# Past Sexual Partners



## meme2020 (Apr 10, 2013)

So I am not one to ask my husband about his sexual past. Numbers do not concern me and I am not the jealous type. He had a past before me and I am thankful that we met when we did. Additionally, I was and still am very close friends with two of his ex girlfriends/partners. I knew this when we began seeing each other and one woman even came to our wedding. 

This is not the problem. Two things bother me though. One- I asked my husband not to invite any past sexual partners to our wedding- I thought one was enough and we got through this because we all communicated about it. Second- I always ask him to be up front if he's slept with someone that I am going to have close interactions with. Someone perhaps I would end up befriending or sharing intimate details about my life with.

With that being said, I have been hanging out with an old "friend" of his. She came to our wedding and we have been going out for drinks and getting kinda close. We started talking about some personal stuff this evening-I brought up what it's like to be close friends with someone that slept with your husband. She almost spit out her drink and turned bright red. Of course I knew then that she had too.

When I confronted my husband he was defensive and said that he has known her since they were 15 and didn't see it fair that she not attend our wedding. He apologized for lying but turned it around on me- saying that he never asks me about these things. 

I feel really hurt. I can't even talk to him right now because I never thought he would intentionally lie to me. 

Any advice would be appreciated. Keep it clean and positive. 

Peace and Love ,
Meme


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## unbelievable (Aug 20, 2010)

You telling your husband who he can and can't invite to his wedding isn't exactly an agreement. Asking him to inform you if you get within arm's reach of one of his past sexual partners isn't an agreement, either. 
If he has an "old friend" who is female, he's either had sex with her or he's wanted to. He's a guy. Why else would a guy maintain a long, intimate, relationship with a female? 
Why would you reveal intimate secrets of your relationship with your husband to any third party? Maybe a therapist would be ok, but some other female? 
Having said all that, it was pretty stupid of him to invite a past sexual partner to his wedding and even goofier to encourage or support a close relationship between a former Miss Thang and his wife. Nothing good could come of that. 
He probably didn't mention his sexual past because it's irrelevant to his present and he knew he'd never hear the end of it. I made the mistake of running down the list to my wife years ago. Those women are history and would never cross my mind except for the fact that my wife has to mention them to me every three or four days. If I had it to do over again, when she asked me about any past sexual encounters, I would have lied like a cheap rug. A man can't just refuse to answer the question. His wife would never leave it alone. He either has to lie or answer like an idiot and pay for it the rest of his days. 
One ugly secret about guys that women may not know. We can have sex with women we don't even like....at all. We can have sex and not remember the woman's name two weeks later. The fact that a man has had sex with a woman at some point in his life doesn't imply he's in love, emotionally attached, that she's competition, or anything else.


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## meme2020 (Apr 10, 2013)

I can see your point but definitely don't agree. I've never asked for a list- I agree it would do more harm than good. However, I've been in this situation more than once--hence the request. The request for our wedding seemed like a simple one. One day and let's not have an entourage of ex lovers around.

Female relationships tend to be more intimate. You share things, you joke, you confide- it's healthy human nature. Hence the request to tell me if I'm befriending someone for whom he has a sexual past. I still would have been friends with her. I just would not say certain things. The relationship would be different. That's also pretty normal psychology.

Anyway, thanks for the reply. Any women out there with similar issues?


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## Mark Ford (Apr 7, 2013)

Like it or not, when you sleep with someone you are attached. If you believe in God, which I assume some of you don't, you are spiritually attached to them for life. You can't just go around spreading your seed and take NO responsibility for it.

Men like to call women *****s for doing such things and they certainly are but men are also *****mongerers for doing this as well. A person's value, innocence, worth and inner person is diminished each and every time they just "sleep" around.

The reason people have no morals and things that are right or wrong are hard to define today in this society is because we've "lost" ourselves and any purity of thought we might have had by keeping ourselves pure.

While I know my thoughts and beliefs which are of course supported by the Bible are CRAZY to most of you, why do you think we as a society have gone so far into depravity? 

In many ways, we now consider good evil and evil good, but yet EVERYONE today is arrogant and believes somehow they KNOW what is right just because they are who they are.


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## Tall Average Guy (Jul 26, 2011)

Seems to me you have a couple of different issues floating around her.

The first is boundaries. You have one that is entirely reasonable - you want to know if you are in regular contact with a former lover of your husband. That is a reasonable request, and one that he agreed to.

That leads to your next two issues, which are lying and communication. He agreed to your boundary, then promptly broke it and lied about it. He also failed to communicate with you about what he wants. So first, look at yourself and think about whether you have provided him a chance to respond to your boundaries. Was your statement that he can't invite any other previous lovers a request or an order? Did he have a chance to question you on it, or did you make it clear that you were on to the next topic? 

Once you look at your side of the street to see what you need to clean up, then talk to him about why you needed what you did and why his lying is an issue. His reasoning for inviting this particular girl don't sound unreasonable as an initial matter. But when he lies about it, it now sounds like a justification. It also calls into questions what else he has lied about.

As far as him not asking about these things, that is on him. This is important to you, so whether he needs to hear about them from you does not matter. However, you do need to be prepared to reciprocate if he changes his mind.


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## youkiddingme (Jul 30, 2012)

MEME, I totally relate to you. My wife has done the same thing to me. I told her that if we were ever in close contact with one of her ex lovers I wanted to know it. I think it is a fine request... a normal desire to know... and your husband did not care enough to honor your request. Do not let him slide on this. You made a simply request.... and he ignored it and deceived you. I don't know how you should respond but I totally understand your anger. I consider it a betrayal of trust.


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## norajane (Feb 7, 2012)

> I think it is a fine request... a normal desire to know... and your husband did not care enough to honor your request.


I don't know that I'd phrase it that way. People sometimes lie because they're afraid of their partner's reaction. It depends on how he thinks she would have reacted if he'd told her the truth back then especially if he thought she'd blow her top or create problems between him and a person who has been in his life since he was 15.

Lots of people try and avoid conflict. No, it's not the best way to do things, and lying to avoid conflict is certainly wrong, but it's different from "not caring enough to honor your request (demand?)." One comes from a place of fear and one comes from a place of indifference or callousness. Not the same thing.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

I would personally have no interest in knowing who someone that I was severely attached to has historically been sleeping with, or for that matter, any of their relationships sordid details. By the same token, I would fully expect that they wouldn't want to know about mine.

Now if they were closet-perverts who were sleeping with underage kids, homosexual relationships, et. al., and I subsequently found out about it later, that might well make a marked difference in whether there would be a continuence in my relationship with them!

Other than that, I don't really think that I'd want to even know the first thing regarding her past love relationships!


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## Maricha75 (May 8, 2012)

You think that's awkward? How about this....
We only had one past lover/boyfriend of mine at our wedding...for one reason, and one reason only: he is my cousin's husband. My husband knew this guy was my first, and he understood why the invitation was issued to him. Had he not been married to my cousin, he wouldn't have been invited, period. No matter how close a friend/how long we had known each other. 

Oh, and I'm the only one who has ever been with my husband, so in that respect, I can't relate. But I CAN relate to how your husband MIGHT have felt. And honestly, I agree with you... except for the possibility that an ex could be married to a close relative, there's no acceptable reason for him or her to be at your wedding/in your life... well, unless you have kids together, that is.


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## Chris Taylor (Jul 22, 2010)

A couple of things...

If the two of you AGREED about not inviting ex-lovers and forewarning before developing friendships with ex-lovers, then yes, he broke that agreement. But if you were more vague ("Boy, I'd hate to have an ex-lover at my wedding."), then you both need to communicate better.

BUT... you also say that you don't want to befriend an ex-lover because "you share things, you joke, you confide". I hope that isn't implying that you talk about confidential, intimate details of your husband/marriage with your friends. Because if you do, you are making a bigger mistake than inviting an ex-lover to the wedding.


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## Cosmos (May 4, 2012)

I think disclosure is a comparatively modern scenario. When I was younger, it wasn't information that people felt an automatic right to have, although it was assumed that a woman wouldn't have slept around... Now that many women are often as sexually active as men, however, disclosure is something that people tend to expect and, the truth is, not everyone seem to be able to deal with it.

Although a fact of life, no one (male or female) really_ likes_ to think of their partner having sex with someone else, and most certainly don't want to have their SO's ex sexual partners as friends. For this reason, I think it's best that exes remain strictly in the past and aren't introduced into new relationships.


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## Middle of Everything (Feb 19, 2012)

something to be said for being "inexperienced" prior to ones marriage I guess.

Be a blast to go down a list with a sharpie crossing names off of each others guest lists. "Nope, nope, nope, nope banged that one too, nope, nope,.........."


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## meme2020 (Apr 10, 2013)

Thanks for the advice everyone. Definitely was an agreement. I'm also friends with his ex-es and it doesn't bother me. The lying does. Just this evening I found out he also slept with his best man's wife as well. Icing on the cake.


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## C-man (Oct 23, 2012)

meme2020 - you need to figure out why his past (i.e. pre-marriage sexual partners) bothers you. Do you suspect he is cheating now?

As for his lie - that's something he's going to have to explain - but I think the "agreement" was flawed and a little bit insecure/controlling on your part. No excuse for lying - he should have objected to the "agreement" when you were discussing it in the first place or asked for exceptions with explanations.

This topic is going to poison your relationship unless you can both deal with it and settle it now vs letting it fester. 

He's got to figure out why lying was preferable to speaking honestly with you and you have to figure out why his previous partners (before he met you, I am assuming) bothered you.


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## JSX (Mar 24, 2013)

I am not sure why would a guy will tell his wife about past relationships, nothing good can come out of that! I got very close to tell my wife once when she insisted to know and I even had a drink and felt it would be ok, and I still controlled myself and did not tell her.

My official story is, I was busy at work for the past 10 years, I did not have interest in girls, I went for a coffee once with a girl or two, but never had the time to start a relationship.

Women have a bigger brain than man, and this is scientifically proven (MRI, CAT Scan, Research), and they use that brain to process emotions more than anything else, they think waaaaaaaay too much about some issues that are just irrelevant to men.

My wife keeps reminding me of some very old things, god, where does she gets this memory from? who cares what happened 5 years ago? every single cell in my body changed in the last 7 or 8 years (standard aging), it is not even you after 5 years, it is the older you 5 years ago.

Sorry, this is just from my experience, I hope it helps.


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## Odessa (Mar 28, 2013)

My issue is not like that he had partners but what sort of partners. 
I'm now in my second marriage, spent almost all my adult life in a serious relatinship and ended as a widow pretty young. My husband on the other hand had little experience and then he met this ex of his. Somehow this ex really bothers me. She clearly is not mentally stable and has a history of sleeping around, a lot. Number of hers is probably countless, including women. My understanding is that she's been going on offering free blow jobs to strangers. 
Thing that bothers me is that I somehow cannot understand why my husband married that sort of a woman and does he think that is a normal behaviour for a woman. I've never told him my figure, since it's basically both of my husbands. 
My husband divorced her because of constant fights.


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## PieceOfSky (Apr 7, 2013)

meme2020,

I keep finding bits and pieces of my ailing heart all over these forums. I just found another one.

In my case, the lying was discovered way before our wedding, maybe be for our engagement. This "we were just best friends story" one day slipped a bit on its way to becoming "we had sex one time, but I didn't enjoy it."

That hurt, because the original version was a lie.

Fast forward five years later and we are making the guest list for our very small wedding. She insist on inviting him. I insist that she doesn't. I cannot put her in my shoes, for a moment, because I have no past lovers. I don't want to be "unreasonable" --say, perhaps, because my perspective is maybe a but too "naive" having had no other partners or LTRs. And, I see that he means something to her as an old close friend (she's had few), and I don't want to deny her having people she cares about at the wedding. I don't recall whether explicitly I stated "ok, add him to the list", but he was invited, and brought his pregnant soon-to-be wife.

It hurt having him there. It hurts now thinking about it. It's one of the deeper memories I still have of that day, and it surely hinders my ability to recall the better parts of that day.

We had a small brunch the next morning with those who spent the night at the hotel. One large table, maybe 20 or 30, including our parents, siblings, and, well, him. Thinking back now, I have a hard time not thinking: well, at least there is reason to believe that he's the one she told me more or less existed out of her past of 10 that is, uhm, smaller than me. 

Great memories!

Now before any jumps in and tells me I brought it on myself, by seeking information best unsought, or by letting her walk on me, please don't. This is something I am working on in IC actively now. 

But more importantly, I don't think statements about "reasonable to be bothered by this" are all that helpful. What matters, when something is feeling bothersome, is how you deal with it inside your self and together with your partner. Insufficiently resolved, it will be toxic and accumulate over the years with many other things in sufficiently resolved.

Don't let this matter go, until you resolve it and its meaning in a healthy way and then integrate that into your life and mind.


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## aug (Aug 21, 2011)

meme2020 said:


> Thanks for the advice everyone. Definitely was an agreement. I'm also friends with his ex-es and it doesn't bother me. The lying does. *Just this evening I found out he also slept with his best man's wife as well.* Icing on the cake.


That makes at least 2 women. (Shows lack of respect for you?)

That's awkward between his best man's wife and him, isn't it? If not, then question why.

I hope his behavior is not a prediction of his future.


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## youkiddingme (Jul 30, 2012)

MEME, I said it alreadey..... but you have every right to be pissed. The issue is he is lying to you. It does not matter that others don't like the agreement. If you wanted to know about his ex lovers...and the two of you agreed on the deal.... He Betrayed your trust. He lied about something that mattered to you.

Ignore the posts from those that think you need to figure out why his past matters. You do not have psychological issues for having this desire. You are fine. 

What you do need to do is lay down the law with him about truth and honesty. If you do not have trust in your marriage...if he is not truthful... you don't have crap.


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## Melvynman (Mar 19, 2014)

meme2020 said:


> Thanks for the advice everyone. Definitely was an agreement. I'm also friends with his ex-es and it doesn't bother me. The lying does. Just this evening I found out he also slept with his best man's wife as well. Icing on the cake.


Your first line on the original posts.
"So I am not one to ask my husband about his sexual past."

Your obsessed with his past! You clearly can't handle his past and have taken it on line here looking for positive reinforcement. 

If I was married to you I would lie.


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