Hard letting go of the past

[duckielala]

I suppose this may not be the best area to post this but I couldnt find any other area. I've always had a really tough time accepting the pasts of relationships. I hear the things the past is the past and you cant change it and etc etc. But It still lingers in my head and Ive never been able to get over the past of someone ive been involved with. Im sure this is something psychological, but it totally affects my relationship in the aspect that I cant accept my partners past mistakes. I suppose the lack of judgement and reckless behavior bothers me. anyone have any idea where this comes from.. I know this is all psychology! but I didnt see any "psychology" areas to post. THanks

[insecure]

I know exactly how all of this feels.  My husband and I have been married for ten years now and I have always been an open book with him about  my past.  If he asked I was honest with him, of coarse I did not have a lot to tell, compared to him.  He was 26 when we got married and had been with 13 women.  He had been serious with this one girl for 5 years so i just assumed that he had mainly been with her. WRONG! I did not like hearing he been so experienced. I had been married before and I still know I  was not as experienced as him.  I let it go because I knew it was in his past, although when it came up ,he was very defensive. I could not help to think he has something to hide from me.  I did not like it, I just thought it was me being inmature to let it bother me.  Shortly after we go married we moved to a small town. It was at town he grew up in  so I knew what that meant, having to be around some of these women,including the one he dated for 5 years. Before we moved there I just asked him to tell me who could I expect to run into that he had sex with. I felt it was an okay question b/c he loved me and that I had asked all his questions honestly. He promised that there was no one so loving my husband i chose to believe him, but b/c he has been so defensive and got angry when this topic was brought up, I just knew something was not right. Well, 10 years and 3 children later i find out he was lienig to me. Not only was he not telling the truth, it was his parents neighbor. later she moved and was having marriage problems. I remembered he was always so worried about her,not all the time but just made comments every once in awhile. She even stopped by our house with her husband one time. My husband was always trying to talk me into being friend with her. He always told me what a good person she was.  I thought she was very nice, but i never became good friends with her. Well as you can imagine I was devastated, not only that for years he looked me straight in the eye and just lied, but i felt like a fool. To think while we around each other he made a choice not to tell me. He says that they were just friends and it just happened one night and realized  it was a mistake, so they decided to not tell anyone and remain good friends. When i told him how hurt i was and questioned  him he told me that they had worked that out between them to and it was none of my buisness. This may me feel like he was being more loyal to her.  Since then I question everything he has told me. Now he says he going to more honest and so when i talk to him about things i do know about he is contradicting himself in those answers from things he said in the past. Since then I have gone into a depression and have a lot of anxiety. I do not want to be caught of guard again. Now its all i think about now i even sit there and picture him with all those women and it hurts and is driving me crazy.  Now I can't help to think do i deserve to be with a man who can't trust our  love enough to be honest with  me? Him telling me things with out me asking or just answering any questions i have now is what makes me feel loved and secure. For me its the not knowing. This is driving me crazy, this is one reason i loved him so much, i felt secure and that i could trust him. I just an hurting and now even more angry about his past. i'm not perfect but maybe i should have married so one who had more self control in all areas. I love him,but am miserable with my obessive thought and am very desperate for the pain to go away.  What do i do?

[MS. LATINALUV31]

Im in a situation and i need some help, ive been friends with this man for a year and half now but we just recently decided that we really do like each other more than friends so now here we are in a relationship, prior to us getting involved hes known that i had dated (if u wanna call it that) 3 guys that he has known..he knew about my past with them cause i would tell him being that him n i were only friends and he would share stories with me..as we got involved hes never brought my past up until recently when he found out that i happen to be with someone else that he knows, its sounds crazy but i wasnt with these 4 guys at the same time throughout my years i have met them and things just didnt work out..my boyfriend is now having doubts of becoming my man cause he cant believe that i was with guys he knows and he would feel uncomfortable if he saw them out somewhere knowing that at one point i had a sexual encounter with them in my past..what my boyfriend fails to realize is that i didnt know he even existed when i met anyone of them which were at all different times of my life, they dont all know each other, he keeps judging me for what i did then...i feel that what i did regardless if he knows them or not thats my past and i think that we should be concentrating on the future...he became my everything and i dont wanna lose him over something that i did that has nothing to do with him now...these are not guys that hes best friends with more like acquaintences, he doesnt talk nor see them on an everyday basis but hes so concerend about if he does happen to bump into one of them oneday what would they say..am i wrong for feeling like this whole situation is unfair to me or is he right for letting me go for something i did that has nohing to do with him but yet he knows them..please help, my heart has been aching to get him to understand how much he means to me and nobody else.

[runnergrll]

I totally understand.  My husband is a wonderful man with a really limited past compared to mine (making me a hypocrite, I know!)  I asked about his past when we started dating a year ago.  He has never been comfortable giving me a full story, mostly because he feels he doesn't have much to tell and he is embarrassed by this.  So I started to develop an anxiety problem about what he wasn't telling me.  I pictured him with other women and tortured myself with thoughts of how he could have done these things ("to me"). I even went on anti-anxiety drugs because I couldn't stop the thoughts.  When we got married this fall, I felt better about it, but the thoughts were such a habit that they came back again recently.  I look at him and see how much he loves me and how I have nothing to worry about.  But I give in to letting these thoughts of his past become my memories and they are not my memories at all!  I know logically that he did nothing "to" me, but for some reason I let it hurt me.  I think the answer is to be really logical, really forgiving and really "in the moment" so that happiness can reign.  Easier said than done.  I empathize with anyone who feels tortured like this.  I cannot bear to bring this subject up again with my husband since it really is overkill, so I post this message to appeal to all you who understand.  It is ridiculous and irrational and yet it is a daily struggle!

[her_purple_pixieness]

I know exactly how you feel - completely and utterly. I cannot bear the thought that my boyfriend has had anything to do with other women in the past, it's a nightmare. I mean, it was way before we got together and it's not like he cheated on me with these women, but every time I acknowledge to myself that he has been with women before me, I choke up, and my stomach rolls, and I get awful thoughts of wishing death on them. It's definitely an insecurity thing: I am quite open with him about being insecure and that affects a lot of elements of a relationship, including this obsessive jealousy and anger about his past! You are not alone, it's horrible to deal with but there is nothing you can do about it. Just remember - he's okay with your past, so fight yourself emotionally to be okay with his.

[duckielala]

Thank you very much for that. I am very thankful for your advice and reply. Its common knowledge that the past cant be changed etc. But the hardest part is dealing with it and its a great help to know im not the only one who feels this way. Thank you!

[fly guy]

Hey i no exactly how u feel. I myself am have been with 6 women. im 25. my girlfriend of 27 at momment who in time i would like to marry has only ever had one partner.

However as i got further into the relationship i found it hard to comprehend she had even been with one guy, i kept thinkin extrememly bad thoughts and each time i kept visualising her with this other guy EVEN THOUGHT i was ten times worse and had been with 6 women.

To her it wasnt a problem coz she said i cant change ur past but with me it affected me real real bad. It caused a big strain on the relationship and i almost ended up losing her because of it.

But now im being stronger and ive realised im just a big hypocrit, what she did was 8 years ago and with a person she loved at the time.I was not there then.

what i did was act like a dog in my eyes wen i grew up. You need to think to yourself you wernt there at the time so how can u change it? live for 2 day dont dwell in the past what is done is done.

[duckielala]

im trying hard to think logically about everything. What you all say is very true and will help me. Thanks very much. Trying to be as less emotional about it as I can. -=)

[ryn21]

If you dont get over traumatic past experiences, you will never survive future relationships.  I am dealing with a girlfriend who cant get over the past, it ruined a great relationship.  There are good guys/girls out there.  Dont let one or two bad experiences make you a heavily guarded person, otherwise you'll never be happy.

[anxiousmomtobe?]

Did he cheat on you?  That would be a serious relationship killer.  However, if you are talking about his sexual past before he was with you, you have no right to hold that against him.  There's a old saying, "When you know better, you do better".  In other words, people make stupid mistakes and when they learn from them they go on to make better choices.  It's part of growing up.  Judge him for who he is now, and how he treats you now, not who he used to be.  If you can't do that, he is not the person you should be with.

[pubmed]

I am also of the opinion that it depends on what you are talking about.  Committing a crime, for instance, seems different to me than, say having a 3 way.  I struggle with this stuff too (sexual past) because unless you know where the person stands on an issue, or how they currently feel about it, or what they current want sexually, you will just drive yourself crazy thinking about it.  So, my advice is talk about the past, dont pass judgement (because its over and didnt involve you!), and make sure to ask the questions you need to in order to secure where your relationship can and will go, and what limits exist.  Good luck:)

[duckielala]

Thanks for the feedback, and no I dont feel you were being too blunt. I agree its harsh to judge someone on their past and as I reread my entry it did seem that way. I know the past cant be changed and moving forward is the logical option. But emotionaly I suppose I just find a hard time doing this on my own. I find myself thinking about it alot, almost to the point where I guess I can say it drives me nuts. It isnt anything about prison or that type of past. Its a sexual past. Ive only been with one person so its very difficult for me to understand the mindframe of these reckless actions and I guess possibly it must make me feel that Im just another "reckless" entity in his life. He is younger than me and I know he is very attached to me and assures me all the time that "its different with me". I want to believe it but in the back of my head I always wonder. I know this is something psychological within. I wonder if anyone else thinks this way or am I the only one who psycho analyzes EVERYTHING!

[eujaro1]

I used to have forgiveness issues. severe issues. Depending on what the offense was would determine the criteria. What seperates when YOU do something wrong from when anyone else does wrong. How would you like it if someone keep bring up something you did or wouldn't forgive you. If they didn't kill anyone or permanetly damaged someone's life forget about it. Take it from me it will eat you up inside and manifest into something ugly on the outside later.

[RockRose]

When you say "the past",  do you mean a boyfriend's past normal sexual relationships,  or do you mean,  like,  a prison record?

[jojo24]

The think that you have to understand is that everyone has a past and everyone has done at least one thing in their life that they are not proud of.  But the fact of the matter is, you can't rewind time and take it back so you have to move foward.  I'm sure that you have done something in your past that you may wish you hadn't done or had done differently whether it had to do with a relationship or not.  But would you want someone constantly judging you on that one thing?  I don't think so, but that's exactly what you are doing, and not only is it unfair, but you can ruin all of your relationships that way.  Everyone makes mistakes, that's how you learn, and if you haven't learned, that's how you repeat them.  But if you are judging people on their past and not looking at what they are doing for you in the present, then your future looks like it's going to be lonely, because I doubt there's a single person who hasn't made a mistake.  You need to get over that.  Someone's past doesn't necessarily have anything to do with you.  For example, a lot of people say, once a cheater, always a cheater.  Yeah, in that relationship, maybe, but that doesn't mean they will do it in all of their relationships.  You have to look at what's going on now and whether the person is being true to you.  The past has nothing to do with it.  Think about that.  And seek counseling if you feel the need.  Sorry to be so blunt, but I have been judged on my past and I think that is wrong, because I'm not the same person as I was before.  I've grown up.  And what people have done in their past is beyond my control.  It's what their doing now that matters.  You have to learn to accept that.