Ending relationship because I am disgusted by girlfriends past
by strugglingforward » Tue Mar 31, 2015 5:47 am
My girlfriend and I have been together for 2 years. We”ve had our struggles, but we have loved each other dearly. Recently, she revealed to me all of her sexual history which she had kept secret up until now. It may not be mature of me, but I feel too disgusted and infuriated to continue with the relationship. I just don”t see myself getting over this.When she told me, the pain cut so deeply into me, it was like nothing I”d ever felt before. I realized that I have been living a lie. I”ve based so much of my “love” for her, on being “MY” woman. But is that kind of love even authentic? How could I have so much jealousy? I don”t think that is true love. I don”t want to be in a relationship where I am destroying her because of these judgemental emotions I feel.I feel so angry… I feel like exploding and calling her words like “slut” and “whore”, but I”ve kept silent, to control myself. I am seriously considering ending it now. I feel terrified. I have never lived through a breakup before. Please, I would appreciate any help in making it through this difficult time. I want to move on to live a happy, normal life.
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Re: Ending relationship because I am disgusted by girlfriends past
by kierkegaard » Tue Mar 31, 2015 12:57 pm
I want you to know that this is a common problem, and even has a term – “retroactive jealousy”.I”m brand new to the forum but in the marriage forum I frequent, retroactive jealousy posts get slammed all the time – except for the men that are going through it. I”d say 95% of women and 80% of men simply don”t get it. For those of us that do, it just flat-out sucks.A few points about it:- When in the relationship did you guys start talking about your pasts? Often this starts so early that it is at the friend level, and the details are glossed over (or omitted). Then, any white lies start to build into a framework of deception. Not saying it is right, but just observing that typically this is how things go. I think to some degree women are socialized to never “kiss and tell”.- Exactly how bad is her history? And also, do you have any history to balance it? The worst cases I”ve read about involve two religious people who go into marriage as virgins, and later it turns out the woman is actually “reformed” after dozens of sexual encounters and was coached to lie about it.- 2 years may seem like a lot but be grateful you aren”t even more involved. In one case the guy was married for about 30 years and several kids, before learning his wife has some amazing number, like 50 guys. He described the experience as basically blacking out as she told him.- If you decide to stay in the relationship, make sure she is telling you EVERYTHING now. Very often there are multiple reveals over a number of years, which not only bring fresh waves of pain, but multiple instances of lying.On a practical note you”ll have to weigh your emotions with the fact that nearly all women have a past. So just make sure if you end the relationship that you are prepared to deal with someone else”s past.As far as I know, no guy has ever really gotten over retroactive jealousy. It plants mental pictures that stick. The pain will fade over the years but I don”t think there is a cure for it.
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Re: Ending relationship because I am disgusted by girlfriends past
by strugglingforward » Tue Mar 31, 2015 5:18 pm
Thank you for your response kierkgaard. I find I can relate to the points you”ve made. In the beginning of our relationship she omitted much about her experience. I began seeing inconsistencies in her stories, and questioned her about it, so it”s just now that she”s revealed everything.Her history is not that terrible… at least from what she”s told me. I”ll have to clarify with her when I am calm and ready to talk. But it still really hurts me. To me it”s extremely terrible. She was with a total of about 4 guys, and probably tried everything with them… She built up this illusion that she was really only committed to me. I”ve never felt a pain like this my whole life.Right now I”ve decided to try staying in the relationship. Despite all of this pain I am somehow moving forward… The situation is inevitable.
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Re: Ending relationship because I am disgusted by girlfriends past
by kierkegaard » Wed Apr 01, 2015 6:25 am
Best of luck! Now for your sanity try to not dig into details (it can be tempting); and for her understand she may not “get” your struggle so unfortunately you can”t lean on her for any support. This is truly a men”s struggle, and an uncalculated casualty of sexual liberation.
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Re: Ending relationship because I am disgusted by girlfriends past
by xdude » Wed Apr 01, 2015 7:25 pm
Hey strugglingforward,I concur with the comment above, try to avoid digging into discussing the details of her past relationship. As kierkegaard wrote, yes it can be tempting, but you are mostly just hurting yourself by doing so.That written, a few thoughts that might help you feel better -All relationships carry an element of risk, and it”s our nature to factor in a person”s past into the gamble of how the future will turn out.You are not alone in feeling as you do. Maybe someone else” threshold is different, but a lot of people have a sense of “too promiscuous”. Could be their sense of what goes over their personal line is something greater than yours, but it”s common enough to hear men and women comment on others who they view as being overly promiscuous.To continue the thought, different people have a different sense of what is too promiscuous. There is really no point in arguing for some objective truth either. You need to be honest with yourself about what you are okay with, and it”s a good idea to factor in your own past. Is your expectation of her in line with expectations for self? In some cultures promiscuity may be thought of as a crime; in others, it”s not. Still, it”s understandable why someone with a promiscuous past leads us to wonder if that”s an indicator of what”s to come in the future.Your logical mind knows that as we grow older the odds increase we will have had past relationships. She, you, everyone. Few if any of people intend to hurt a future partner (a relationship that doesn”t yet exist) by engaging in a relationship now. In other words, her past wasn”t meant to hurt you. How she treats you in your now is what”s important.And…it sounds like the kind thing to do is for her not to talk about it. Just be careful about giving her double messages; don”t tell me it hurts, but do tell me I need to know. That”s just putting her in a no win situation, and setting yourself up to feel hurt. You are aware you have some insecurities. It”s fine, everyone does. Maybe something to work on over time, maybe not, but there is nothing to be gained by trying to hurt yourself in a area that you know is painful.
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Re: Ending relationship because I am disgusted by girlfriends past
by SummerNight » Fri Apr 03, 2015 11:53 am
I don”t think the fact that she has had a rich sexual history is that important. I think what the problem is is YOUR social conditioning. You have been raised to believe that her sexual past is something that is disgraceful and love is something holy etc. That”s not how things work in the real world, YES.. a lot of women have had rich sexual pasts, NO, it does not make her a slut or anything. Some people have more active sex drive than others, that”s it. If you are truly a man and love her then this is something you should get over. Nothing has changed between you, only your social conditioning is what is killing you inside. Let go of the narrow beliefs


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Re: Ending relationship because I am disgusted by girlfriends past
by alphawhale » Mon Apr 06, 2015 8:17 pm
I don”t have any answers for you but wanted to let you know I”m going through (kind of) the same thing. Not really over sex, but I”m definitely both jealous and … put off by my girlfriend”s past. For me, it”s more insecurity because she”s done and been so much more than I feel like I have and I don”t feel like I”m good enough. Maybe the real issue is insecurity in your case, too?
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Re: Ending relationship because I am disgusted by girlfriends past
by kierkegaard » Thu Apr 09, 2015 3:17 am
alphawhale wrote:I don”t have any answers for you but wanted to let you know I”m going through (kind of) the same thing. Not really over sex, but I”m definitely both jealous and … put off by my girlfriend”s past. For me, it”s more insecurity because she”s done and been so much more than I feel like I have and I don”t feel like I”m good enough. Maybe the real issue is insecurity in your case, too?
I think this is largely (though not entirely) a men”s problem. The thing is this – it is pretty tough to gain the same kind of experiences that comes to women unless you are an alpha, aggressive male (and these guys apparently REALLY get around and impact the lives of so many women). I”ve had some pretty baffling conversations with my sister about relationships…we are essentially the same person in a male and a female version – and relationships have just been so easy and almost cheap to her, where for me they have been an epic struggle.
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Re: Ending relationship because I am disgusted by girlfriends past
by breadbox7 » Wed May 13, 2015 3:06 am
She had those relationships in the past, when you were not her partner. Let”s just put it like this, imagine you do break up with this girl, and then let”s say eventually you meet someone new, someone great who you love deeply. Then you happen to bring up that you had a relationship with someone else and she says “I can”t handle this, it changes our relationship because you”ve had a deep connection with another human being instead of having known from the time of your birth you”d end up with me”. You can”t expect people to live their lives for you instead of themselves, and you especially can”t expect them to do it before they even know you exist! And your relationship is not really any different now that you know about her past, only your perspective is.Anyway, jealousy is very hard to control and first of all you need to let yourself feel it. You just also need to make sure you”re working towards fully accepting over time that your girlfriend isn”t a “slut” just because she”s had connections with other human beings before (were they all exclusively sexual or are you mad she”s loved other people as well?). I think maybe you should break up with her, and it”s good of you to recognize that you aren”t in a place to be in this relationship right now, especially if you”re thinking about being aggressive about something that isn”t her fault or an unhealthy thing for her to have done. But recognizing that your anger is unfounded is a big step in moving forward and working through your problems! Maybe you can resume the relationship if you work this stuff out with yourself, and I”m sure you”ll feel less insecure after you do as well.As for being scared to exit a relationship, it is definitely a scary thing! But you need to work on you right now, and it”s okay to take some time to look after yourself. If you can work through the jealousy issues you”ll have gained some great relationship experience yourself and you”ll be an even better partner next time you get involved with someone. Hope this helps!
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Re: Ending relationship because I am disgusted by girlfriends past
by John_A » Wed May 13, 2015 3:51 am
I have to say just by reading every post in here so far even I, as a virgin at 23, feel extremely jealous by proxy or just in general. Hearing about how it”s just some easy thing to come to women really worries me if I will feel the same thing OP is feeling despite logical thinking, hearing about it is like “whoa, hold on a second”.
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