How do you handle each other's pasts?

[keltic 1]

open and honest... if he asks a question, i answer it truthfully... hes a big boy, he knows what he can handle... if he asks, then he can handle it... same with me... if i ask, then he tells me... i wouldnt ask if i couldnt deal with the answer...

i was married before... had a daughter with my ex... it was my choice to end that relationship... we are as amicable as i imagine any exes could be... the only points of contention for us are money (he doesnt feel that paying child support is fair - he cant afford it - just paying for half of her school & childcare expenses should be enough) and his current wife (who thinks we are supposed to all be best of buds, even tho she has such anger management problems that i have even considered getting a restraining order against her)... my ex and my husband are friendly with each other... they have never given each other a reason to be otherwise... and with my daughter still being young, my ex is gonna be around for a while... i even want my ex to be happy... if he is, then my daughter will be happy as well... crazy how that works

i still have material things from my first marriage... some are being kept for my daughters sake... some are being kept because the still mean something worth holding onto (pictures from the wedding with my deceased grandfather in them)... and to be fair, there were many good years in my first marriage... it wasnt enough to save it in the end tho... and all the experiences (relationships) that i have had in the past have brought me to where i am now - with my wonderful husband whom i love and adore

my husband was not married before, but he has had a couple of long term relationships... one around 10 yrs or so... before he was physically here with me the first time, i would feel occassional pangs of jealousy... but i think that was more due to the distance and our not being in each others physical presence... that jealousy was just me fearing that he might change his mind about having to give up his whole life there in the Netherlands... now, there is nothing from his past that worries me... we have talked about almost everything... thats what all those thousands of hours talking and chatting online were able to allow us... im glad that hes had love in his life before me... its one way that he knew just how profound this love that we share is... its not something that either of us had ever felt before

ultimately, its about trusting your SO and respecting what they want... if my husband found some old love letters in our attic from my ex and wanted to read them... fine by me... i dont think he would be bothered by it, he would probably laugh at how cheesy they were... but, if they did bother him and he wanted them thrown away, i would probably do it... my present and future are not worth losing over the past

so, answer each others questions generally... then if your SO wants more details, give them... you need to trust in your SO to love you fully... for all that you are and have been thru in your life, good AND bad

just my 2 cents

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

some really good stories here and very good viewpoints (no i'm not patting myself on the back)

i've learned it is a good idea to learn about the past of your partner, primarily so you can understand their

thinking and possible moods from things you may or may not do.

an example would be i had a long term g/f that had a cell phone and was very secretive with it. no wonder, she was using it to cheat on me. since then i've had mixed feelings about cell phones. it's a quirk i picked up along the way.

my now ex, it bugged her i fished a lot. one of the first things i did was i made sure nessa likes fishing

[JenT 0]

I haven't read everyone's posts to this yet, but here are my thoughts....

David and I are both sentimental and have kept things (cards, etc) from previous relationships (I have, perhaps more so than he). The way I see it... we have each traveled our separate roads and now our paths have merged. If he had not taken the path he had, or if my path were different, then it's possible that we never would have met.

I accept him for who he is... past relationships and all. I have no problems talking about them or reminiscing. He had a very bad experience with jealousy during his first 'real' relationship... I'm talking BAD. That had so significantly affected him that it was difficult for him to open up and share his history with me. Once he did, and saw that I accepted it all at face value, the fear and worry disappeared. I'm grateful to all of the women in his life for helping to make him the person he has become.

He is the one I am choosing to spend the rest of my life with.... to try to hide the past or pretend it didn't happen is ridiculous. There are things that happen in every relationship that trigger good and bad feelings... to be able to understand the source of those feelings (particularly of the negative ones) is part of a person's growth process. To dismiss that and not learn from it would be a waste.

Jen

[Alex+R 0]

Yup, there are things we don't talk about. Boyfriend is a Recovering Jealous Guy. He's not jealous of my first serious boyfriend, who remains a great friend of mine and whose loveletters I still have somewhere in the basement... he was only jealous about a guy I dated casually back when we were just friends. He always felt I chose that guy over him, and he did not think highly of him, so although we have resolved the issue, we no longer talk about it. Our relationship improved 10,000% after that.

I guess sometimes it's worth it to at least leave one issue undiscussed, as long as it has already been worked out as much as it can be.

HE has a psychotic ex who will do anything to get him back (once claimed to be pregnant with his baby, start hanging out at his mother's house, brother's house, etc.) but that's another story. I'm not worried about that at all because we have trust, love, blablabla.

[addy 0]

We put my nasty past behind us. In another board, where we met, I was talking to another man. I don't call it a relationship. Just a big fat screwup that I regret. He denied any romance with me and it got bad. Eventually my boyfriend and I got together but when the other man found out, he did everything possible to break us up. He attacked my boyfriend and said I was Dan's phony girlfriend. He attacked me thinking I didn't really love my boyfriend and that my relationship to my boyfriend was a fraud. After a "war" and we were gone from there, if I mention that jerk in a conversation, it stirs my anger. My boyfriend just tells me it's all in the past.

[CanGal 1]

I guess the past is the past. Hopefully people can learn from their pasts and not make the same mistakes. But it is the past that molds the future. My husband and I have always been pretty open when it comes to one another and our pasts. There have been some things in his that I don't like and or even agree with but it was phase and he has moved on and grown up from it. If I ask he tells and vice versa. Open communication with much honestly is always the key!

[Peter Miami 0]

We talking about everything. I respect my past and I respect hers.

[ChasUK 0]

Hmmm...let me give an example: ..................................

............................................... I don't see any reason why she would keep a romantic token such as a card from her ex-boyfriend/husband.

I had 22 years with my wife before meeting Tracy. It is over half my life. Just because we have split now does not mean that all 22 years was bad, also a lot of it is happy memories. I have photos etc. It is an important part of my life and helped to shape me into the person that I am now. I don't want to forget any of it, and I don't think Tracy would want me too either. It is my past and it is not a bad thing to admit that I did in fact have a good relationship for the most of it. If I had a problem sharing some of those times with Tracy now, I think that she might feel I had something to hide, but I don't. I'm not ashamed to admit that I used to be romantic with someone else before I even knew Tracy existed.

[MrMrsKnight 0]

We talk about everything..... but I'm kinda glad we had never been in a serious relationship before.

I know we'd still talk about previous relationships every now and then but it makes me feel more comfortable knowing that we went through our first experiences together and that we learned how to be a couple together.

[Laura_and_IanM 0]

I have read everyone's responses and I have gotten a lot from them. I think that by nature when something has happened to us that was negative or positive, we tend to carry that with us. My ex claimed to loathe the mother of his two sons they had together prior to us getting together. They were never married but were together for 10 years. Him and I were actually seperated twice, once after our second son was born then again for the final time after our third son was born. During that first seperation (and at that time there was NO talk of divorce.) He got with his ex and cheated on me with her. I was gutted and so hurt. But, I chose to try and forgive him. I guess I can say that perhaps that plays a roll in how I am feeling now. Do I trust Ian? Absolutely 200% and then some. Do I trust her??? HELL NO! SO how do I get over that then?? Any suggestions and or comments would be sincerely appreciated.

LJ

[Tim and Bethanie 1]

I have read everyone's responses and I have gotten a lot from them. I think that by nature when something has happened to us that was negative or positive, we tend to carry that with us. My ex claimed to loathe the mother of his two sons they had together prior to us getting together. They were never married but were together for 10 years. Him and I were actually seperated twice, once after our second son was born then again for the final time after our third son was born. During that first seperation (and at that time there was NO talk of divorce.) He got with his ex and cheated on me with her. I was gutted and so hurt. But, I chose to try and forgive him. I guess I can say that perhaps that plays a roll in how I am feeling now. Do I trust Ian? Absolutely 200% and then some. Do I trust her??? HELL NO! SO how do I get over that then?? Any suggestions and or comments would be sincerely appreciated.

LJ

Move across the pond. No okay in all seriousness, if your trust lies deeply in him then you truly have no worries about her. She can't and will not come between you two, because Ian will not let her. You will just have to slowly let go of how you feel.

For example, times when Tim has been worried or upset, I simply remind him I am not the woman he was married to in the past. You are going to have to remember this about Ian, he isn't your ex and you can not compare the two. Just put all your trust and energy into him. Try not to worry about all the other little petty things that go on outside of your relationship, because the fact is none of that matters when it comes to the two of you. Remember a marriage consists of two people, not two people and their ex's. I do believe once you are back in the states most of your worries will go away.

B

[gwenneh 7]

Move across the pond. No okay in all seriousness, if your trust lies deeply in him then you truly have no worries about her. She can't and will not come between you two, because Ian will not let her. You will just have to slowly let go of how you feel.

Exactly.

Cheating takes two. You trust Ian, Ian wouldn't cheat or (hopefully) allow himself to be taken advantage of, ergo there is no issue. She can't do anything with Ian unless he allows it-if you truly trust he wouln't allow it, then you have absoutely NO need to worry.

[Laura_and_IanM 0]

Move across the pond. No okay in all seriousness, if your trust lies deeply in him then you truly have no worries about her. She can't and will not come between you two, because Ian will not let her. You will just have to slowly let go of how you feel.

Exactly.

Cheating takes two. You trust Ian, Ian wouldn't cheat or (hopefully) allow himself to be taken advantage of, ergo there is no issue. She can't do anything with Ian unless he allows it-if you truly trust he wouln't allow it, then you have absoutely NO need to worry.

LOL...you two sound like my in laws...they say the same thing about moving across the pond...WE ARE TRYING WE ARE TRYING LOL..Thanks guys..I do trust Ian and you are right, it isnt a marriage with our ex's ...its us. I feel so guilty now for feeling the way I do lol. I know he wouldn't ever go back to her. HMMM..I will crawl back in what you guys call a pram??? Thanks guys for the advice

LJ

[gwenneh 7]

I just think you're making it way too complicated for yourself, which can happen when-as most people do!-you allow your past experiences to cloud future judgement. Believe you me, with the heaping helping of PAST Russ and I have behind us, dealing with it is somewhat of an expert subject for me. He's a touring musician with gigs and girls and the whole nine yards-and some of his buddies in the band are the *worst* when it comes to women. With bad influences all around, and some lovely past experiences of my own, it took effort to make logic overcome the primal jealousy. It just stands to reason that if I trust him, short of rape there's no way another woman could interfere with our relationship. I do trust him, and there were never any problems-despite lovely left-field curveballs like paternity suits and everything...my faith in him has been justified every single time.

[Tim and Bethanie 1]

In a year and a half seperated from one another, I have yet to worry about my husband and his intentions with any other woman. Hey he has even been added to the women of the office "Fantasy club", just made me laugh more than anything. Those 20-25 year old gals couldn't handle him ! I had to analyze this of course, my guess it is the older "faithful" man thing and always worth a shot to see if you can get him to be unfaithful lol. Mind you they have even had conversations about their battery operated girly toys, if they only knew what that made him think about them! Asked him how he handled this little giggle session, his reply was "okaaaaaaaaaay whatever", and walked away blushing. Good man!