There is a common belief that previous relationships should not factor into current ones. (This is like saying that your childhood doesn’t shape your adulthood; both are wrong.) People are uncomfortable both sharing their own romantic/sexual history and hearing about their partner’s past relationships or sexual encounters, thinking that they “don’t matter” and the discussion will only end in jealousy and resentment. This avoidance is unfortunate, because past relationships are an integral part of your history. Without knowing about past relationships, it is hard to truly understand your partner at a deep level. If you and your partner are well attuned and happy with what you know about each other’s past, then certainly keep doing what you’re doing. But for anyone who feels unhappy, misattuned, jealous, dissatisfied romantically/sexually, or disconnected in their relationship, discussing your history in general and specifically your relationship history can be a fruitful area of potential connection.
Think about it. Would you go to a therapist that didn’t want to hear about your relationship history? Sure, your partner isn’t your therapist. But, your partner, like your therapist, needs to fully understand you in order to empathize with you and understand why you do what you do. Here are some issues that can be resolved via hearing about exes/past sexual experiences:
- Your partner can understand they aren’t the only one with whom you have had certain issues. Whether this means you have erectile issues during the first hookup with everyone (not just her) or that other exes have called you “difficult,” hearing that their own issues with you have also occurred in past relationships is reassuring and validating
- You can stop idealizing your partner’s past relationships/partners and recognize that they were just human, with flaws and weaknesses
- You can understand why your partner acts in various ways about sex/romance, given their early experiences
- You can discuss things that are better in this relationship than others. Everyone likes positive comparisons. There is no number of times saying to your wife, “You are beautiful” that is worth one “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever been with.” (And if this isn’t the case, pick the thing she IS best at to insert into this sentence.)
- Your partner, especially female partners in my experience, love to give you things that you never got before. If you’re always asking your wife to, let’s say, have sex outside, and you’ve never discussed prior relationships, then she assumes you have done this with everyone already anyway and then why should she try to get outside her comfort zone? On the other hand, if this is a lifelong fantasy that you have never actually done, then telling her this makes it a whole different narrative: She is the only one who can satisfy your long-standing desire, and this will be exciting for both of you and make you closer than before.
- By discussing exes, you yourself may see threads of connection and patterns that you never saw before in your own history. Like, “Now that I think about it, I was kind of defensive in arguments with all my ex-girlfriends and my ex-wife. This is something I want to work on so I don’t keep doing it with you.”
Now, many of you will be thinking that the potential gains in closeness may be undermined by the downsides if you just start waxing rhapsodic about your ex. To this I say two things: (1) No shit, Sherlock, and (2) Here are some helpful caveats to guide you through this process.
- If talking about exes will be a sea change, discuss with your partner why you want to do it and commit to being as non-defensive and non-sulky as possible during it. Possible reasons you want to do it include:
- You are jealous about exes because the limited info you know about them makes you idealize them, and you want to work on this via understanding the full picture
- You want to spice up your sex life, and this often occurs when you discuss past sexual encounters/know more about what has turned on your partner in the past
- You feel disconnected and want to understand your partner more fully
- You yourself have been thinking about patterns running through your prior relationships (and stemming from childhood before that) due to therapy or just reading my blog, and want your partner to understand you better
- Do not actually wax rhapsodic about your ex. Obviously there are no long discussions about how awesome your ex was in every way. Be tactful but honest. So, if the relationship was awesome and this person dumped you and you always regretted it, the useful thing to discuss here is WHY this person dumped you, what you learned about it, whether you’re still doing this thing with your current partner, and how you’re working on it. And if they left you for someone else, I am sure this was hurtful and impacted your ability to trust, which are great things to discuss in order to help your partner understand you better.
- If you have specific questions, ask them and commit to being open and curious versus sad and hurt. E.g., “Did you fight with your ex-wife as much as we do?” You can choose to be hurt by a no, or you can ask why and actually maybe learn something helpful and interesting. (I mean, you may still be hurt, but there’s a vast difference between hurt/sulky/closed down, and hurt BUT open and curious.)
- If you are resistant to this whole article because you’re still obsessed with an ex, or you truly believe you would have been better off marrying your ex, therapy can help you figure this out. In this case, do not start talking about exes with your current partner.
A note about physical comparisons: Most men marry women who are their physical “type” and/or who they are very attracted to (read this from the horse’s mouth here), so even if one of your husband’s ex’s was conventionally more attractive than you by some metric, it is not likely that physical attractiveness was far higher than yours in your husband’s mind. And most women who think about their exes aren’t fantasizing about how physically hot this man was, but about other aspects of the relationship. This means that engaging in toxic downward spiral thinking about how one of your partner’s exes was more attractive than you is likely unwarranted. Further, obsessing about this can only distract you from thinking about exes usefully, e.g., “So he really liked that he had a lot of fun with his ex; can I be more fun?” or “Her ex was creative in bed; how can I be more creative?” Looks are a lot less changeable than other aspects.
My book 52 Emails To Transform Your Marriage can actually guide you through a conversation about your romantic and sexual past as well as a million other (no actually only 51 other) conversations that can make you closer and deepen your connection with your partner. So can a skilled couples counselor. Don’t let your marriage grow stale and disconnected. Try everything you can, including changing up what topics are considered “taboo” to discuss. No matter the subject, new conversations can rekindle a spark in what you may be convinced is a disconnected and detached relationship. And till we meet again, I remain, The Blogapist That Hates Small Talk.