GF of 4 years and I broke up 2 years ago for 3 months. Just found out that for 2-2.5 of those months she was in a strictly sexual relationship with a guy with a 9" schlong, they were into BDSM, screwing in public, humiliating her with his dick. Cannot look at her the same anymore.
Is this fixable lmao. I have never been so distraught.
My (27F) husband’s (27M) past relationships are eating away at me. For context we have been married for about 3 years, I wasn’t aware that he had been married before. One of his friends casually brought it up in a group setting and it was humiliating. It was my first time meeting all of them so my husband was the only person there that I knew. He didn’t handle the situation well by getting upset that I was rightfully hurt by finding out this way. He has since apologized for how he handled the situation. Regardless, I find her instagram and she is quite honestly one of the most beautiful woman I’ve seen (that isn’t a celebrity). She literally does modeling on the side, feed is full of beautiful photos of her, and she’s an incredibly talented photographer. His most recent ex was very pretty but the ex wife genuinely takes the cake. I’m almost embarrassed for him that he fumbled her. I obviously have insecurities and they’re made worse knowing what she looks like. We’ve had some issues sexually with him rejecting me. Every time it happens I can’t help but think how he would probably never turn her down. I can’t compare when I can’t compete. I’m honestly at a loss at this point and am not sure how to fix this. Will it ever go away? I can’t talk to him about it anymore and I don’t really have close friends. I’m aware I’m not beautiful by any means other than my character. There’s nothing I can do about it and I think that’s the hardest part.
I love my boyfriend. Months before I met him I prayed to God and asked him to help me out of an abusive relationship I was in prior to my boyfriend. The same week my boyfriend who was just my acquaintance at the time asked me out of a date and saved me from that abusive relationship I was in. My boyfriend is what every woman could ask for he’s perfect and I love him. 4 months into the relationship we went to urgent care due to him being in a lot of pain. He was diagnosed with toungue cancer. I have a history of mental health issues. So naturally news like that can have an impact on me.
He also provides for me. Pays for everything. Recently I caught wind of a girl he was fooling around quite literally two weeks before he met me. This situation quite literally sent me on a week spiral that I’m barely recovering from. Given the fact that when I saw what she sent him and he sent her he was veryyyyy into this woman telling her what she wanted to hear, acting jealous over her, pouring his heart out to her when he doesn’t with me and then I noticed we resembled each other and couldn’t help but think he got with me cuz he wanted to continue that relationship with her but use me to do it. I can’t also help that, that was his friends cousin and he snuck behind his friends back to mess around with that girl (friends cousin) this has me going crazy and treating him bad and I feel so bad because he has cancer. I wanna cry but I’m so angry!!!! Especially when he told me he was single for two years before he met me. Idk what to do. :( I can’t leave but I also don’t wanna keep treating him like shit he has cancer. :( I’m lost
I’m a 30M and my girlfriend (31F) and I have been together for about 5 months. Before her, I had a 4-year relationship that ended during engagement. That breakup really messed me up and left me feeling inadequate. About two years later I met my current girlfriend. I dated others in between but never felt anything close to what I feel for her. Early on, she told me about her past marriage. She met a guy at 25, got engaged after 2 months, married him, and it turned into a nightmare. Psychological, financial, even sexual abuse, cheating, constant belittling. They divorced after about a year. She says she feels nothing for him now, even disgust.
I almost ended things when she told me because I knew I have RJ tendencies. But I didn’t want to lose something that felt special. First month were great. Then RJ hit hard. I started obsessing. Like, how could she marry someone in 2 months? He must have been better than me. I kept asking questions thinking it would help, but it just made everything worse. It’s honestly turned into something like an obsession at this point.
She told me she accepted his proposal because he was very dominant and made her feel secure. That hit me hard. We even argued about this a lot. It got stuck in my head in a weird way, like it challenged my own sense of masculinity and power. I started questioning myself like “am I not dominant enough, am I not man enough?” I asked her this multiple times. Later she clarified that it wasn’t exactly how I understood it. She said he handled many things, acted like a “perfect man” at first, but during the marriage he turned into someone weak, almost spineless, and completely different from what he showed in the beginning.
She also had two relationships after her divorce (one casual, one short). Her ex-husband was her first sexual partner. I know logically this shouldn’t matter, but my brain won’t let it go. She has told me clearly i can’t be even compared with him. Even physically. I’m 6’2, objectively have good psyhical attributes, and she’s reassured me a lot. She even said “if you saw him, you wouldn’t even take him seriously.” But then I learned he was doing better financially, earning more than me, and that really got to me.
There’s also more that added to my anxiety. Her parents are separated. She told me she has been treated for bipolar disorder for a long time, but last year another psychiatrist said it might have been a misdiagnosis and that it could be depression/ADHD instead. She also mentioned that during the divorce, her ex-husband wrote in the petition that she was bipolar and even claimed things like she was violent towards him. She says none of that is true, but it still planted a seed of doubt in my mind. At one point I even asked to see the divorce documents, but she said that would be a boundary violation. I actually found that reasonable and honest, but all of these things coming one after another have been overwhelming.
Since then, my life has been going downhill. I can’t sleep, I’m late to work, I binge eat, and I constantly seek reassurance. She’s been very patient, telling me things like she would choose me in every version of her life, but it only helps temporarily. I started antidepressants and therapy. At first she was supportive, but now she’s understandably exhausted. Our relationship is in a really bad place. It feels like it could end any moment. Even if it doesn’t, mentally I feel like I’m in torture.
Marriage is a huge thing for me, and this whole situation makes me feel weak and inadequate. I feel like i couldn’t handle even got married before and now she has an ex husband.. I don’t want to break up, but I’m also terrified of making the wrong decision, like getting married and then going through another divorce. It feels like such a huge risk, and my brain keeps looping on it nonstop. Sometimes I even wish she would break up with me just to end this feeling, but I also don’t want to lose her.
Has anyone dealt with RJ at this level and gotten better? What actually helped? Right now I feel stuck and don’t know what to do.
My wife lied to me about her body count for almost five years. The truth came out during a really nasty fight about a month ago. The number is a lot bigger than she had previously told me and during our conversation after the fight she told me that she had lied about a lot of the reassurances she had given me about her sexual past.
I feel very betrayed. I understand it was all before me and she’s been nothing but loyal since we got together. But it feels like I can’t believe anything she’s ever told me. I feel like if she had told me her actual number when it had first come up in the first month of us dating, I would’ve left. But she took that choice away from me and I feel like I’ve been played a fool. I can’t leave now, we have a daughter together.
Every time I look at her, I get intrusive thoughts that call her nasty names and I don’t want to have those thoughts invading my head about the woman I love.
Has anyone been in a similar situation and has any advice for how to manage all these emotions? I’m seeing my therapist this week, so please no “dude you need therapy” comments.
My (23F) boyfriend (22M) and I have been together for a year and a half. There has always been some tension for me around his past. I was his first serious relationship after a period where he had a lot of casual partners. He was my first sexual partner, while I was his 19th. That alone made me really insecure in the beginning, but I worked through it.
Before we started dating, I knew he’d slept with one of his friends (A) and A’s girlfriend. I accepted that and moved on.
We moved in together after about a month of dating. A couple of months later, his friend T moved in with us. We spent a lot of time with T and two other friends, L and Z, and eventually I started thinking of them as my friends too.
About two months ago, we were all hanging out except for Z. Out of nowhere, they started talking about how my boyfriend had also slept with Z not long before we got together. I was visibly shocked, but nobody really noticed and the conversation just kept going. Then it also came up that T had slept with my boyfriend too. At that point I realized the only person in that friend group he hadn’t slept with was L.
For context, my boyfriend’s previous relationship had ended only about three months before we got together, so there wasn’t much time between everything.
I’ve been trying not to let this bother me, but it does. Every time I’m around his friends, I’m reminded of it. I’ve never been insecure about my body before, but now I constantly compare myself. My boyfriend has never said anything negative about my appearance or our sex life, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m just the latest person in a long line of people. His mom and friends all say he’s never been so ready to settle down with someone before me, and I believe them. But I was homeschooled, he’s my first boyfriend, and I don’t really have any relationship experience to compare this to. I don’t know if what I’m feeling is something people just get over or if it’s a sign of a bigger incompatibility.
I think what hurts the most isn’t even his past—it’s that I became close friends with these people before I knew that history existed. I feel blindsided, and I don’t know how to move past it. I feel like I can’t talk to anyone about it.
He‘s everything you could hope for in a partner: kind, sweet, and reassuring. He has a few past girlfriends, but he says he doesn’t think about them at all (unless I ask him about it), and that the past is the past. He doesn’t miss them and he doesn’t regret anything. No emotions left.
Although he is literally giving me the maximum love and reassurance, I don’t know why I still feel SOMETHING when I think about his past. Maybe it’s my lack of experience (he’s my first but I’m not his)?
I would rlly like to know if anyone has gone through these emotions, and how they overcame those negative thoughts. My mindset has improved a lot over the course of our relationship (1.5 years), but it comes back sometimes and I want to get rid of it for good, or at least learn how to control it.
Any type of intimacy is ruined. Anything we do is ruined by visuals of her doing the same thing with another man
Holding hands, cuddling, making out, sex, all ruined.
I was on top of her and we were just kissing, nothing to crazy and I just imagined her ex on top of her and how she would make out with him.
I thought it was getting better but it's not. I don't kmow what to do.
I'm M(19) virgin (no gf since birth) and she's F(22), she had her first bf for 2 yrs with sex exp before me. So basically we met 6 months ago (LDR), we clicked instantly and got together. But 4 months ago, when I found out that she already had her 1st sex before, I was devasted. Even though she kept telling me that her experience with him was very bad, not just on sex but with their whole relationship, my mind and heart won't listen, no matter what reassurance she gives me. She's the woman I wanna be with, she have everything that I'm looking for a partner, but there is only one thing I'm having a hard time to deal with... She already had sex before me.
(She said to me that what we have now is better than what she experienced with him. She's trying her best to help me with my RJ, because she really wants us to work out together)
My RJ is solely on sex. I don't mind on anything else, just sex.
I'm grieving because I'm hoping for a reality where we could've been each other's first (which is impossible)
Even when I see something like a post relating to sex, I don't even think about ours (our future), I think about theirs’ (her and her ex)
I feel like when it's our time to do it, I don't feel it's special anymore because she already know how it goes and how it feels.
How do I deal with this? I've read some and it's so hard to apply when my emotions are more stronger than my mind.
My RJ asks this questions: • For 2yrs, how often they've done it? • How did they do it? • What do they feel and thinking while doing it?
I’ve been with my girlfriend for about 8 years now, and there’s something from the beginning of our relationship that has honestly damaged us badly. When I first met her, she was living with her family at her sister-in-law’s brother’s house. When I started coming around and meeting everyone, I noticed right away that her vibe with him was really off. She would never talk to him directly, would have her niece ask him for things, and pretty much avoided him completely. I could just sense something was weird. About a year and a half into our relationship, we had an argument, and her mom was there. I asked her mom if she wanted to grab something to eat so I could cool off and get out of the house for a bit. While we were eating, her mom mentioned that my girlfriend being in a serious relationship was new for her because she had never really been serious with anyone before. She started naming people from her past, and then she brought up the sister-in-law’s brother and said she suspected they had something going on. When I got back, I confronted my girlfriend about it, and it turned into a huge mess. She left for a few days and made me feel like I was crazy for even thinking that could have happened. Eventually, she admitted that she did sleep with him, but said it was never while she was with me. Since then, this has created a massive problem in our relationship. It also doesn’t help that when she left that day after I confronted her, the same guy ended up picking her up and helping her out. She says she didn’t call him directly, she called her childhood friend, whose sister is married to him, but it still hurts because he was literally the person we were arguing about. He gave her money and helped put her in a hotel, and I was somehow supposed to just be okay with that. It’s been about 6 years since I found out, and our relationship is still damaged because of it. She doesn’t see her family much now because of the problems it causes, since I never know if he’s going to be around, and she blames me for not wanting to be involved with her family. I honestly feel stuck. I know this happened before me, but the way it came out, the denial, me being called crazy, and then him being involved the same day everything blew up still messes with my head. Sorry for the rant, I just don’t know if I’m being unreasonable or if this is something that would bother anyone.
Recently my gf told me that she had hooked up with her girl best friend two years ago, before she met me. She said she regrets it a lot , and finds it disgusting and wouldn't do it again. It happened after they had a night drinking and they had a sleepover after, and she said she doesn't even know how it happened. She never wanted to bring it up again with anyone, even the friend, but apparently her friend told someone , so my gf wanted to make sure she's the one that tells me.
I understand that people can experiment with their sexuality, but I've just struggled to accept that it was with her friend, and I've been having intrusive thoughts. They continued to stay best friends after it happened and still had sleep overs and done everything together.I cant help but wonder if it happened more than once, and if they were more than best friends.
Ever since she told me that it happened, she hasn't really talked to her best friend as much, and they didn't hang out much and had no sleepovers since.
Honestly, I really don't think she did anything with her friend while dating me. Even though they would still see each other a lot before my gf told me about them hooking up before
If the truth is that they only done it once, I could tolerate their friendship to stay the same, and her going to her house and seeing her like normal and having sleepovers. But if it happened multiple times I just feel like I won't be able to get past that and be comfortable with them still being best friends.
I'm just trying my best to process this and I don't really know how to talk to my gf about this. My girlfriend said she would do anything to keep me and she even said she would stop talking to her best friend if she had to to keep me, but I don't want her to have to make a decision like that. We love each other a lot and have a great relationship, but this has been bogging my mind for so long, and I've tried taking advice like "get over it", "stop thinking about the past", etc. But it really hasn't helped. I truly have been a good boyfriend and haven't done anything bad, but I'm just dealing with these thoughts that are really hard to deal with, and I've just kept it inside because I don't feel comfortable talking to anyone in my life about it.
I (22M) have just graduated with my bachelor’s degree and am still a virgin (had multiple opportunities, just didn’t feel right). I also didn’t go on a date, have my first kiss, or have a girlfriend until I was 20.
I’ve been talking to/seeing someone (24F) for around 4 months now and she’s been promiscuous in her past. We’ve talked about it a couple times, I told her I don’t wanna know, but she still tells me stories about times where she’s made out with multiple people in a night or about how she used to be able to put a condom on with her mouth. It’s not something I’m morally against, I don’t shame it, but the jealousy is there from the experience gap. It makes me feel like I wouldn’t be as special to her as she already is to me. This is making me feel like moving on from her. She’s a really sweet girl who I could see myself being with for a long time but I’m struggling with this.
I say I wish I had a hookup phase because I feel like I wouldn’t have any thoughts about my potential future partner’s past if I had an extended record myself. That way it’s no harm/no foul, we both had a taste, we both have stories from our fun times, and we can move on. However, I didn’t have it in me to have one (playing with people’s feelings is a dangerous thing to do) and I feel like I missed out.
Carrying on from my last post I aim to show you how certain modes of thinking fuelled my RJ and what changed.
Ever since I lost my virginity sex has always been for the most part, a way to affirm identity in someway. Whether it be my attractiveness, my self worth, my masculinity, my need to feel unique and special.
I genuinely believe this is the case for most people in the sub as well.
When we suffer RJ it’s not just our partners past in itself that harms us. It’s the story we tell ourselves about what their past represents.
‘I’m not as attractive’ ’I’m not special to them’ ‘I’m not as good in bed’ ‘they’ve settled for me.’
Whether your partner is your first or your fifteenth it’s all the same. Their past represents a narrative that threatens your identity.
Consciously or subconsciously for many of us, sex with our partners has been a way of affirming identity of yourself and the relationship. It affirms you’re attractive, special, unique, you’re the only one they find attractive.
So is it any wonder that you find their past so threatening? Their past attacks the identity you’ve moulded from sex. Your brain scans the past looking for evidence that you are indeed ‘not special’ ‘not the list attractive’
“If she has shared this with others before, then what I’m receiving is less meaningful as validation.”
Is what you are telling yourself
Sex should be about connection more than anything
Sex should be about connection. The only thing that should matter is the connection you and your partner have. Based on that, why would even need to compare? Why would you need to look externally?
When I made this shift it took while for me to recognise what my old way of thinking about sex was doing to me and why I suffered RJ all my life.
When the mind is less focused on identity validation, the threat response tends to reduce.
Does this apply to you?
When you think about your partners past, sit down and ask yourself. What narrative/story am I forming here about me?
What story about myself am I telling here? Does their past make me feel less special?
Do I think they’re better off with someone else?
Are they settling for me?
I’m not their first and they’re mine, it’s not as special
These are just example but 9/10 there is a story or narrative you have formed because of RJ.
If there is one then that means for you, just like it was for me, sex is rooted in extracting affirmation about yourself that it is connection.
Okay so for context beforehand of my intrusive thoughts (I promise this is on topic), my grandpa passed away in February and after his passing my grandma had gone thru his phone just checking his Facebook or if anyone had called and she discovered that in the weeks before his passing he was looking up his old highschool girlfriend on Facebook. No interaction, just looking her up. After 47 years of marriage he still thought about his highschool girlfriend from the 70s??? No hate to my grandpa, I know he loved my grandma but the thought that after decades of marriage to someone they still think about their first scares me
I (20f) have a boyfriend of my own (26M) and I struggle with RJ big time, sometimes it goes radio silent for a while and all is well but sometimes it's louder than a megaphone in the back of my mind. Lately I've been thinking about that one thing in particular and I honestly genuinely wonder, what if my bf does think about his own highschool girlfriend? Like what if that's just a thing that men do? I know for certain he had one, lost his v card to her too. I wonder if sometimes he misses her or if sometimes without me knowing it he gets reminded of her even when I'm with him. I know I can't control that, he's 6 years older than me so he was bound to have a past, but idk it still bothers me that some girl got him first, especially since he was my first everything and I'm his first nothing. And it bothers me more with the thought that even if I dedicate my whole life to loving him what if he'll still think about her decades from now? Even if he says he doesn't think about her, what if that's just a lie to be considerate of me? Idk, I feel crazy y'all :(
So for a bit of context my boyfriend and I are both 21. We've been together for about 6 months and I cant seem to get my RJ under control and constantly feel like I need my questions answered. For context not counting him i've slept with 4 people, none of them being hookups/one night stands and all of which i dated for a good amount of time. Meanwhile he is kind of the opposite. Ik he had 3 one night stands the same month after high school, but after that no more. However college was a different story. He went through 5-6 girlfriends in about a year sleeping with all of them. He ended up getting into a long term relationship that was about 9 months this last year before they split up. Within a month after they broke up he gave and received head and had sex with a separate girl. then met me a month after and says he's changed. While talking about it all i learned he has slept with 16-18 people total. i wasn't given an actual number i just guessed based what he's told me and he said i was basically right. so who knows. Also learned that he's never been tested, but had only had unprotected sex once with the long term partner who said she was clean. What should I do. Is this a lost cause or do i continue to try to make it work. Despite all the sexual aspects there are a few minor details we butt heads about like his weed addiction, but he's calmed down since we talked about it. just not sure how i'm suppose to behave cuz i feel like i always have questions, but he says im not entitled to know cuz it's the past.
I’m planning on proposing to my amazing GF in a few months. She’s absolutely amazing and has never given me a reason to worry about anything. We both have had a sexual past, have an exactly equal body count, and that has never bothered me because I have no right to be bothered by it. Pretty early on she asked me if I’d ever had a threesome before when she was drunk. I said no, and asked her why she asked. She’s Bi so I didn’t know if that was an ask to have one or for another reason, but she just confessed to having had a FFM one.
It was with someone who ironically enough tried to get my ex GF into one and a dude who she doesn’t even know his name. In her words, she was incredibly drunk and this girl pretty much just pulled her into it, and the only act she did with the guy was penetrative sex and no foreplay or anything. Even still, every once in a while I’ll just get reminded of the fact she had one and the idea of her pretty much fighting over a dudes dick with another girl makes me want to puke. She says she really regretted it and apparently scrubbed her whole body for like a straight week but the idea of my girlfriend stooping to the level of a threesome (which I find incredibly disgusting) awful.
I also want to get the “but you would have done it if you were the guy in that situation” out of the way. I have been offered a threesome in the same format multiple times and have turned it down every time. Anyways, I just don’t know where to go from here. The idea of her fighting with another girl to please a random guy just kills me. How do I get over it? At this point, my brains telling me I would need a play by play of that whole experience just to remove the disgusting images in my brain but I don’t think that’d actually help in any way.
I told my gf about my RJ.
I’m an idiot.What should I do?
The main problem was that I dont like having sex with her at all because of this,but she really likes to have sex with me,a lot of sex,but if it was up to me we wouldn’t have any.
What should I do?
One of the most common complaints I see on this sub is that if their partner has had sex or other experiences with previous people it makes things with their partner somehow less special.
The logic being somehow your partners past experiences is somehow taking away from the uniqueness of your current relationship with them.
But here’s where the logic breaks down. Especially if you have had sexual experiences yourself.
If you have had past sexual experiences or otherwise then by the same logic no intimate experience is ever going to be unique because you have done it before.
So it makes no sense why is solely your partners responsibility to make the relationship unique whilst ignoring how your own experiences dilute the special in your relationship.
It’s very hypocritical and unfair.
You’ve had sex with other people or been on certain dates with other people. Received flowers or gifts from others. Been married before perhaps
Yet somehow this doesn’t make the relationship less special or not unique.
But your partner has done any of the above then all of sudden the blame is placed on them for the relationship lack of purity.
If you are someone that upholds that mindset and have had past experiences, your own logic will tell you that any relationship, sexual experiences or otherwise will ever be unique or special.
I’ve been in a relationship with my girlfriend for six months. She’s amazing—kind, caring, and beautiful inside and out. The only thing I’m struggling with is her sexual past, and it’s making me question whether I can continue the relationship.
She’s 22, which is two years younger than me. After breaking up with her ex, she went through a party phase where she had casual sex fairly regularly. She told me she’s had 12 sexual partners (not including oral sex).
I’m not exactly a saint myself—I had six sexual partners before we got together. Still, I was surprised to hear her number because she doesn’t seem like the type of person who would sleep around.
I know her past happened before we met, and she hasn’t done anything to betray my trust. But I can’t seem to stop thinking about it, and it’s making me feel sick thinking about it.
Is this a valid reason to end an otherwise great relationship, or is this something I should try to work through instead?
My girlfriend (23f) and I (23m) met around 11 months ago, and have been officially dating now for nearly 9 months. I love this girl to bits and I know she loves me the same amount back. For some context we both went to high school together and I always had a crush on her back then. Mainly because she was very pretty but also because she was a very quiet and reserved girl who didn’t speak much, which is similar to myself.
Near the beginning of our relationship we had a brief chat about our past partners (sexual and relationships) and I was honestly a bit disgusted and repulsed by hers. She admitted to having slept with around 15 people, including 3 other girls, having a threesome, one night stands, and only one serious long term relationship during university. I was shocked as I didn’t expect this at all.
I myself am a very frugal person when it comes to stuff like this, and I have only every had 1 past partner both romantically and sexually. I have and would never have sex with someone outside of a relationship as I believe sex is a very special and intimate thing that I can only share with someone I am genuinely romantically in love with. However her past goes completely against my beliefs, and that’s okay I’m not using it against her or shaming her, but I just struggle to see past it and it makes me look at her slightly different. It makes me sick when I think about it sometimes and I imagine all the people she’s slept with and how the situation unfolded and all these little details. It’s driving me crazy. Sometimes I want to bring it up and ask her more things but I know that will only make the situation in my head much worse lol.
I don’t know if I’ll meet another girl I click with like this again, but I don’t know if I will ever be able to look past this. I don’t want to live the rest of my life constantly thinking about it silently with her. That’s not fair on her either.
Tl;dr my girlfriends past repulses me and make me look at her differently and I don’t know how I will be able to look past it now that I know.