Reader Never Read My Site writes:
I have a girlfriend who comes from a religious family .. they have really good principles and manners, but since she went to the university unfortunately she met friends who really have no principles in life. Their principle is, “You only live once.” My girlfriend had many different sexual relationships. After her first stable relationship, her boyfriend betrayed her. After that she got wild .. she kissed a lot in parties, slept with around 13 men ..and all of them just wanted her for sex .. that’s it. She had friends with benefits twice .. and the rest one night stands or men who just wanted to sleep with her and then left her.
Not just that, but she got HPV from her ex boyfriend .. and she is in the stage before she gets cancer. I met her around 18 months ago .. but I’m from a different world, I believe in just having sex in a relationship not outside. If I’m in a relationship I’m really intense.. in everything, including love, caring, and sex. I love having sex in a relationship … she is my 3rd relationship. I love her but sometimes can’t get over what she did even if she said to me 1000 times that she regrets sleeping with the other men and says that if she had a boyfriend like me at that time she never would have done it.
I love sex in the relationship .. but she said to me she can’t have sex everyday ..and she says I pressure her. I think she has a problem .. she wants me always to show her that I love her without having sex, but I don’t separate between love and sex. But I feel she does. She wants me to touch her, kiss her, and see how hot she is and I’m not allowed to have sex with her… it makes me really unhappy and think that i want to end the relationship.
She went to the doctor and he said her birth control pill may be decreasing her desire to have sex. She stopped taking the pill, but I still have the problem that I cant forget how cheap she was! I get the feeling even if she regrets it, she would do something like that again. I also fear that she can’t have children because she has another problem plus the HPV which can give her cancer.
Dear NRMS,
As the moniker I have given you denotes, I don’t think you’re familiar with my site. As the illustration I have chosen suggests, I feel that some of your ideas are fairly antiquated at best and misogynistic at worst. First things first: you are using protection when having sex, correct? The last thing you and your girlfriend need is for her to get pregnant right now, for the reasons I elucidate below.
I believe that the way that you were raised is impacting your ability to be empathic toward your girlfriend. As I discuss here, when people are taught that sex is shameful, it can significantly mess them up, to the point that they become extremely rigid and judgmental, like you are acting. I like the principle, “You only live once” especially when it leads to a healthy and enjoyable sex life. So what if your girlfriend slept with other guys? She was single. I completely 100% disagree that a woman’s worth as a human is in any way impacted by the number of penises she has had in her vagina.
Your girlfriend does suffer from low self-esteem, but it’s not the number of men she’s slept with that tells me that, it’s the fact that she is in a relationship with you, a man who is so judgmental and condemning. Beyond this, you are incredibly hypocritical! Why is it okay to have a high sex drive inside a relationship, as you do, but not outside of it, as she did? Research shows that women’s sex drive decreases dramatically in monogamous relationships (read about that and read this whole article here), and I don’t know any woman in a long term relationship that wants sex every day particularly when the man thinks he is entitled to it!
If you want to stay with your girlfriend, you’re going to need an attitude change, and that would likely happen through intensive insight-oriented therapy that focuses on how you learned to be closeminded and why you find it so hard to see other people’s perspectives. She needs therapy of her own that focuses on her upbringing, where I would imagine she had an overbearing, judgmental parent, which is why she is drawn to you (read about imago theory here).
You are not concerned at all about making your girlfriend happy. Why shouldn’t you tell her you love her and how attractive she is without expecting daily sex as your due? Read about what women need and value here. You should be concerned about the fact that you are shaming your girlfriend for her past. If you want to stay with her and marry her, you will have to stop thinking of her as damaged goods. Or, please, end the relationship so that you do not end up making your girlfriend feel bad about herself for the rest of her life.
Regarding the HPV, over 80% of sexually active females will have had HPV by age 50. It’s the most common sexually transmitted infection; read more here. I assume by “the stage before cancer” you mean she’s had some precancerous lesions on her cervix, and possibly a LEEP or other procedure to remove them. This is extremely common, it is not like brain cancer. Most women with cervical lesions from HPV have them removed and are completely A-OK to get pregnant. I don’t know what her “other problem” is but HPV is no biggie, and since you don’t even need to have intercourse to get HPV, the likelihood of the next women you date having HPV also is extremely high.
Thanks for writing in for this tough love. You can stop the cycle of judgmental behavior now, if you realize that you are being selfish and valuing your girlfriend primarily based on sex and procreation: how much sex she had before you, how much sex she’s having with you, and her likelihood of carrying a baby to term. If these are your values, you need to find a vagina, I mean, woman who had few if any partners before you and you two can judge the rest of the world together. However, if you love your girlfriend, consider that the past, present, and future of her vagina comprise the majority of your thoughts about her. She is certainly more than a vagina, no? Till we meet again, I remain, The Blogapist Who Thinks This Guy Would Never Have Dated Me.