I think. (This is easy to say, maybe hard to do) but accept it and move past it.

 

[MarieMarie89]

Did you ask her?

I'm not sure why she does it. I would like to know more about how you have explained to her specifically that this bothers you. I had to tell my husband specifically not to mention anything that has to do with him and past women because it makes me uncomfortable and I don't even want to imagine him with other women in the past. Although I know it happened i dont like to even think abut it because it makes me uncomfortable.

 

[DZoolander]

When I was a kid (lol - well - in my late teens/early 20's. I guess I'm old now so I call myself a "kid" at that age) - I had a long term relationship with this girl. She was the first girl I was ever with, my first real girlfriend, the girl I lost my virginity to, etc. Ended up marrying her later, and divorcing her, but that's another story.

She was my first, but I wasn't her first. She'd been with 9 people before me...and to be honest...that bit of info really bugged me. For a while, in the formative part of our relationship, it's probably fair to say it consumed a ton of my thoughts. I remember going to college and sitting in my lecture hall consumed by the number "9". I'd look to the front of the room and count out 9 people - and think to myself "that's the number of people that have had sex with her". I'd be extra sensitive to any information that I felt could give me more info. Like I could figure out little details of her past experiences and piece them together...and it really bugged me.

For months and months I was distracted constantly by that stuff. I remember going to the mall and Christmas shopping with her - and having crappy stuff cross my mind about her. I remember a weird form of jealousy. All sorts of unhealthy feelings.

But one day I realized there was NOTHING healthy about continuing to entertain that line of thought. Either I was going to stay with her and learn to accept things that could not change (and be okay with them) - or else I had to go. I chose to stay, and learned to put it out of my mind.

In retrospect, it was kinda for naught and I probably should have just left (lol), but I wouldn't have learned a good life lesson at the time...which is that we rarely analyze ourselves objectively...we should not judge others by the (often) erroneous beliefs we have about our own motivations...and that focusing on the past of someone we're supposed to love is in no way productive because it cannot be changed.

What I mean by the first part is - it was unfair for me to judge her as being "of easy virtue" because she had been with more people than me - because I wasn't a virgin for some noble reason. I simply wasn't a hit with the ladies when I was a teenager. If I could have had sex with 50 people, I would have had sex with 50 people. That's being honest. Sure, I might have built up this whole "I'm saving myself for the right one and sex ought mean something" mantra in my mind - but did I really believe that? In all honesty - no. It's kind of like that old fable about the fox and the apple tree. It's best to learn to disdain something that you likely aren't gonna get. That's really what was going on.

So, wasn't my criticism of her in a sense sort of a weird jealousy over her simply having more opportunity? And how righteous is that? People really make an effort to see themselves in a good light - and it's often fictional - so it's unfair to judge others in that context.

I liked that lesson.

 

[mkgal1]

She said she doesn’t want to walk on eggshells around me though.

Wait a minute. A lot of what you posted about what was said between the two of you sounds kind and lovely.....but this seems a little off. Is she suggesting that she believes it's "walking on eggshells" to censor herself from describing previous sexual encounters? That's not "walking on eggshells "....that's just common courtesy (especially after you've pointed out that it hurts you and raises your insecurity).

Are there other things you've expressed to her that bother you that she dismisses and continues to do?

 

[OK Jeff]

When I was a kid (lol - well - in my late teens/early 20's. I guess I'm old now so I call myself a "kid" at that age) - I had a long term relationship with this girl. She was the first girl I was ever with, my first real girlfriend, the girl I lost my virginity to, etc. Ended up marrying her later, and divorcing her, but that's another story.

She was my first, but I wasn't her first. She'd been with 9 people before me...and to be honest...that bit of info really bugged me. For a while, in the formative part of our relationship, it's probably fair to say it consumed a ton of my thoughts. I remember going to college and sitting in my lecture hall consumed by the number "9". I'd look to the front of the room and count out 9 people - and think to myself "that's the number of people that have had sex with her". I'd be extra sensitive to any information that I felt could give me more info. Like I could figure out little details of her past experiences and piece them together...and it really bugged me.

For months and months I was distracted constantly by that stuff. I remember going to the mall and Christmas shopping with her - and having crappy stuff cross my mind about her. I remember a weird form of jealousy. All sorts of unhealthy feelings.

But one day I realized there was NOTHING healthy about continuing to entertain that line of thought. Either I was going to stay with her and learn to accept things that could not change (and be okay with them) - or else I had to go. I chose to stay, and learned to put it out of my mind.

In retrospect, it was kinda for naught and I probably should have just left (lol), but I wouldn't have learned a good life lesson at the time...which is that we rarely analyze ourselves objectively...we should not judge others by the (often) erroneous beliefs we have about our own motivations...and that focusing on the past of someone we're supposed to love is in no way productive because it cannot be changed.

What I mean by the first part is - it was unfair for me to judge her as being "of easy virtue" because she had been with more people than me - because I wasn't a virgin for some noble reason. I simply wasn't a hit with the ladies when I was a teenager. If I could have had sex with 50 people, I would have had sex with 50 people. That's being honest. Sure, I might have built up this whole "I'm saving myself for the right one and sex ought mean something" mantra in my mind - but did I really believe that? In all honesty - no. It's kind of like that old fable about the fox and the apple tree. It's best to learn to disdain something that you likely aren't gonna get. That's really what was going on.

So, wasn't my criticism of her in a sense sort of a weird jealousy over her simply having more opportunity? And how righteous is that? People really make an effort to see themselves in a good light - and it's often fictional - so it's unfair to judge others in that context.

I liked that lesson.

I went through some of this as well. To make my thoughts even more irrational though, I wasn’t a virgin either. In fact I’d been with more than she had. This was a fact that relieved us both when the topic came up, but that’s another irrational topic. Several years into our marriage I finally began to understand what intimacy was. I began to experience sex as God intended. Then this petty jealousy began to enter my mind. Sex prior to her had been for my own amusement. But she’d been in three serious relationships. So in crept this thought that she’d aready experienced this level of closeness with other men. It’s something i was eventually able to arrest, and it didn’t make sense to me at the time. But none the less, there it was. The conclusion I’ve finally come to understand is just how potentially destructive unmarried sex can be for years to come. If only we’d all known this in our youth.