I Hate Thinking That My Boyfriend Has Had Sex With Anyone But Me

Dear Thought Catalog, how do you always post things as I am thinking about them? True Life: my boyfriend has had sex with basically all of his friends, current and past, which makes it impossible for me to hang out with said people comfortably. FML selfish 4ever

I like to think that, because I'm replaceable and my partner will be OK and perfect without me, that I have more value because they *choose* to stay with me. They don't hang on me or use me a crutch to get through their life–they want me by their side to enjoy it with them.

I think this feeling is selfish, but not necessarily unhealthy. 

This was a fun piece, and something I've thought about and talked about with others. I've never experienced it myself except once AFTER the relationship was over and still having feelings for this person. Three months later it was gone forever. The discomfort, I mean.

I have to laugh at the vision of someone feverishly trolling the internet for former lovers or obsessing over it while making coffee. Like a Cohen brothers or Woody Allen movie scene.

I for one am excited by the idea of a SO sleeping with someone else. This may make me seem like a freak but whatever. There's more to relationships than the sexual aspects you share with each other. To have one aspect dominate all others points toward a dysfunctional relationship. Dunno. Wish I had  a gf for other ppl to fuck.

yeah. totally relevant. it hurts bad to be selfish and yet i wouldn't have it any other way.

More mystery, less history.

I have definitely had these feelings but mainly in the beginning of a relationship, like the first year. I feel like ideally – as trust grows these feelings dissipate.

when i was 17 my boyfriend was obsessed with the fact that i had kissed (yes, kissed) one boy before we even met. he basically accused me of being a slut and wouldn't let it go throughout our entire 18 month relationship. about four years later  i have zero sympathy for pathetic people who fixate on lame shit like this. grow up/get over it. you're insane if you genuinely care about something so petty.

So good.

you're gonna make me cry

I think, all in all, the less you know the better. Outside of getting basic information, there's no question you could ask a significant other about their prior loves that isn't to some degree masochistic. You want to know, but you don't want to know. Save yourself the trouble and don't ask.

IM UR BOYFRIEND AND YOU ARE A TOTALLY SELFISH BITCH GET OVER URSELF

What you're saying and what the article is saying is completely different. Yes, it is extremely petty to do what your boyfriend did, but when you're with someone you care about it's difficult to imagine them with someone who isn't you, treating someone else the way they treat you. It's usually not brought up (I would never bring up to my boyfriend how whenever he mentions his ex girlfriend that he dated for years I feel a slight prick inside) because it's not important enough to bring up, and it's not something you can fix or stop yourself from doing. If the writer hassled her boyfriend about it and made him feel bad for having sex prior to their relationship then yeah it would be really lame, but that's not what she's saying.

In my experience, this is typically a function of a person's insecurities and further, their tendency to seek validation through emotional entanglement. People want to be wanted. And, we choose partners based upon how they make us feel about ourselves. Problem is, when your self-worth is so intertwined with someone's 'love' for you, the very idea that it's not something unique will cause conflict.

“Hide your kids, hide your wife.” Nice use of reference.

Tell me Chelsea, you can tell me anything.

“And we don’t just want to hear that we’re important, we want to know
that we’re the most important. We want proof. We want it written. Not on
paper, but on stone! With blood, dammit. We’re selfish like that.”

Such truth. Taken straight from recent conversations I've had. Thank you. Such a new, hard, strange lesson I've been learning about my up-until-now logical, rational self. Never knew how much history could bother me until I realized how affected I am by some random chick he barely dated, by my NEED to be more special. Ugh, humans.

“we don't like to admit it, but that's how we work” 
woah woah woah, speak for yourself darlin.

…That whole “he'll be marvelous after you” thing?  That's not a bug; it's a feature.  Try it for yourself.

so ur saying ur perfectly rationale and immune to insecurities in all your relationships? Boring. she isn't saying sayin shes slashing anyones tires, shes admittig to being human. What are u?

I didn't notice I thought this way until I read this. Although I haven't been in many relationships, I have felt “selfish” in this way before. Hmm… Not sure what to make of this… Great article though!

Oh god I'm scared of people like you. I'm scared that my boyfriend thinks like this. I'm totally into (monogamously boning) him, but I know he gets really weird and testy and uneasy thinking about my exes or past flings. Like, lamely veiled jokes about my ex's big cock aren't a turnon, at all.

This is an accurate description of ONE side of relationships. It's not always rainbows and butterflies. Glad you arent afraid to admit that.

Realize that he was a different person when he was with his ex, as we constantly change, so he's essentially someone new with you. He's with you now in the present, the reality, and doesn't the present override the past?

Once you make peace with the fact that everyone your significant other has been with was better looking, smarter, more confident, and more sexually gifted then you will ever be, relationships get a lot easier.

“The mere mention of their name breeds a new form of passive aggression that surprises and sickens even you. 'What is she up to nowadays? Oh. Wow. Well, hopefully she finds her way.'”
It's like you're my brain, somehow actualized on this monitor.

…did you just quote Maroon 5?

Well, some of us are sociopaths. Or, maybe “have sociopathic leanings” is the better way to put it. Think Asperger's but plus some level of self-awareness.

You're being ironic and mean terrible, right? Right?

RIGHT???!?!?

I think you're absolutely right. I wrote this as I thought back on my first relationship and did in fact react this way once upon a time. Although I can still see remnants of this behavior lurk on over to newer relationships, I've mostly grown up and gotten over the NEED to know these things. I sleep better at night, definitely. Reading some of these comments is just interesting, in that it baffles me that some people pretend they are immune to any of this. It's not something I even feel embarrassed about, cause that's like saying I'm embarrassed about being, well, human.

I'm really sorry you had to go through that relationship. That sounds awful and abusive. You certainly should not have any sympathy for people that call you a slut. But no where in this piece did I imply that name-calling or making your significant other feel miserable is okay. Quite the opposite actually — you work through your vulnerabilities/insecurities/whatever on your own.

i agree with this. but for me with my first long term rship it was more the emotional than the physical. i hate thinking that he had a crush on someone and then followed thru with it and asked her out. i hate thinking that he was excited to see her or excited to have sex with her, or that he was content to just lay and cuddle with her. i hate thinking that he got butterflies looking into her eyes, and he doesnt even have to give me any details for me to feel this way, i can just imagine it. i dealt w it on my own, and this is all in present tense bc even though we're over it still bothers me. i imagine that with the next one i won't feel this way, bc now i'll have a past as well.

i would cut the first line

I think this gets easier over time because you get prepared for it the more relationships you are in. I was like this in my first relationship. But a couple relationships later I can still get this way a little bit, as in I get curious about the exes but recognize it's ultimately a waste of time, energy and emotion. I have exes too and some I still talk to. As many great experiences you had with your exes there is a reason they are your ex and that you are with the person you are with now, even if it doesn't last forever. The more I catch myself in this train of thought and the more I just try to enjoy my partner for who they are now the easier, less dramatic, and better my relationships have gotten. I don't care that my partner's ex was pretty, I don't care that they talk. My ex was pretty too and we talk, but we don't have feelings in that way in the present. Not everything that upsets you is worth the energy, you have to choose your battles.

Insecurity (and the jealousy that stems from it) will often destroy a perfectly good relationship. It's a shame. I hope he gets over it (and that you've found a way to let him know it's not funny :)).

Some people are *a lot* more secure than others and therefore not prone to such worries (and if so, they are so minor they are dismissed within a few seconds of thought). Besides, it depends massively on the relationship and the couple involved! A person may be secure in themselves and as a couple in one relationship, but not in another.

“because it's not important enough to bring up”. I like your outlook. Thank you for being another understanding person in the world :)

you must mean poring rather than pouring? unless you've got a can of beer in hand while being voyeuristic :)

Dear A.,
Are you me? Because I'm also in that situation. It's this weird incestous friend circle…it makes me feel uneasy, while everyone else seems so relaxed. And then I start to wonder whether I'm the uptight bitch who should just get over it. Uugh

I have dated girls like you. You're completely irrational and you know it. I hate that. 

“We don’t like to admit it, but that’s how we work.”

I'm insulted that you used “we.” That's not how I work.

maybe, but i kind of feel like the only difference really is that he said what he was thinking to my face. letting it upset you without saying anything is going to cause just as many problems (maybe different kinds of problems but they will still exist) as saying it. thinking that you are “dispensable” because your boyfriend banged someone before you even met IS going to cause conflict and confusion. regardless of whether or not the writer hassles her boyfriend, the problem still exists and it's a really silly problem.

hey ladies, virgin here!

I knew there were people like this… I think I even dated one once…it ended in screaming crying breakup. 

I would suggest you get out of a relationship, and spend a year or two getting over this, because its going to only cause problems for the rest of your life.  Every relationship you enter into until you fix this problem is doomed to failure, unless you date a virgin who has never been with anyone, and even then I would imagine you would find some way to let this problem wiggle in.

I'll add, after reading all of these different comments, that it's not specifically about  the sex for me. I GET that that's unreasonable and nonsensical, as I have a history myself and understand the basic
cycle of life (though it still makes me throw up a little to think
about. You shouldn't think about it). I've been in relationships where I
never thought twice about this.

But the sometimes-uncontrollable thoughts of the person you love loving
someone else, chasing after another, trying to impress and/or undress
them – the stuff they never addressed in Disney movies? Wretcccched. After we had a little trust mishap, I've privately morphed into this Bizarro self whose mantra
seems to be, “But he loves me more, right? More than anyone else before
me? The MOST?!” And then I have to Google tips on how to be sane and secure again, because I'm fully aware that this can't continue.

Can you tell I've been thinking about this a lot lately?

dude, i so totally feel both of you. good to know i'm not alone. maybe psycho and over-bearing and hyper-jealous…but not alone.

it's compromise that moves us along, bro.

Wait…you told him about your ex's big cock?  Or am I reading this wrong.

Ummm. Yes, technically. But he started it!
 By making waayy too frequent jokey racist-assumptions/questions about my ex's cock. And finally one time when I was a little tipsy instead of a smile and eyeroll I was just kinda like “OKAY FINE! He was hung as hell, are you happy??” There was no makeup sex that night.

Right! As I get older I'm starting to think that it is a sort-of milestone in a new relationship to have the Baggage and/or Exes Talk. Like, there's this ex and s/he's kind of nuts and still calls me but it means nothing. And there was this one anorexic ex who hated food and stabbed me in the neck with a pencil in a fight, please don't hate food or stab me with a pencil?

Partially so you can check and make sure your new partner isn't still in
love with the ex, and partially so you can both come clean and move
onto better things.

did u just recognize a maroon 5 quote? :)

I have dated guys like you. And dumped you.

No, I'm saying that I don't particularly like being lumped into categories that generalize all women as emotionally immature. 
I don't get jealous when I hear about who my partners have slept with. Those are stories I love sharing, because it shows a lot about where a person has come from, what they've been through, how they became who they are. I'm not immune to jealousy- my current primary relationship is both open and long distance. There are definitely times that I get jealous that my boyfriend is sleeping with someone who is not me while I'm 3000 miles away. But jealousy is an interesting thing for me, I kind of like having to deal with it once and awhile. It forces me to question myself and reaffirm the strength of my relationship. I don't get into relationships that make me feel insecure, so it's pretty easy to avoid that brand of insecurity. I'm very very far from perfectly rationale, but I'm also very far from the insecure and irrational “we” that the author tries to sweep over all women.

That is how I work. Just me. Every women “works” with every relationship differently, and I've had  enough of people telling me that I must be jealous and irrational because I have a vagina. 

You're not an uptight bitch, but I say that because I think the same way and would like to think that I'm not. At my wedding, my husband invited his last fling because she happened to be dating one of his groomsmen at the time. She caught my bouquet. Then his ex showed up at our going away party. It is impossible for me to hang out with his guy friends without someone they have ALL been inside, showing up. FML as well.

This is so well written! I know exactly how you feel!

I get jealous, I can’t help it .I feel like the exes are in my face all the time cause they have so many of them. To a point sometimes I don’t even wanna give the relationship a chance cause it makes me angry and sick to my stomach to think of my lover sleeping with someone else

I cannot believe this article…its like you’re inside my mind. I struggle with these feelings almost daily. I wish that I didn’t know anything about his past….and now I’m like an obsessed loser. At least its good to know I’m not alone in feeling like this….

It’s like you read my mind hunny!

Thank you so much for that, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders! <33

Hey, I’m a guy and I’m like this with girls I’ve dated. Call me crazy, but it’s not a gender thing. 

Irreplaceable was about an ex-boyfriend being replaceable. That’s why it was popular. Not because everyone wants to feel irreplaceable. It’s also a little catchy.

I’m with you on this too!:(

Read ‘I Hate His/Her Ex’ By Alex Cooper. I was having loads of problems with my fiance’s ex and after reading this book, have resolved nearly all of the issues that were causing a problem in my relationship. :) xx

I Hate His/Her Ex is a book for anyone having difficulty coming to terms with their partner’s past relationships – brilliant read! Available on Amazon or most bookstores – Kindle or paperback!

God, I was looking for this all day today. It’s so accurate. I hate this awful feeling of jealousy and this inexplicable sudden distrust that I feel whenever he talks about someone else.

At least I’m not alone.

Omg i kno how u all feel. It makes u wonder if u have something special with this person or everything uve done with them they have done it loads before. I love my guy so much.  i would do anything for him. Just hoping he feels the same way about me.