# Differences in romantic past.



## WhoHaveIBecome (Mar 9, 2012)

This isn't a huge deal but its something I feel like bothers me a bit. Quick background for anyone who doesn't know my story. I'm 35 (m) and I've been with my fiancee 22 (f) for over three years now. We have a 21 month old daughter together and expecting our second. We are (finally) going to get married in July. We are both very excited. 

I was previously married. Not the best husband in that marriage (to say the least) but I think I am better now. I slept with a decent number of women prior to my first marriage. Not anything abnormal or insane but very normal. I've been intimate with ten women in my life. 

I am the first (and only) man my fiancee has been with. The only other thing she has done without me is she kissed another guy when she was younger (~15/16)

I am very loyal to her and I would never cheat on her. I love her and I love our family. 

The one thing that is I get a little nervous for the future. There is a pretty big age difference between us and the fact that she hasn't been with anyone else makes me a little concerned that at some point she is going to wake up and say "I want others". This might me being paranoid or insecure. She swears she would never want to be with another guy. I'm not sure if its me reading here and elsewhere about so many cheating stories (and my own background). She has never cheated on me so that isn't a huge concern. 

I don't want an open marriage or anything like that. I know she doesn't either. On some level I actually love that she hasn't been with anyone else. I just feel bad and almost guilty for the huge difference between us. 

Am I over-thinking this? Is this a serious issue?


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## lamaga (May 8, 2012)

Yes, you're overthinking it. It's an issue, but not one you can do anything about, and you don't even know if it's an issue for her -- maybe it will be 20 years in the future, maybe it won't, but there's no percentage in worrying about that and letting those worries affect your relationship today.

Also, I think a lot of young women expect to have many fewer partners then their husbands, that's kind of the social norm. So I wouldn't spend any more time worrying about this unless you start to see a problem.

Enjoy yourself!


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## CandieGirl (Apr 27, 2011)

I don't know, if I were 22 and had only been with one man, I'd probably one day wonder...but that's just me. Good thing I ran around for 25 years before getting married! LMAO!

Don't worry about it. Treat her well, love her, be honest with her, and I'm sure you'll enjoy a lifetime of happiness together.


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## tiredwife&sahm (Jan 4, 2012)

Cross that bridge when you get to it.

She's not thinking about being with anyone now and feels confident now that she won't.Don't make this an issue in your relationship. When this becomes an actual issue then you start making a fuss about it. If she's not displaying signs of doing something like this, you should leave it alone. No one knows what a spouse in going to do in the future unless of course they are already sort of that way and in that case you shouldn't marry them anyway. 

OAN: Are you having pre-wedding jitters and just finding a reason to back out? Sorry had to ask


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## seesah (Apr 26, 2012)

Yes, you're overthinking it. If she tells you she's fine with you being the only person she's been with, believe her. Things might change later down the line but there's nothing you can do to control that. She could have been with the same number of people as you have and still decide that she's not happy with your sex life.

My husband is 40 and I'm 26. I had several sex partners before I met him but he has had a lot more. He still has some of the same thoughts you have. He fears that he'll become too old for me or that he's keeping me from experimenting. You have to trust that she knows how she feels. If you question her about it you may push her away.


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## WhoHaveIBecome (Mar 9, 2012)

tiredwife&sahm said:


> OAN: Are you having pre-wedding jitters and just finding a reason to back out? Sorry had to ask


No. No. No. Not at all. I actually made the thread in part because of a different thread I read last night about jealousy. It got me thinking and this has always sort of nagged at me. It was on this site actually that another poster tried to convince that my fiancee is going to leave me in the future. 

I don't want to make too big a deal out of this and I have barely talked to her about it. I was just looking for some different perspectives and to see if I am alone in being concerned. I trust her completely. She has never given me a reason to doubt her... honestly she doubts me and my fidelity more than I do hers. 

But we are happy and I am very excited to get married. No cold feet at all.


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## lamaga (May 8, 2012)

WhoHaveIBecome, I'm sorry to hear that a poster here told you that. Alas, some folks on here were so hurt by a spouse's infidelity that they project that onto every single situation -- you just have to take anything said on a public forum with a grain of salt. Everyone here is just people, with all the baggage and biases that that entails.

Good luck to you!


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## Coffee Amore (Dec 15, 2011)

I don't think the lack of sex/romantic partners is what would concern me. Many people I know have only been with their partner and they're happy with their sex lives. 

The thing that would concern me is that while your fiancee didn't cheat on you, she cheated with you while you were married to your first wife and then got pregnant by you while you were still married to your first wife who herself was trying desperately to get pregnant. That your fiancee could so easily shift boundaries when opportunity knocked on the door (let's put aside your responsibility to your former wife for a second) is what would concern me. Your fiancee had poor boundaries in the past. She was willing to knowingly engage in behavior that's considered immoral by most reasonable people and as they say past behavior is a good indicator of future behavior. Is it the only factor in determining future behavior? No, obviously not. But it should make you think about how she handles temptation and how easily she can shift boundaries when she wants to.


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## WhoHaveIBecome (Mar 9, 2012)

Coffee Amore said:


> The thing that would concern me is that while your fiancee didn't cheat on you, she cheated with you while you were married to your first wife and then got pregnant by you while you were still married to your first wife who herself was trying desperately to get pregnant. That your fiancee could so easily shift boundaries when opportunity knocked on the door (let's put aside your responsibility to your former wife for a second) is what would concern me. Your fiancee had poor boundaries in the past. She was willing to knowingly engage in behavior that's considered immoral by most reasonable people and as they say past behavior is a good indicator of future behavior. Is it the only factor in determining future behavior? No, obviously not. But it should make you think about how she handles temptation and how easily she can shift boundaries when she wants to.


What you are saying is true. But we have been together for two years exclusively and she hasn't strayed once or given into temptation. I think the affair is way more complicated than what you are suggesting. It took a long time for anything to happen. I was just friends with her for months and we would talk non-romantically. It wasn't like I just took her home and had sex with her one night randomly. It happened gradually over time. She never knew my ex-wife so it wasn't like she was betraying her. My ex-wife was not the best wife in the world. That is just the truth. There were reasons why I strayed. Partially mine and partially hers. 

Also she didn't get pregnant with our daughter on purpose. That was an accident. A happy accident but an accident none the less. Just want to clarify that.


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## Ten_year_hubby (Jun 24, 2010)

WhoHaveIBecome said:


> Am I over-thinking this?


Yes, you are not thinking about this in a relevant fashion. Your differences in age and experience will certainly present some challenges but not in the way you are thinking here


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## LovesHerMan (Jul 28, 2011)

The secret to staying in love is good communication. There are no guarantees in life. We take a leap of faith when we marry, and we cannot predict how we will react to the challenges and difficulties that life brings. Life is full of situations that we did not ask for.

All you can do is keep communication open, cherish each other, and meet each other's needs. If you sense that she is getting disconnected from the marriage, you will have to work together to keep your love alive.

Ten years from now, when she is 32 and you are 45, you will be at different places in the life cycle. You will have to continue to communicate, to make sure that each of you is contributing to the marriage.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

WhoHaveIBecome said:


> It was on this site actually that another poster tried to convince that my fiancee is going to leave me in the future.
> 
> She has never given me a reason to doubt her... honestly she doubts me and my fidelity more than I do hers.


It was Catherine who suggested that maybe some day, when your wife is more mature, she may want someone else. 

I remember the backstory: your relationship was born of an affair & surrounded with awful circumstances (you were married to your wife when you got your 19 year old mistress pregnant -your now-fiance -and then your wife committed suicide). That is a lot to deal with. 

So you've been with now-fiance since she was 19. She's 22 now. As a woman, I can tell you that who I was at 19 is nothing at all compared to who I was at 25, 28, 30. Not at all. So much happens over those years. I think that is what Catherine was trying to say. That she may very well grow out of it. That isn't meant to sound mean but I can tell you, definitively, there is no way in hell today I would be with anyone who I was dating at 19. Just... hell no. 

There is no way to tell whether you will end up divorced or whether there is cheating in the future in your relationship (after all, you can only control yourself), but time will tell. Basically, you have to take a leap of faith, whether you romantic pasts match up or not. 

35 and 22 are huge age differences. Throw a baby in there when she's not even 20, (plus all the stuff that happened before--affair/death/etc), another baby now at 22... that's a lot to happen in such a short amount of time.

Time...


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## Coffee Amore (Dec 15, 2011)

WhoHaveIBecome said:


> What you are saying is true. But we have been together for two years exclusively and she hasn't strayed once or given into temptation. I think the affair is way more complicated than what you are suggesting. It took a long time for anything to happen. I was just friends with her for months and we would talk non-romantically. It wasn't like I just took her home and had sex with her one night randomly. It happened gradually over time. She never knew my ex-wife so it wasn't like she was betraying her. My ex-wife was not the best wife in the world. That is just the truth. There were reasons why I strayed. Partially mine and partially hers.
> 
> Also she didn't get pregnant with our daughter on purpose. That was an accident. A happy accident but an accident none the less. Just want to clarify that.



I don't want to rehash your affair because it has been discussed so many times on TAM and frankly I'm not vested in your domestic situation. I just want to point out that taking the slow road to an affair doesn't give either of you a gold star or a pat on the back. You and she aren't in a higher category of cheaters because you didn't go from the gym straight to her place the day you met. And while your former wife probably contributed to the marriage dynamic the two of you had, the cheating is 100% on you. In a bad marriage, one either has to choice to 1) stay with the status quo 2) stay and try to fix things 3) get a divorce. To stay and cheat on the partner is dishonorable and trying to cast a patina of nobility on your actions by saying you two didn't do the cheating right away is a fail..


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

...so much for not rehashing, Coffee. 

Kidding.


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## WhoHaveIBecome (Mar 9, 2012)

Coffee Amore said:


> I don't want to rehash your affair because it has been discussed so many times on TAM and frankly I'm not vested in your domestic situation. I just want to point out that taking the slow road to an affair doesn't give either of you a gold star or a pat on the back. You and she aren't in a higher category of cheaters because you didn't go from the gym straight to her place the day you met. And while your former wife probably contributed to the marriage dynamic the two of you had, the cheating is 100% on you. In a bad marriage, one either has to choice to 1) stay with the status quo 2) stay and try to fix things 3) get a divorce. To stay and cheat on the partner is dishonorable and trying to cast a patina of nobility on your actions by saying you two didn't do the cheating right away is a fail..


Respectfully if you didn't want to rehash it then why bring it up? My thread wasn't even about my affair at all. You brought it up. If I really wanted to talk about that dark period I would make another thread about it. I don't mind talking about it but I don't particularly enjoy discussing it when it isn't relevant. 

I made mistakes. I admit that. Never once said I deserved a gold patch. 

My affair wasn't one motivated by greed. I was a broken person who had lost hope and I fell in love. We both did. That is what I was trying to say.. not that its somehow better or worse. Just different. It wasn't a temptation thing where I was just so caught up in the moment that it happened. It took a long time to get there.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

The bottom line is that you are concerned whether your age difference/romantic pasts will impact your future relationship: yes, they will. Maybe for the best, and maybe for the worst.

There is absolutely no way we can tell you what the future holds.

There are no guarantees either way.

Such is life.


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## SimplyAmorous (Nov 25, 2009)

> *Lovesherman said*: The secret to staying in love is good communication. There are no guarantees in life. We take a leap of faith when we marry, and we cannot predict how we will react to the challenges and difficulties that life brings. Life is full of situations that we did not ask for.
> 
> All you can do is keep communication open, cherish each other, and meet each other's needs. If you sense that she is getting disconnected from the marriage, you will have to work together to keep your love alive.
> 
> Ten years from now, when she is 32 and you are 45, you will be at different places in the life cycle. You will have to continue to communicate, to make sure that each of you is contributing to the marriage.


 :iagree:


Sexually it might get a little sticky when she hits her PRIME ...late 30's -early 40's -if her sex drive goes through the roof and you won't be able to keep up with her, but thanks to Viagra, this may not be a problem --so long as you are a Pleaser at heart !

My advice right here :

Never Keep Secrets ~~~~ Never let the Sun go down on your anger. A little conflict is healthy, do not fear it ~~~Know your spouses Love Languages & live to give what they crave. ~~~~ If you have sexual inhibitions, destroy them! Read books on Sex , Intimacy & Spicing like mad, never let the passion fade.~~~ Continue to date after kids, Laugh with each other, Flirt always, be playful, bring each other up when the other is having a bad day .~~~ May your Lover forever & always be your Best Friend. 










Congratulations on your up & coming Marraige


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