Past Sexual Relationship Disclosure
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Keep it in the Closet
"Past Sexual Relationship Disclosures" should be kept in the closet. Unless you are a detective and require every sexual encounter that your partner has been a part of to somehow unnecessarily incriminate your present relationship, the best thing to do is to leave the past where it belongs in the past.
Television shows and romantic movies places emphasis on past girlfriends showing up and the wife or girlfriend getting jealous because of the visit. In real life situations, girlfriends and boyfriends stay in the memory and should not be rekindled with your question of for example, "How many guys or girls have you been with." The human spirit renews itself everyday and is afresh with new ideas at every waking moment. Why clutter your relationship bringing up memories of a past sexual encounter that was probably totally physical and can not compare with the relationship that you have in the here and now with your partner.
The fact is that the person who had the sexual relationship in the past probably does not remember one iota about the person or the event. If you ask about past sexual relationship, it is an indication that you may be looking for problems and everyone knows that problems do not have be search for or googled in a relationship. There are enough problems dealing with your present relationship instead of digging up past sexual relationships that will probably re-emerge in a heated argument full of unwarranted accusations.
Take the frame of mind that if those sort of raindrops keep falling on your head with intriguing questions about your partner's past sexual relationships, maybe you are not that involved with who you are with. You do not need to rehash history when you have your present relationship to deal with and to maintain for the long term. If you are thinking about the marriage, you especially want to not ask about past sexual relationships because you do not want to carry bad feelings into your long term relationship.
Some women think that a relationship to be truthful has to have all of sordid facts about past sexual relationships revealed and somehow that makes for a better relationship. It is a fact that you will never know everything about your partner's life and adventures. Memories of past sexual relationship could on a private level be used as a fantasy to maximize the present relationship. You do not need to have a dialogue about this person or that person who you will probably never meet. You will have to depend on someone for the information who more often than not do not want to talk about or remember any past sexual relationships,
If you are committed to your relationship and are in love with your partner, why bring up what is probably something that he would like to forget. Your partner is with you and not with the other woman of bygone days, correct? This is one instance when a man's short answer of "I am with you now, right" will suffice as the appropriate reply if asked about past sexual encounters. His world of sexual conquests did not start with you but hopefully those days of carefree sex are over now that you are in a relationship. That is all your partner need to say if asked the question about his sexual history and it is his history. If his deliberate short answer upsets you, then you are focused on an intangible thing that has no bearing on the present relationship and you need to regroup.
Your emphasis on past sexual relationships may bring up a red flag for your partner to have a second look at the relationship that the two of you are in. Are you about to reveal information about your past sexual relationships? Do you think an even exchange of bygone memories when the two of you were not together would strenghten or weaken your relationship? The latter answer is correct. Bringing up information that happened in the past is just a licence to bring problems that are not needed and surely will weaken your present relationship.
A relationship involves two people, not you and your partner in addition to memories of past sexual relationships. If your curiousity can not be satisfied, then you must look again at your purpose for being in the relationship. If your intent is to spy on past sexual relationships, then you are not in a real relationship but in a relationship with his sexual history and that is not a good thing, He may think that he will have to deal with trust issues if the question of marriage comes up. Forget about the past sexual relationships and move on in your present one unless your partner is constantly referring to a particular girlfriend just to make you jealous or to bring in negative chemistry into the relationship. If he is bringing up past girlfriends especially when you are being intimate, then that is your red flag to end the relationship
Let bygones be bygones and get into building and maintaining a lasting relationship with relevance to the present and the future. Forget the past sexual relationships of your partner and concentrate on how you can improve your relationship to both the satisfaction of yourself and for your partner.
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Comments
James A Watkins, thank you for your comment. No never heard of anything like that before.
it had always been my thinking that the question of past sexual behavior should be and needed to be questioned with regards only to safe sex practice. beyond that, the sharing of past relationships becomes as detailed or as circumspect as both partners agree upon.
i've always been the type that loving someone meant acceptance. my first husband forced me to learn the lesson that the "i'm with you now" dead end answer sometimes hides a character flaw. in rare instances, refusing flat out to discuss the past is a red flag. relationships are always risky for one reason or another. sometimes we get lucky and sometimes we don't. i was too innocent and naive the first itme around. the second time, i got very, very lucky.
it's my opinion that you should be able to ask anything for the reasons of protecting yourself, and to gain further insights into this person you think you want to be with. after that meeting of minds, after understanding of the point of reference for these questions, it then becomes moot. the past can stay in the past. both parties are satisfied with this new insight and move forward, either together - stronger for this shared background, or apart because they see they will be incompatable.
just my opinion.
LOL James, that was funny!
Sorry, Linda, I had to say that first. Great hub and I totally agree with it! The past belongs in the past for the future of your relationship. I have to disagree with "woman" that one needs to know for "protection" as the names and numbers have little to do with it. If you need protection, use a condom after you have both gone to the doc and come back with a clean bill of health! Exposing your past love life (all 3 lol) only leads to jealousy and problems later on.
WomanNShadow, thank you for your comment. I think that health testing should be performed between a doctor and a patient. There is still no need to ask about past sexual relationships. It would be very unusual for a partner to say they had a sexual relationship with someone who had such and such ailment. Just not happening. Your response is appreciated.
Connie Smith, thank you for your comment. I am a fan. I wrote to woman the same information before reading your comment. We are in agreement that the past should stay in the past and that testing should be done in the doctor's office. I also agree and hope that hubbers remember to use a condom even if they are not interested in their partner's past sexual relationship. Great comment.
i did not see where i wrote or implied that the list of every name and phone number be handed over and followup calls made to all the exes. as for asking if the person is healthy with regards to STD's, asking about that and hoping for the truth was promoted quite a bit by the health care staff at my son's college after a serious outbreak of chlamydia closed the school for a couple of weeks.
the beatings i received during my first marriage taught me that at the very least one or two questions about how someone should be treated and observations of the body laguage are alright to ask but that was over 25 years ago so things do change. still, i wished i'd ask one thing. people can lie with their words but body language tells can be learned. as for jealously with regards to anyone's past, non-violent relationships, i never meant for anyone to think i was referring to those. the past is the past.
from the criticisms above i see now that you were strictly wanting comments about digging too deeply into someone's past to make comparisons; what page of the Kama Sutra did you and your ex favor and so on. no one has the right to demand that information. i agree with you that jealousy is toxic.
i know i'm old school but i still have to disagree on the health thing though i am very much aware that people lie. i wish it was acceptable to ask if someone is healthy. a divorced woman i know was afraid to ask about the small blisters, insisted on condoms though he claimed it reduced his own pleasure, and she somehow still got herpes. "do you give blood?" might be an unconfrontational way to inquire as the Red Cross screens for everything, and i can't see how that implies jealousy, but maybe it does. maybe i was overprotective but i couldn't in good conscious tell my two chidren that if they had sex they couldn't ask about a few health issues. i'm thinking about it here and i just can't see how it is so wrong, would doom the relationship from the start, or not their right to know. i wanted them to be healthy, but our lives were very different from others who led safer more normal existences. Connie's comment about coming back with a clean bill of health seems to suggest that at least showing that clean bill of heath is acceptable to some people.
it was not my intent to sound stupid or inflexible. i've simply seen things happen when no one asked one small question. i don't need a list. no phone numbers. no details. i don't need that information. never did. no followup questions unless you fall seriously ill or are beaten. but i see how i am an outsider to this conversation. i have no formal training. i bow out since you've had more medical and/or psychological training to counsel on this. thank you for this information.
womanNshadow, thank you for your comment. You have the right to raise your kids the way you want to . If you think that it is okay to rely on an answer to the question whether or not a person has STD, then that is your choice. The school that was doing the testing suggested asking the partner in the "hope" that you will receive a true answer.
I agree with you that times have changed and kids are confronted with all types of challenges that the older generation did not have to contend with. That is why it is imperative that testing is done by a medical doctor to ensure that the partner does not have a contagious disease that could be transmitted through sex.
These tests are now done as a part of regular and yearly physicals. I would dare not rely on a person's word as to whether or not they have a disease that can be transmitted from person to person. Your friend you mentioned had a sign inside of the condom. It was her choice to have sex with the offender anyway.
But most of the time people are relying on word of mouth of a person who may just want to spread the illness. Currently, by not telling a partner that a person is ill sexually is called a crime because some people are deliberately spreading their illness in that manner.
With today's society, it is better to be safe than sorry and a medical report or the condom is the only safeguards of protecting yourself against these sexually transmitted diseases. Word of mouth, in my opinion is the least reliable method of finding out if your partner has STD.
Linda, thank you for fanning me. I can see that we think a bit alike. I'll be back for more, that is for sure.
Woman, I certainly apologize. I see from your reponse to Linda that we were talking about different aspects of the topic. I certainly did not mean to come across as critical of your views. I was just strictly talking about it from the point of view that Linda wrote about. It can become a jealousy issue on either side. I know many women who, down the road, were very sorry that they had revealed their past. It was then used against them in every argument from that time on. I believe that we can find out about prospective mates better from their responses on issues like fidelity, their interests, family and other things of this nature, as well as how he treats restaurant personnel and others in a position to serve him. Sometimes a man hides his proclivity to be abusive until he has married. Still, there are ususally red flags, like how he reacts when his lady talks to others, has other plans, his drinking habits and many more. Dear Abby put out a list of 15 red flags on a potential abusive mate that I made both of my daughters read more than once (I am sure it is available on the internet). We still make reference to red flags in conversations about their friends.
Linda, sorry about using your space as a platform :)
Connie Smith, thank you for your comment.
I think that everything has cleared up about revealing past sexual experiences. Woman was concerned because she had a friend who was hurt with a rebuttal even though there was physical evidence that the man her friend was with had STD. Her concern was mainly that her son's school had told the student to ask about sexual pasts in the hopes of getting a true answer.
I have no problem with the comment section being used to explain your point of view about how sometimes past sexual revelations can comeback in a negative way at the most inappropriate times.
I will be over to read your hubs and that of womanNshadows as now I think there is an understanding that the comments were looking at this issue from different angles. Everyone was essentially comparing apples to oranges but all is calm with understanding now.
Thanks, Linda and please, call me Connie.
Ok Connie. I appreciate your participation in the discussion on "Past Sexual Relationship Disclosure to Your Partner."
I would agree, I wouldn't want to know everything of past, but I would have a concern, due to diseases and things...that is something very important, just maybe a ballpark on how many sexual relationships you had....for health purposes.
Msgracie, thank you for your comment. The number of past sexual partners is a valid concern. With the wide acceptance of condoms as birth control, partners should now be embarrassed to visit the health departments for testing and honest disclosure.
James A Watkins says:
5 months ago
I thought all women say, "Three."