A
male
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:Have I lost perspective on my wife's sexual past?When we first started dating, we told each other about our past. I had a 2 yr relationship. She had dated in high school, and did some heavy petting. Then just a month before we met, she dated a guy that just wanted to use her. The dated for a couple weeks then they had oral sex twice - a little rough/forced - and one time they had intercourse - so she lost her virginity to a guy she barely knew, he did not ask her - she did not stop him - though she regrets it now. After the three sexual encounters he no longer wanted to see her. However, she met with him one more time to break up. Then she and I met - she was 18 and I was 19. She told me that she was physically attracted to him, had oral sex 5-6 times, and that they were disappointed when they saw each other and did not fool around. She said he got her "good and ready" before sex, and that it made her feel like a women, that the stars were out, etc. Then we went to a party where she introduced me to him - having said how great he was. I felt very angry and jealous. It was not until after we were married that she changed her story to what I explained at the beginning of this note. She said that oral was rough after I met him, and so she did not want to do some things with me for a long time. She never said she was physically attracted to me - just that I was a nice gental guy and that she fell in love for the 1st time with me. I am having trouble believing her. I compaired my self unfavorably to this guy - even though it is clear not that he only had one thing on his mind. She blamed her self for what happened - and I have recently tried to tell her that it was more his fault for using her and she should not let it bring her down. Yet I also deep down feel that she should have stopped him, and not been duped by someone so fast. It never made sense to me that the time with him was so great - but she moved on to me so quick. The girl I met did not fit with those actions. She was naive, sweet and innocent. She did not know how to kiss, or anything else for that matter. She has had a lot of difficulty expressing her love for me in actions or words - so this has made it difficult for me to believe that she loves me. We have very good sex, yet she never initiates it, and will never talk to me on an intimate level though I have tried to do so, and have asked her many times. This always ends in a fight and her being defensive and me getting angry and jelous - how can I get out of this pattern of feeling loved when we make love, and without any other good feelings of love - ending up back thinging about her ex - and wishing that had never happened? Now I am starting to have it impact our sex life as well - not wanting her to do things she did with him. Help - advice please.
View related questions:
fell in love, her ex, jealous, oral sex, sex life, sexual past Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
reader, anonymous, writes (29 January 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionGood points - I have gotten to the point now where I have told her I have compassion for her, and that I forgive her and she needs to forgive herself and forget --- making sure she does not view herself as a bad person. We are taking steps for her to make sure she is an equal partner in the marriage as well - for example, having equal decision making with our money. Thanks again for all the great advice
A
male
reader, Yos  +, writes (29 January 2009):
 I would advise being cautious with how you show your sympathy and support to your wife. You can end up reinforcing her negative view of herself and her behaviour. Your impulse to get her to blame the guy (and not herself) is very positive in this regard, in that it allows her to obviate her own blame.
At the same time, it seems like you're both stuck in a loop where you keep on bring these things up over and over, and it's damaging both of you. You might be better off by helping each other when these things come up by changing the subject, rather than digging into it more. If you see her going to that place, pull her out and take her somewhere else. She can do the same for you. Change the subject to something positive and forward-looking.
You're never going to be able to change what happened. And no amount of rationalization is going to make either of you feel good about it. The best situation you can end up in is one where you no longer think about it or let it be part of your lives. That means both of you letting go of this, and agreeing to yourselves and with each other that you won't focus on it, dwell on it nor continue to let it be a cross to bear.
...............................
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (29 January 2009): Well, women and men see/feel things differently. She was naive and bought into the Lie that if you're not sexual- you're a prude or less than a woman. Then it's over and he's gone. no tenderness, no holding each other, no love. You're protective nature wants to throttle the guy, but we just want to erase it ever happened. That's where your compassion will draw her to you...and a rush of new feelings. Since this has carried on for sooo long, I'm sorry to say she won't change in 1 day, but one night she will look at you different, and want to take her love for you to a deeper level.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (28 January 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionTo the person that wrote "I think I know a little how she feels. Her 1st experiences of sexuality were impersonal, crude, false feelings of love. She felt guilt and violated -of her own choosing- so that makes it worse. "
I hope you will write again - my wife totally blames her self and feels she is a bad person - I have told her I am compassionate for her - but I think she should be mad for being Duped by this guy that just wanted hit and run sex. And advice on how I can help her?
...............................
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (25 January 2009): so what she slept with someone else before you were in a relationship with you? she has not done anything wrong. you are the man she chose to marry. your her husband. if you are having doubts to whether you can trust her you need to see a therapist otherwise your feelings will accumulate and you will start to see problems that dont exist and this could ruin your marriage. it is unlikely thats she is cheating on you.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (23 January 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThank you so much Gina - I appreciate it. I know in my mind that you are right. It is the best answer - to fight these bad thoughts with good ones. I am inspired by you and appreciate you taking the time and understanding how you can build your own version of the past and relive painful thoughts if you let them get a way from you. It is obsessive and destructive. I am going to start making a list of things that are positive about the relationship and try to use them to stop the thoughts once they are triggered. I wish you all the best.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (23 January 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionWell today the relationship took a step backwards - my wife was talking about how quick I got her pregnant when her period was just completing - a few days after actually. This brought back the memory to me of her telling me how she had unprotected sex her 1st time with this other guy, because her period was just getting over so she could not get pregnant. She knew he had had sex with other people - but did not think of STDs or getting pregnant!! It is so hard to leave this in the past and deal with references that trigger these bad thoughts!! why!!! How am I supposed to deal with them
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (23 January 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionTRUCK - I think it will be better for you, as it has been for me - to believe her. Otherwise, trust issues will grow in every aspect of your relationship. I am at a point now where I need to have her and I both drop the resentments and forgive each other for the immature way we handled this sensitive topic. And now that I understand the situation - have some compassion for her. She feels bad about misleading me for her own selfish reasons - but we need to focus on the present. My biggest issue now is trying to get images out of my head when we make love. Good luck to us both
...............................
A
male
reader, TRUCK +, writes (23 January 2009):
Some of these responses from some of the woman on here are absolutely insane. I dont think this guy deserves a lecture. He is the one whos having serious intimate issues with her becouse of several hours of bad choies she made with another guy. Thats really not fair to him, that he is expected to understand and know how to deal with the situation. I dont think lecturing he needs to go to counseling is gonna solve anything. Becouse she is the one thats letting it effect there intimacy. And of course the effects of that are causing him to resent her and at that point maybe it becomes his problem by the actions he shows her and the way he deals with it, making it worse. If anything they both need to go to counseling together so they can both understand. On a real response Its unfortanate what your going through. How she wasnt up front in the beginning and misled you. I dont know why woman are that way. The story always changes after you get together with them. Before me and my wife met she had sex with roughly 4or 5 guys. Im still not confident it wasnt more. claiming she never orgasmed with any of them and Saying I was the first. Acting like sex was just something to do for the guys and she didnt get any enjoyment out of it. Whatever went on with these encounters ill never know and it has effected our sexual relationship. When we innitialy met it was great and she was pusing her past feelings aside. Now everything has surfaced and im expected to just deal with her feeling like sex is bad, be understanding and do this forever as shes not willing to get help or go to counseling as a couple. Of course every time an argument comes up such as you mentioned its my fault and it only makes things worse and worse. This is in no way your fault and you better just get used to her actions cause trying to fix it will only make it worse.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (23 January 2009): Thank you for understanding.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (22 January 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionTo the reader that asked if I feel compassion - the answer is now YES. And I feel awful about being so selfish and imature for so long. I was more focused on wishing she was a virgin and that she said NO and Stopped the guy - in reality I agree with you that I should feel compassion for her. She was duped - she was too trusting, and yet in the end these are characteristics that I love about her when she is with me. I feel very guilty as I should about this. I am sure I made matters much worse rather than better and all I can do now is beg for a chance to let us both but it behind us - and have her understand that I do not hold it against her - I feel like quite a selfish jerk!
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (22 January 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionTime doe not heal all wounds - any advice that is more specific about what to do to help me would be appreciated. Thanks again for the feedback - sexual paranoia, trust issues - fear of abandonment. They are new views you are sharing that I am open to addressing. I thank you all that can appreciate how real the obsessiveness can be.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (22 January 2009): I think I know a little how she feels. Her 1st experiences of sexuality were impersonal, crude, false feelings of love. She felt guilt and violated -of her own choosing- so that makes it worse. You were the real deal for her, so it's sad you bring up that ugly past.
If you EVER want her to explore some of your deep desires, you need to Never bring that up in arguments. Feel Compassion for what she went through, please. Have you ever told her you do? There's no moving on if you don't. She hasn't healed because you keep opening up the wound.
...............................
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (22 January 2009): 32year, 365 days a year, sixty minutes a hour, sixty seconds a minute... do the maths... she spent a couple of hours with this guy, but you have spent most of your married life thinking about him. Your the one who has been sexually intimate with this guy, you live with him, you think about him all the time. Your wife spent a couple of hours with him and then walked away. What a waste of a life, this guy has always been stuck in your marriage, because you have kept him there. Book an appointment with a counsellor and find some way to divorce him and let him go. I feel sorry for you, you didn't even get the pleasure, but your obsessed with this guy from over 30years ago.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (22 January 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionOk I am bound to get more grief from this but I ofcourse want your advice - all the feedback from you all has been great and respectful and insightful and I thank you so much. I must say one thing that may shock you - my wife told me the truth about her past 2 weeks ago. We have been together for 32 yrs, married for 27, and have two wonderful children in their twenties. We have grown apart - and I do not want this to end in devorce now that we are living in an empty nest. I must also comment that yes I have been resentful - but I also had us renew our vows at 10 yrs, and again at 20 yrs - with friends and family present. I have given her 4 engagement rings - each progressively larger, and each one given along with a new marriage proposal. My wife says she loves me and does not know how to express it because her parents were loving to them, but never showed affection to each other in front of the kids. She is a very up beat person, beautiful, and our sex life is unbelieveable - so their are many positive things to remember. My biggest pain is the thoughts of having been rather mean to her over her not showing me love and then thinking of the past and my jelousy. I ended up going off and doing my own things lots of the time for the last 7 years - every time I try to get close, the demons come back - thoughts of her with another, coupled with thoughts of how she was rather weak on responding to my attempts to show her love. Let me goive you an example. We were traveling to see her parents at christmas one year - so I planned a surprise: I bought a big diamond engagement ring (the kind she wanted) and took her to the steps of the church where we were married and proposed to her with the new ring. She was nice about it but later that night she looked closely at it and the paper work on it (cost was $13000.) and asked that I return it because it was poor quality. I was crushed and we has an argument - I of course accused her of not loving her and brought up the past before me - why dont you go back to him - etc. I can tell you 50 stories like this and it Has to stop.
...............................
A
male
reader, agtorange +, writes (22 January 2009):
 You should believe her when she says how she feels.
If she didn't mean it you wouldn't be her husband.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (22 January 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThank you Gina - I am sure in my heart that you are right. My wife has said that I am the first and only man she had loved with her heart and sole, mind and body. I know this is unhealthy and I will stop any further discussion of it with her. The hard part is forgetting it and not being reminded during love making, or when we are apart. We are working on expressing love to each other in ways we want to - I interviewed her to make a list of things she likes me to say or do -any thing from little like making her coffee to big, like buying her a diamond. She did the same with me. So we can look at each others lists and surprise each other. When we have tried this in the past it did not last long, and then my "demon" thoughts would come back to destroy my happiness with this woman. I can only guess that this distructivness is from an insecure childhood. I think you are correct that I have a fear of losing her to someone - but she has never given me any reason to believe that - so it is coming from me and my insecurities - though she has not reinforced positive loving supportive reassuring statements until very recently. This has gone on for way too long. I am trying very hard to forgive her for not knowing how to show me love, and for glorifying her past experience with me initially then letting it go for years before telling me the real truth. I am sure she wanted it to appear as a good experience - but do to the timing and her not saying anything positive about me - it has been districtive to my and hence our marriage.
...............................
A
female
reader, birdynumnums  +, writes (22 January 2009):
 If you were abused by a parent and your first girlfriend, that you lost your virginity with, cheated on you, then I'd say it was a reasonable thing to think that you are having trust issues.
Jealousy and control issues can come up in any relationship, but I'm thinking that it's your level of comfort because you can't trust or have faith in her that are triggering these feelings.
If you read back your own words, you and she talk like best friends... That's a relationship that EVERYONE wants in a marriage. All the rest of the issues seem to come up out of your own fear and mistrust, not stemming from her, but from your past. If you can't get a handle on this, you might want to talk it out with a therapist.
You can't change the past, and you can't change other people. The only thing that you can change is yourself.
The fact that she is undemonstrative is probably part of her make-up, or it could relate to how she feels about her OWN past as well, but Honey, She married you! No woman enters into a marriage unless she wants to be with You! It may well be that her own trust make her reticent to be demonstrative about her feelings. If it's just her nature, You may wind up being the "romantic" one in the relationship, and frankly, there's nothing wrong with that! (and We women out here are all jealous of her!, BTW...)
I suspect that if you clear up your intimacy and trust issues by having a sounding board, like a therapist, you will start putting so much pressure on your wife and your marriage and start accepting that she loves you right back. The secret of a happy marriage isn't finding the right person, it's being the right person for your partner. You truly love another when you are always thinking of their happiness even before your own, not putting them up on a pedestal and having such high expectations of them that they are bound to fall off of it. After all, no one is perfect!
When you think about ALL the people whom you have loved and have been drawn to in your life, it's often their foibles and flaws that truly make them human and approachable. Life is too short to be wasted, and you may be making more of these things and creating them problems that could be damaging what sounds like a pretty darned good basis for a marriage, so get to work and find someone to talk this out with! Sounds like you are a lucky man, and everyone needs a little help now and then! XXX
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (22 January 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks for the feed back - I am trying some things to get the images out of my head - like things she told me that my competitive male ego like. She said she never was aroused before me, no orgasms, no true love commection, so I have a lot of 1sts. But I then feel guilty for nearly rejoicing in that her experience was a bad one - I think that is only because the timing of it was so fast (a few weeks) and that it came just a few weeks before we met. We dated for a couple yrs before marriage - and of course any fights we had - this came up. I know this is not rational thinking - but you are right, I have worries that are irrational about this. I suspect I do not know how far to take her off a pedistal. I want to love her completely - but now I am afraid to let go completely, and my mind drags me back to thoughts of her going down on another guy - my not being "any better than that" that she is not doing anything with me she did not do with him - and the worse pitfall is asking any questions - the more detail I get the more I use it against my self when I get depressed about our relationship. I have at least recognized that and do not ask questions. Of course, when we have discussed it she has just felt bad about her self for doing what she did - we both wish we had met each other before any others. I do try to rationalize that my 1st sexual experience was with a virgin, we both lost our virginity together. And after two years she broke it off, after cheating on me - and you know - those memories of the 1st time mean absolutely Nothing to me. I have told my wife that the 1st time I made love with her was like being a virgin - since it was all so new, (She is blonde, my ex was a brunette) and she was so responsive to my touch (my ex was kind of a 5 mins then its over and she was board). I will add that my parents were mentally abusive to me (mom gave love conditionally, dad pretty much ignored me most of my life), and physically abusive to my sister. So I am sure I have intimacy issues that are manifesting themselves here. That knowledge does not seem to stop me from thinking and bring up images in my head of my wife with someone else - and making me crazy. I also will tell you that my wife has been a very good positive person, and does not ever make me jelious or flirt with anyone. This is good as I am overprotective of her. She danced with someone once, and I got very angry - I blamed her not him. So I hope this does not come across as a control issue - she sees friends, comes and goes as she pleases - has her own money, etc. It is just that I do not like to see any guy near her. Maybe I am objectifying her and placing her too much on a pedistal - but it seems to me that if I reduce her status, that it will be hard for me to be completely intimate and open with her. Do I want to honor her too much? I love to shower her with gifts - but then I feel remorse because she does not know how to express her love back to me. I rarely am told that she loves me, she never buys me thoughtful gifts, - mainly we talk like we are best friends - not romantic lovers and I want much more than that in my marriage.
...............................
A
male
reader, Yos +, writes (22 January 2009):
This is a common problem that comes up a lot here. You can search under 'partners past' and similar to find posts about it. Also look under my post history, and also troubledtoomuch.
Here is a prior post about it, also containing links to many more. Good luck, and post again here also based on what you find.
http://www.dearcupid.org/question/how-do-i-cope-with-my-husbands-reaction.html
...............................
A
male
reader, Uncle Rantsome  +, writes (22 January 2009):
 okay man
you need to back track some of the principalitys here.
im not exactly sure how old you are but by the sounds of things your really young to have been married,and thats not a knock at your marraige its a question u need to ask yourself.
if you were both so eager and happy to bind your lives to each other at such a young age then id say this speaks leaps and bounds of her love for you and yours for her.
what your dealing with here is sexual paranoia which is so fuckin common in men because of our competitive nature.
we often ponder if someone had a bigger cock then us,or if it was more world moving with someone else,but man the past is the past you are her present and future.
if you dont accept that you were both sexually active before one another you may find you and her are in the past aswell.
what matters more to you man your wife,or her past.
move on now put it out of your mind because paranoia and jealousy will end a relationship quicker then cheating and wife battery.
both you and she have made the conscious descision to spend the rest of your lives together n thats whats important.
u ever need to chat man u jus come n find me
good luck much love
uncle rantsome
...............................
|
