Dear Anne,
I have a pretty big problem with my boyfriend. I'm 18 he's 19. I had saved myself for someone I cared about, and that person was him. I saved myself because didn't want to be another number on some guy's list of conquests, another story to tell, but after I slept with my now boyfriend he told me he had slept with a lot of other girls, 15 to be precise (not including oral or hand jobs). He says he had not treated any of them well, they were purely just sex with as many girls as possible, a one night thing and that's it. He also explained he has never orgasmed through intercourse with anyone but me. It really upsets me. He doesn't realise how hurt I am, how much his past disgusts me. I keep thinking of him with other girls. He says he's never loved anyone before but he loves me to bits. He even told me he wants to marry me some day, and has asked me to move in with him. He says he wanted to tell me the truth and be open with me rather than lie, but I feel like my saving myself has been destroyed and means nothing now. It's always playing on my mind. I love him so much but all I ever think about is him with so many other girls. I don't know how to deal with this. Can you please help? Michelle
Dear Michelle,
There are so many ways of looking at this, aren't there? But the way you've been looking at it has been hurting you. Wouldn't it make sense to update your thinking for your own good? Please understand that practically everyone has more than one partner before finding the love of their life, which means that a large proportion of the dating population has probably had more than one sexual partner by the age of twenty or so. There's also a big gap between having sex and making love.
It was your decision not to have sex until you found someone with whom it would be making love. Your boyfriend says he loves you, enough to want to move in with you and enough to contemplate marrying you. He loves you enough to want to be open and honest with you. Far from being somehow destroyed, that part of your self-appointed mission has been accomplished. You didn't state, perhaps even to yourself, that you expected your love to be a virgin. How could he have done what you wanted before he even knew you? In which case how can you judge him? What gives you the right?
But the past is the past. Whoever either of you dated before, that's over. He could have stayed with one of them, but he didn't. He could have lied to you, but he didn't. He could merely have added you to the notches on his bedpost, but he didn't. He's behaved overall in ways that lead you to love him. And you could have checked out his perspectives before you invited him to be your lover, but you didn't. So you now face a stark choice: continue torturing yourself with pointless jealousy over what he did before he met you, or starting to live in the present.
It's only in the here and now that we have power. In any given moment you can polish up your sense of grievance, or finish the thought with, "But now he's with me and is acting with honest love so I can relax and enjoy it." You can look at each of his loving actions, remember each of his loving words, and think what they mean for you.
Mind, it doesn't mean being blind to the present. Have you made mutual decisions about safe sex? Does he continue to treat you well? Does he offer reassurance when you ask for it? Does he respect your right to your own feelings even when he doesn't share them? Does he put half into the relationship? Now that he's in love, does he believe in fidelity for him and for you? Have you asked him? And are you prepared to accept that not everyone has to think the same way you do? That talking in depth about feelings, attitudes and desires is essential before making a final commitment to a permanent, exclusive relationship? That even now your and his attitudes to a lot of things might mean it's wiser to split if you can't reconcile differences in a mature, mutually respectful way?
No, he isn't likely to understand how hurt you've been feeling - unless you tell him. But please understand that he hasn't hurt you. Your old way of thinking has done that. If you're not prepared to let go of that then wouldn't it be better to move on to find someone who shares your beliefs?
I hope you choose not to store up hurt for yourself, but it's up to you to decide how you're going to do that. Good luck.
