A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:I've been married 3 years and my husband and I have a great relationship based on trust on we don't keep secrets. I was recently contacted on Facebook by Erica, a high school friend. When we were in school, we were promiscuous. We did girl on girl, swapped boyfriends, had 3 ways, some wild stuff. Back then, I started dating a great guy who decided he didn't want to be part of that, and we ended up breaking up over it. When this happened, I realized what I was doing wasn't good so I stopped living that lifestyle. I had boyfriends, and we had sex, but none of the wilder stuff Erica and I did.Erica and I talked about what we did on Facebook and my husband saw it and now he's upset. He thinks I hid something from him. He knew I wasn't a virgin when we got married, just didn't know how wild I got. I don't like to talk about that part of my life because as I got older, I more and more realized it wasn't a good way to live and didn't want to think about it.Now it seems like there's a rift between us and I don't know what to do to heal it. I need advice so we can heal from this and move on. I don't want to lose a good marriage over mistakes made as a teen.
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male
reader, SeattleWill +, writes (15 August 2018):
You failed to tell you husband about you very promiscious past. You deprived him of the chance to decide for himself if he is willing to spend the rest of his life with your sexual baggage. He may not have married you. I personally would not marry someone who participated in threesomes, swapped boyfriends and other “wild” sexual activities. Deal breakers. Communicating with a former lover on Facebook is also a deal breaker. He may well divorce you. He will never look at you the same way again. You have destroyed his life.
He may forgive you, but you must live with the consequences of your actions.
A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (19 March 2017): There are some really good inputs here from the other contributors to your question. If I may, I'd like to add two keys ones:1. What you did prior to your marriage, is your business. If you don't want to share it, that is your call. However, the real question is, did you lie or misrepresent your past? To be clear, not fully disclosing your experiences is one thing. But did you directly misrepresent or lie about your experiences or partners (example, did you provide a number of partners or share the types of experiences, when in fact there were more?). There's a big difference in my book between choosing not to disclose everything you've done, and lieing.2. Married couples should not friend former lovers on Facebook,unless your partner is aware of the relationship, and consents to it. It can cause far too many problems. Even if there there is no wrong intent with such a Facebook connection years later, it can cause real problems centered around mistrust.My wife lied about how many partners she had prior to our marriage. It wasn't a case of her not fully disclosuring. We had the talk when we were engaged about how many previous partners we each had. She conveyed a very detailed account of her two. I didn't demand that she tell me, but I did ask. A number of years into our marriage I found out that she had at least two more. I know a number of people who she went to high school with and found out without asking. I suspect now there even more between then and college, but what I don't know hopefully doesn't hurt me. I found out exactly who they were. I didn't even raise it with her, until some time later I saw she was friended with both of these guys on Facebook (my wife and I are friended on Facebook). That's when I asked her about them. At first she denied it. She had previously introduced these guys to me as old friends she hung out with. But, eventually the truth came out. Her attitude over it really pissed me off. It's not that she had these experiences, because I certainly had my share. But that she explicitly lied about the matter. I did demand that she unfriend them. She resisted at first, indicating that they are meaningless to her. I believe that's true, but, they are meaningful to me. I have had numerous ex-lovers over the years send me a friend invite on FB. I have ignored them all. Even though these women mean nothing to me now, I would never do it out of consideration for my wife. And, if I was ever going to change my intent on this, I would ask my wife if its ok first. I'm not trying to be self-righteous here, and I've made many mistakes of my own. But, it can't do you any good, and is it really worth it? What do you really care if you don't friend such a person? Your marriage is far more important than establishing a curiosity connection on FB.I wish you well as you work through this. Whatever level of conversation you have with your husband, think carefully about exactly what you want to tell him about your past. It's one thing to have made a poor choice previously. But don't make the same mistake twice. Kudos to you about changing yourself into what you view is a better person. We all have things in our past that we regret, but the ability to improve ourselves.
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A
female
reader, aunt honesty  +, writes (16 March 2017):
 you both should go to a counselor and talk about this openly, don't let it get to a stage where it is passed communicating with each other.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (13 March 2017): hmmmm... I'm all about the 'past is in the past' thing but I wonder if there are still some things you've not told us.Some of my mates have the strange idea that they want to marry a virgin. Of course, in today's way of life, that's a ridiculous concept, people are in relationships for longer and know more about cother than would have been the case 50 odd years ago. Sexual history teds to be a subject that's talked about.Was your husband under the impression that nothing like this had happened in your past? Could that be why he is so upset? I mean, I would be suprised if past sexual experiences have never come up in conversation once between you. If you've misinformed him in some way, then he has every right to be upset.But, it's something you've never discussed and he had no idea and never asked, then he needs to stop and maybe thank his lucky stars that you have had the experiences you have had and are willing to share your skills with him!!!
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (12 March 2017): @ BrownWolf:So it's virgin or slut, and we will make no distinctions in between? You want to apply that attitude to the husband here. Would you apply it to a woman in some other situation? Being sexually active and being promiscuous are not the same thing. People have the right to choose where their personal boundaries are. People have the right to find one attitude more attractive than another. That means your feelings for someone can change after you find out their history. That doesn't make you a bad (or weak) person.
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A
male
reader, BrownWolf  +, writes (12 March 2017):
Was you husband a virgin when you got married? If yes...okay feel bad...If no...Then he has no reason to be upset.
What you did before him, was the past. If you were still doing it now...then I can understand why any man would be upset.
Think of how stupid that is...Your husband living in YOUR past...not his.
Tell your husband to grow a pair..and make NEW moments in life with you.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (12 March 2017): Your husband may need reassuring. But he may have plain old moral objections and no amount of flattery and assurances will "fix it" for him. This is a possibility.
People who are capable of (ever) being promiscuous sometimes have a very difficult time accepting that others simply DON'T feel the same way, and it's not because of some fixable misunderstanding or "weakness" like ego or insecurity.
Different sexual boundaries & histories are more of a compatibility problem than a moral one. Does your husband go around yelling insults at random promiscuous people in public? Probably not. He just don't personally want to be partnered up with one. That is different. People are allowed to want whatever they want in a partner.
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A
male
reader, Aussie Guy  +, writes (12 March 2017):
Anonymous: You have the right not to tell your husband your past sexual history before you married him, but it should have remained a secret after your marriage. Why did you reminisce about your past sexual experiences with your friend? Are you missing the wild days? There is nothing secret on social media everything you post you should assume can be read by anyone otherwise don't post it.You need to reassure your husband that you are not looking to repeat your wild sexual experiences I assume wild means you had g^^^b^^^s as well as the other things you did. Your husband might be worried he cannot satisfy you sexually. He might also be disgusted about your sexual experiences as was your previous boyfriend.You need to have an honest conversation with him about your sexual past and also about his past. Be honest about how you now feel abut what you did etc Is Erica a good friend if so then tell her not to talk about your sexual past, or cut all ties with her. You and your husband could try counselling.Good luck for the future.
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A
female
reader, Youcannotbeserious  +, writes (12 March 2017):
 While technically what you did before you met our husband should not be relevant to your relationship, your husband has found out about it (why was he checking your Facebook?)and feels like you have kept stuff from him. Now that he knows about it, you really have no option to to sit down and discuss it with him.
Explain to him that this is a part of your past of which you are not proud. We all have things we have done which we would rather forget. Tell him you were very immature at the time and realized, quite quickly, that your behaviour was not good. Apologize for not telling him about it and be willing to answer any questions he may have. Try to understand his hurt. If you are now open and honest with him, hopefully you will move past this.
Is it a good idea to stay in contact with Erica? Why is she bringing up your past now?
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (12 March 2017): If your husband feels like you intentionally misled him about your past then your relationship is in deep shit, to put it bluntly.
People will line up to proclaim that you're right and he's wrong and he needs to get over it, blah, blah, blah . . but relationships are not business partnerships. They are emotional partnerships. You cannot reason and debate away his feelings. He cannot change his feelings about your past any more than you can change your past choices.
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A
female
reader, YouWish +, writes (12 March 2017):
 Here's the thing - I had started typing up that what you did before meeting your husband is your business and not his, until I re-read your post and need clarification on something:
Your friend Erica - is she an ex of yours?? Were you two intimate with each other?? You may have some things to answer for if you and she were reminiscing on Facebook about the sex you two had with each other or if she and you were both participants together in a threesome.
How would you feel if a hot ex-girlfriend were to contact your husband, and he carried on a bit of sexual nostalgia with her behind your back?? That would be crossing the line to hide it from him if Erica is a former sexual partner of yours.
It doesn't matter if she's a guy OR a girl. It's disloyal to your marriage, and if this took place, you have some apologies to make for hiding this contact and the nature of your friendship with Erica from him. It doesn't matter how your past played out, your honesty with your husband in the PRESENT is what matters, and if you didn't IMMEDIATELY tell your husband that this woman who you were chatting on Facebook was a past sexual partner, or you two experimented together, then he has every right to be upset at you. This is what trust is - believing that your partner is honest AND OPEN about who they're presently talking to. I've been contacted by exes before, and regardless of whether or not I responded to the attempt at contact, the first person I spoke to, even BEFORE I responded to any emails or FB messages, is my husband. Then I make sure that if he's okay with my giving a response, it's something I wouldn't mind reading TO my husband as well.
It's easy to talk about trust when there's no problem or temptation. But THIS is where trust is built, when guilt or temptation hits, and you either be honest with your husband, or you don't respond to your former sex partner online and delete her message, or both, which is the best idea!
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