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Heber13 wrote:
Roy wrote:
Groundhog wrote:
It’s more of what you said when you talked to your counselor, the idea that my gf could be forever bonded to other people in a sacred way when it shouldn’t be that way. I just find it disturbing to dwell on that thought, that even in the eternities there would be other people who know my wife intimately.
I know that it is easier said than done but I can’t help but think that it doesn’t have to be that way. The idea that someone that had an intimate moment with your gf/wife would be forever bonded to her is not doctrinal.
I agree with Roy on this. It does seem from your posts that you are placing a certain meaning on the sacred nature of things, understandably from the teachings we receive in the church and in our families.
But as Roy said…it doesn’t mean it has to be that way or that is all that matters.
It is either something from the past you cling to and let it bother you, or it is not and you let it go. There may have been other things that were sacred to you once, but in learning new things, you let it go and it doesn’t bother you anymore. We often do that. Especially when they are no big deal to us. This one, however, keeps coming back and is a hard one for you. That doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you, simply that this one sticks…it is there to be wrestled with…and it is difficult. We all discard stuff that is no big deal easily…but it is the ones that stick that cause us to struggle and grow by working through them. They are the ones we learn the most from.
Don’t look at it as something is wrong with you because it is difficult. Just embrace it as something difficult for you. It just is. Now what will you choose to do about it?
If you can let it go, you would be good to do so.
If you can’t, you might consider that now before you move to marry her, so that if you do marry her, you know if you can give her your whole heart and move forward and not keep bringing it up, or if you just can’t and better to end things now.
There is no right or wrong, no black or white. There simply is your choice.
I know situations are all very different, and I don’t intend to dismiss your thoughts or struggles with it. Just simply want to point out it doesn’t have to be that way about it being so sacred that there are no options ever, it is what you choose to do with it. YOU are placing that definition on it and that meaning on the sacred nature, and it stays with you until you wrestle with that and let it go or put it in perspective with everything else to rationally process it.
I am divorced and remarried. My wife was divorced and remarried to me. If your logic holds true as a universal eternal truth about the nature of sacred things, we are condemned to never have our sacred marriage together. You might say “that is different” …but it is not any more different than your situation from cnsl1 or any other. All are different. But what is the same? The idea that we create what is sacred in our hearts…and individual circumstances vary and we adapt to them. There are no absolutes.
Do you stay committed to ideas from past actions, or do you choose to move ahead and truly love going forward? That can determine what is sacred to you or not.
Quote:“But the human spirit is resilient. God made us so. He gave us the ability to forgive. To leave our past behind. To look forward instead of back.”
“Ultimately, to get better, I simply made a choice.”
― Elizabeth Smart, My StorySituations are different, but principles are the same. Is Elizabeth Smart forever damaged as a person and never to have anything sacred in her life? There are too many examples out there to refute such thinking. We are all different. We are all damaged. We are all sinners. We are all sacred sons and daughters of God.
Your thoughts on the meaning of the past does not need to be more powerful than actions moving forward to love and let go. Faith and love and the Atonement overcome anything in the past.
It sounds to me from your posts, groundhog, you know these things and have read it and heard it all before. So how do you let it go? How do you keep it from bothering you? How do you stop thinking and worrying?
I think you simply start today doing it. You can’t always think about how you will start to not let it bother you, you can’t always think it through. You sometimes just have faith and do it, and then the thoughts fall into perspective.
Realize the thoughts that come to you can be entertained or dismissed. They may keep coming back, but you can ignore them if you want. In time, the more often we dismiss the things that hold us back…the more we are focusing on the now and the future to make things as we want them to be. Many times, once we get our mind on the good things looking head, the past becomes less worrisome to us, and like other things that are no big deal to you, this becomes another one of those.
The Maori Proverb states:
Quote:Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.
That is sacred. Love is sacred. Sex is just an earthly bodily thing…but love is what is sacred and eternal. Love can overcome the past thoughts that hold us back. So start today, and just keep moving forward with love in your heart.
Choose your love, and love your choice.
Thank you everyone, and thank you Heber13.
I think I have found my way forward. For the longest time, I said that I just needed to get over it, that my gf did not do anything wrong to me, and that it all rested on me. And it did, but it glossed over and ignored a very fundamental fact that I didn’t admit because my gf did nothing wrong. I glossed over that I still held her past against her. I was still choosing to be offended, choosing to let it be a stumbling block. How dare she take something that I wasn’t even able to choose for myself? Even while telling her that I didn’t hold it against her. It was a lie, because to think otherwise really made me feel crappy, like a villain. I could never be that person, the person who got caught up on one tiny little thing that wasn’t a big deal. but here I was, being that exact person, so because it didn’t logically make sense to me, I just glossed over it.
But I did hold it in my heart against her. So the answer I found, the way forward for me, was finally, to forgive. It seemed so silly. WHat was there to forgive? Even though she doesn’t need it, it was for me. I needed to let it go, but not in a way where I just “forgot about it” or “ignored it.” I had to acknowledge it, and then say, I forgive you (again, even though she didn’t need it). And then forget anything that was destructive to my own thoughts. It wasn’t easy. But knowing that I had the power of the Atonement at least let me have the strength to get on that road.
I can say that I feel lighter. It certainly doesn’t rack my brain anymore. It’s a work in progress but I just continually forget the destructive, dismiss the negative.
This was my answer. I don’t know how helpful it is for anyone else. But I just wanted to let everyone know.
I’m glad you have found your path. May you continue to find the peace you seek. Groundhog wrote:
But I did hold it in my heart against her. So the answer I found, the way forward for me, was finally, to forgive. It seemed so silly. WHat was there to forgive? Even though she doesn’t need it, it was for me. I needed to let it go, but not in a way where I just “forgot about it” or “ignored it.” I had to acknowledge it, and then say, I forgive you (again, even though she didn’t need it). And then forget anything that was destructive to my own thoughts. It wasn’t easy. But knowing that I had the power of the Atonement at least let me have the strength to get on that road.
I sometimes feel that we link forgiveness and wrongdoing too closely. After the stillbirth of my daughter I felt like I had let my family down and I yearned for forgiveness. Yet, I hadn’t done anything wrong and never did have the power to protect my family from every negative outcome. I needed to forgive myself and that was complicated in part by the idea that forgiveness/repentance was for wrongdoing. I was excited by the concept of forgiveness and salvation in mainstream protestant churches because the individual can be forgiven essentially for their fallen state (a fallen state that was not their fault to begin with and that they will continue in even after being forgiven). I think of it like Jesus saying unto his father, “Forgive them, for they are merely human.”
IOW, if calling it forgiveness helps in your process of letting it go then more power too you. The word forgiveness can be powerful and has many facets. I am happy that you are having a measure of success getting past this obstacle and are feeling more free.
Great post, groundhog. Thanks so much for sharing. I liked this…
Quote:
I had to acknowledge it,
thanks
I was listening to a podcast by John Dehlin recently and, as many of you may know, he did his Masters research and thesis on OCD. I found that much of what he shared applied to me and the suffering I experienced when I first started this thread with regard to handling my wife’s sexual past. I am by no means a professional so please don’t take my words as gospel (pun intended.) The words I am about to share are my opinions based on the understanding I received after listening to someone I consider to be a professional in the realm of OCD. If you are suffering from OCD in any of its many forms you should seek professional help. That said, I am hopeful that perhaps some of the information I am about to share will help others understand what is happening to them when they find themselves suffering over the sexual past of their significant other. I am also hopeful that those who haven’t suffered in this way will be able to better understand what I was going through when I first started this thread and why I felt the way I did.
Here is my understanding after listening to this professional:
For those who are unaware, OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder and obviously has two components: an obsessive part and a compulsive part. The compulsive part is the action one takes to try to remediate whatever it is one is obsessing over. Example: If you obsess about cleanliness then you might compulsively wash your hands. If you obsess about safety then you might obsessively check to make sure your door is locked before you leave. If you obsess about being righteous you might obsessively confess to your bishop over things that don’t merit confession (scrupulosity.)
Rumination (deeply thinking about something) happens to be one of the many compulsive behaviors that may be manifested by those who suffer from OCD. When I first visited with a counselor over this issue the first thing he said to me was, “You are really ruminating over this.” Again, I have not been professionally diagnosed but I believe that when I first posted back in early 2016 I was suffering, for the first time in my life, from OCD. The obsessive component was my wife’s past. The compulsive component was rumination. I could not stop thinking about her past. Thinking about my wife being with someone else in an intimate way is, for me, very painful. Thus, I was in constant pain.
Another thing I learned was that OCD attacks the things that are most important to us. I am not a neat freak so OCD never reared it’s ugly head for me in this way. I am not naturally paranoid (we regularly leave our doors unlocked for days at a time) so safety and lock checking never were a target for my OCD. I used to think I suffered from scrupulosity in my youth but after gaining more insight into what that actually looks like I no longer believe that. I think I was just a kid who was “scared straight” by the church and greatly feared going to hell so I white-knuckled my way with will power through my teens not getting into much trouble at all. But when my wife opened up to me about her past I found myself thrust into this world of suffering that I did not know existed. She is everything to me and the OCD was exploiting that. My suffering is all well-documented on this thread so I won’t go into further detail than that. But it was real. It was extremely painful. And I could not find a way out.
When I first posted here I was seeking a safe place to talk. I had posted in one other location prior to this and was largely told that I needed to forgive and forget. I was told that I was disrespecting the Atonement. I was told I lacked faith. I was told that I was judgmental. I was told my wife deserved better than me. Just as it would not be helpful to tell an OCD sufferer that one hand-washing is enough and that 8 washings is crazy. Similarly, telling me that I was disrespecting Christ’s Atonement only added to my suffering. StayLDS is a unique community. I love that one can discuss church issues here without vitriol. It seems like this is where the grown-ups hang out. And for the most part, my post has been met with maturity and understanding. So thank you for that. That said, I know how hard it is to truly understand each other sometimes so hopefully this information will help bring some clarity to those who were puzzled by my experience.
mfree6464 wrote:
I was listening to a podcast by John Dehlin recently and, as many of you may know, he did his Masters research and thesis on OCD. I found that much of what he shared applied to me and the suffering I experienced when I first started this thread with regard to handling my wife’s sexual past. I am by no means a professional so please don’t take my words as gospel (pun intended.) The words I am about to share are my opinions based on the understanding I received after listening to someone I consider to be a professional in the realm of OCD. If you are suffering from OCD in any of its many forms you should seek professional help.That said, I am hopeful that perhaps some of the information I am about to share will help others understand what is happening to them when they find themselves suffering over the sexual past of their significant other. I am also hopeful that those who haven’t suffered in this way will be able to better understand what I was going through when I first started this thread and why I felt the way I did.
Here is my understanding after listening to this professional:
For those who are unaware, OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder and obviously has two components: an obsessive part and a compulsive part. The compulsive part is the action one takes to try to remediate whatever it is one is obsessing over. Example: If you obsess about cleanliness then you might compulsively wash your hands. If you obsess about safety then you might obsessively check to make sure your door is locked before you leave. If you obsess about being righteous you might obsessively confess to your bishop over things that don’t merit confession (scrupulosity.)
Rumination (deeply thinking about something) happens to be one of the many compulsive behaviors that may be manifested by those who suffer from OCD. When I first visited with a counselor over this issue the first thing he said to me was, “You are really ruminating over this.” Again, I have not been professionally diagnosed but I believe that when I first posted back in early 2016 I was suffering, for the first time in my life, from OCD. The obsessive component was my wife’s past. The compulsive component was rumination. I could not stop thinking about her past. Thinking about my wife being with someone else in an intimate way is, for me, very painful. Thus, I was in constant pain.
Another thing I learned was that OCD attacks the things that are most important to us. I am not a neat freak so OCD never reared it’s ugly head for me in this way. I am not naturally paranoid (we regularly leave our doors unlocked for days at a time) so safety and lock checking never were a target for my OCD. I used to think I suffered from scrupulosity in my youth but after gaining more insight into what that actually looks like I no longer believe that. I think I was just a kid who was “scared straight” by the church and greatly feared going to hell so I white-knuckled my way with will power through my teens not getting into much trouble at all. But when my wife opened up to me about her past I found myself thrust into this world of suffering that I did not know existed. She is everything to me and the OCD was exploiting that. My suffering is all well-documented on this thread so I won’t go into further detail than that. But it was real. It was extremely painful. And I could not find a way out.
When I first posted here I was seeking a safe place to talk. I had posted in one other location prior to this and was largely told that I needed to forgive and forget. I was told that I was disrespecting the Atonement. I was told I lacked faith. I was told that I was judgmental. I was told my wife deserved better than me. Just as it would not be helpful to tell an OCD sufferer that one hand-washing is enough and that 8 washings is crazy. Similarly, telling me that I was disrespecting Christ’s Atonement only added to my suffering. StayLDS is a unique community. I love that one can discuss church issues here without vitriol. It seems like this is where the grown-ups hang out. And for the most part, my post has been met with maturity and understanding. So thank you for that. That said, I know how hard it is to truly understand each other sometimes so hopefully this information will help bring some clarity to those who were puzzled by my experience.
I am so thankful for your post. It was one of the few places (in a topic already with few posts on the internet) that spoke directly to me. So many things you’ve said applied to what I was feeling. I too posted about this in one other place and I pretty much was told the same things you were. It made me feel worse because even looking from the outside in, I would have said the same things those people did. So why couldn’t it get out of my mind? And your thoughts on OCD, while I don’t believe i have it, sound a lot like what I went through. I became obsessed with chasing each thread of thought to their logical conclusion and there was just two conclusions I could not get over no matter how hard I tried to “logic” past them. I really felt like my own brain would end me, or the relationship. In fact, I began thinking a lot about ending the relationship for both our sakes. I think ironically that was where the actual healing began because even if I ended the relationship, I didn’t want to end it on a sour note. I wanted to end things amicably and on good terms. That’s where I was led to forgiveness.
But yes, I cannot overstate that I felt a kinship with you despite how vastly different our situations are. I suspect my own obsession with the topic was akin to something like a culture shock. I just… it just blew my mind. My expectations were completely lambasted and I felt this incredible sense of disappointment and lost. Even now I am not so sure why I was in that state of mind. And even now, weeks later, occasionally it will return. Not as intense or as deep as it used to be though if I dwell on it I can feel the old hooks returning. But it comes in and out. Definitely not every day like it used to be (or rather ever hour).
Anyway, I wonder if in two more years someone else will discover this again.
Roy wrote:
Groundhog wrote:
But I did hold it in my heart against her. So the answer I found, the way forward for me, was finally, to forgive. It seemed so silly. WHat was there to forgive? Even though she doesn’t need it, it was for me. I needed to let it go, but not in a way where I just “forgot about it” or “ignored it.” I had to acknowledge it, and then say, I forgive you (again, even though she didn’t need it). And then forget anything that was destructive to my own thoughts. It wasn’t easy. But knowing that I had the power of the Atonement at least let me have the strength to get on that road.
I sometimes feel that we link forgiveness and wrongdoing too closely. After the stillbirth of my daughter I felt like I had let my family down and I yearned for forgiveness. Yet, I hadn’t done anything wrong and never did have the power to protect my family from every negative outcome. I needed to forgive myself and that was complicated in part by the idea that forgiveness/repentance was for wrongdoing. I was excited by the concept of forgiveness and salvation in mainstream protestant churches because the individual can be forgiven essentially for their fallen state (a fallen state that was not their fault to begin with and that they will continue in even after being forgiven). I think of it like Jesus saying unto his father, “Forgive them, for they are merely human.”
IOW, if calling it forgiveness helps in your process of letting it go then more power too you. The word forgiveness can be powerful and has many facets. I am happy that you are having a measure of success getting past this obstacle and are feeling more free.
Yes that’s a very interesting concept. That forgiveness may not necessarily be about wrongdoing. I’ve never thought about it that way before. I suspect that there are going to be even harder things down the line that life will throw at me that I will need to call upon that power again.
Thanks for the additional input, mfree6464. Psychology is fascinating, and it can help us understand a lot of things more clearly than “the natural (hu)man” is prone to understand.
Groundhog wrote:
Anyway, I wonder if in two more years someone else will discover this again.
Here I am! 6 months early to the party
First off, I want to say thank you for leaving this thread open. The most recent posts have given some good insights for me to consider. Every other post/article I’ve read has been very dismissive of the person experiencing this. It’s like I’ve got a nail through my hand, I’m asking for help, and people are saying “well be grateful, you’ve got two legs”.
So, I’m going to
tryto not add anything that’s already been said before. I don’t want to beat a dead horse. But there will probably be some repeat information bc it’s cathartic to write all of this out and is helping unwind some of the thoughts I’m having. I have been dating a girl, who is divorced, for around 6 months. I’ve known from the get-go that she feels a bit less strict about sex, in principle. I also know that she values her relationship with the church and wants to have that in her life. She’s a great person and has many of attributes that I’d like to see in a long-term relationship.
Over the last few months, I’ve picked up on some information that maybe her past is a bit more checkered than I had originally thought. But I didn’t really put it all together until yesterday. Something she said made it click and it all kind of caught me off guard. My brain hasn’t been able to turn off since.
I’ve always felt it important to be generous and empathetic with people’s past issues and I don’t love how harshly we seem to come down on people for their pasts. I’ve dated girls before with colorful histories. So it surprised me when I started to feel quite a bit of anxiety about what I was finding out.
(Pause to note that I haven’t talked about this with her in depth yet. I plan to, but I feel like I need to get my feet under me and process this so that I don’t say something hurtful or untrue. I fully recognize that I’m operating without a lot of knowledge and might be putting monsters in the closet where they don’t exist. Even so, I’d like to explore why I’m feeling this way in general.)
I’ve been trying to understand why I feel the way that I do. Is it my rigid religious upbringing? I don’t think so (at least that I can identify). My views have shifted a lot over the last decade. Is it that I feel jealous, insecure, or like I’m owed something? Again, no. I like to think that my ego is pretty small about most things. I also find the idea of expecting someone to “save themselves” as a gift to their future spouse to be a bit gross (not the practice itself, just the expectation). If you do it, it should be for yourself. I also don’t think it’s about insecurity; I feel confident about myself and our relationship. I’ve also considered if there’s a biological/evolutionary aspect here (and I’ve seen a few articles suggesting this that males have come to fear rearing another man’s child). I don’t think that’s what is going on. Her past relationship with her husband doesn’t bother me at all.
From what I have talked about with her, it’s clear that she believes sex to be a deeply connecting act; if so, she has a number of people that she’s deeply bonded with. But she also feels it’s not that big of a deal to engage in before marriage; if so, where would the meaning be between us.
Or… it’s both. It’s a deeply connecting act, but it’s value is attenuated, or diluted, with each passing partner. It may not get to the point of being “meaningless”, but it’s value and meaning are reduced.
I think this is part of what I’m getting hung up on. Where do I fit in in this picture? Am I just one of many meaningless partners? Am I one of many meaningful partners (also a discomforting thought)? Am I important but sex is just no-big, in which case our values maybe aren’t aligned?
Or… maybe I’m wrong and the only meaning in the act is the meaning that we ourselves create and attach to it. In which case, nothing is diminished by her former physical relationships.
I want to be fair here and not paint her in a negative light. She’s an amazing person. If she wasn’t, I wouldn’t care about all this and I’d move on in my dating life. She’s thoughtful of my needs and proactively communicates with me and is striving for a long-term, committed relationship. I guess I’m just having a hard time processing my emotions about this.
A portion of my negative feelings come from the acts themselves — the fact that they happened and live on in hers and their memory. The other portion of my negative feelings seem to be about her views/attitudes towards it. I don’t want anyone to feel extreme guilt or shame over mistakes. But what feels off to me is that she doesn’t seem to view them as mistakes. And if they are not, then I feel like I become just another guy in a series of intimate relationships.
This is tough for me because, when I think about it logically, it seems so childish and full of jealousy and insecurity. But at the same time, I feel what I feel. And I can’t ignore those feelings. I need to process and understand them. And at the moment, I don’t understand them.
At the moment, I don’t know the depth of her history. From what I do know, nothing is a dealbreaker for me; just a massive struggle that I need to work through. I will need to have a conversation about it at a greater depth at some point. I don’t know what questions are important for me to have answered yet but I lean toward wanting to know the bare minimum possible, but enough to make an informed decision on the relationship.
I don’t know if this will help, but here are some things to think about…. A)
What is her default timeline like?Some people can live so much in the “Now” that shifts perceptions of things in terms of weighting experiences. It could be that she is that type of person – her “Now” with you is what is most important – it doesn’t matter what happened before (mistake or non-mistake), and the future is peripherally visible here. 
I don’t think that the act is diluted with each passing partner – the understanding of how to create greater enjoyment probably is, but the act itself being a symbolic connection is not. Especially if she is a “Now” type girl – the timing of “Now” will trump past experiences (generally).C) Your anxiety about new information regarding her past experiences is understandable, especially since it isn’t clear to you what your role is slated to be by her perspective,
or what you want your role to be slated to be from your perspective. D) I think the main question you will need to seriously consider is the role of “another guy in a series of intimate relationships” – because that is a thing here. Now, you might want to become
the Current (and Most Important) guy from a series of intimate relationships– but you might not. She was married. She has had partners outside marriage. She has moved on from other men – so she could move on from you (that is a viable threat). Those are facts that you need to weigh the importance of. I think that it would be helpful to get yourself in the frame of mind where it is how you are thinking about her past relationships that is the problem and not the fact that they existed per se. I do believe that there are evolutionary, social, and religious components to this feeling of territorial jealousy (I too have had similar feelings so I know something of where you are coming from).
If I understand you correctly, you are have a predicament. If the past sexual experiences of your girlfriend were meaningful then what is there to differentiate between those and sexual experiences that you might have with her? You want your sexual experiences to be special and unique to highlight the special and unique bond that you share with her. Alternatively, if her past sexual experiences were meaningless then what assurance do you have that any sexual experiences that you might share together would not be similarly meaningless.
chckn_tender_mercies wrote:
But what feels off to me is that she doesn’t seem to view them as mistakes.
I think that this sentence offers some clarity. One way out of your predicament is for her to claim that every relationship that she had prior to you was a mistake (with the possible exception of her previous husband. It seems that maybe you are more comfortable with that one because they were married.) Then you achieve that special and unique connection because everything before you was a mistake and you are obviously not.I have some ideas that might help:
1) Consider how you might feel about things if the roles were reversed. What if your girlfriend wanted to know about every girl that you had dated. How many of them did you kiss or make out with? Was that kiss meaningful at the time? Does the existence of those kisses devalue, diminish, or dilute the meaning of any kisses going forward? Do you personally get to decide on the value of each kiss that you give and how you feel about it or is it just an equation where the value of each kiss is divided amongst the total number of people that have received kisses?
I hope that this exercise brings some perspective. I do not think that it would be fair for your GF to insist that any kiss that you had previous to her should be considered a “mistake” that you regret (and would wish to erase). It does not seem right for her to force you into an ultimatum like that; either disavow all previous relationships or endanger the current one.
2) Look for assurances of the meaningfulness (specialness and uniqueness) of your relationship in other areas. There could be lots and lots of ways to do this. If you were to progress to the point of getting engaged or getting married then the fact that she feels that you are so special as to make a lifelong (eternal) commitment speaks volumes about how she feels about your relationship and connection. The value of your relationship does not need to hinge on being the only relationship that either of you have ever had that includes a sexual component.
3) A talk by John Bytheway included the following quote “the wrong one is the right one to lead you to the best one.” I really like this quote. To me, it means that every previous relationship can be a learning/growing experience or a stepping stone that helps you to discover/prepare for the “best one”. The “best one” is the one that you marry and commit your life to. I have dated and had relationships before marriage. I was not the “best one” for them and they were not the “best one” for me. Perhaps, in different circumstances, we could have been the “best one” for each other – but instead, circumstances being what they were, we learned from each other and went forward with a greater knowledge and understanding. We had learned incrementally what works in a committed relationship and what does not, what is a deal breaker and what is a quirk, what is important and what is simply annoying. I believe that those relationships helped me to become a better partner and spouse.
The ultimate goal is for you to choose her and for you to be chosen by her. Try your best to believe her when she says that she is choosing and has chosen you. This, to me, is what it means to become the “best one.”
A therapist once told me relationships can be so Shakespeareian in their complexities, there are so many intricacies from each person’s views, you could write a book on each one. Relationships can be difficult to navigate, but it sounds like even though you have this particular issue that you are working through, you are doing what you can and trying. You will get through it and you chip away at it and peel back the layers of the onion so to speak.
chckn_tender_mercies wrote:
From what I have talked about with her, it’s clear that she believes sex to be a deeply connecting act; if so, she has a number of people that she’s deeply bonded with. But she also feels it’s not that big of a deal to engage in before marriage; if so, where would the meaning be between us.
I was going to suggest the following thought and then I read it from amyj…
AmyJ wrote:
… She has moved on from other men – so she could move on from you (that is a viable threat).
This was, in the back of my mind, one of the core issues for me. I didn’t understand it until I looked back on the situation later, it was hidden under jealousy, insecurity, and a host of other emotions wound up into a big ball of crap.
This is incredibly hard to work through on your own. A bit of vulnerability, but talking openly and honestly in a very tactful way with her may be a good path.
Roy wrote:
The ultimate goal is for you to choose her and for you to be chosen by her. Try your best to believe her when she says that she is choosing and has chosen you. This, to me, is what it means to become the “best one.”
Completely.And living in the moment, see what you have in front of you.
Hi McFree. I read your post and it reminded me that the same issue- a spouse’s prior physical relationships- can haunt a marriage. Especially if you thought one thing and found out it wasn’t what you thought. But may I ask you if you’ve given any thought to the fact that she cannot undo her past and, when you married her you promised for better or worse? If this is the worst, you have been one very lucky person! Forgive her. If you want to salvage the marriage, that’s all you can reasonably do. Otherwise, it will eat you alive. How do you forgive her? By realizing that maybe she was afraid to be upfront for fear of losing you. Or getting in trouble. Or maybe she just didn’t want to face her own past. Talk. Talk together. Find out where her head is and tell her where yours is.
I wish you all the best!
LCWalker wrote:Forgive her.
I wanted to take a moment to address this comment because this thread seems to find someone every year or two who is suffering like I was and advice like this, though well-meaning, is not helpful to those who are going through this.
I get it. If you haven’t experienced this type of challenge then forgiveness seems to be the answer. It is not. This isn’t about harboring anger over another person’s mistakes, it’s about sorrow. To use an extreme example: if a drunk driver wiped out your family you could forgive the driver’s mistake but that would not remove your sorrow. You would still mourn the terrible loss. Same thing applies here except I was never at any point angry at my wife for her “sins”. She was 16 years old and, like every human on this planet, made a mistake. I never assigned blame to her at all. Ever. I was simply heartbroken at the thought of what happened and, due to my OCD, couldn’t get it out of my head. Forgiveness does not apply to this situation though I totally understand why someone might think that it does.
chckn_tender_mercies, Love the name! ha ha. But in all seriousness I’m sorry to hear your are struggling. I check in on this site every few months just to see if anyone has resurrected this thread. I see that you’ve only made this one post so I’m not sure you’ll even read my words but I’ll respond anyhow since it might help someone else down the line who will come across it looking for answers.
The thing you said that stood out most to me was this:
chckn_tender_mercies wrote:
I didn’t really put it all together until yesterday. Something she said made it click and it all kind of caught me off guard. My brain hasn’t been able to turn off since.
It sounds like you had only been dealing with this reality for about 24 hours or so before writing. Hopefully things have settled down in the weeks since and you are fine. Hopefully it was just a minor jolt that you’ve now processed and moved on with. The fact that you haven’t responded since is probably a good sign for you. This is a problem that can last years so I hope for your sake it is over and done with.You mentioned the word “jealousy” a couple times and I want to point out that jealousy is a misnomer. This isn’t jealousy you are feeling. I’ve been jealous before when a neighbor gets a new car or a co-worker get a raise. But jealousy never made me weep like this challenge did for me. You are dealing with something else entirely.
You asked if it had to do with a rigid (presumably Mormon) upbringing. Probably in-part, yes. But there are people from all faiths who suffer from this and even those with little-to-no religious belief at all who struggle. So that can’t be all of it. Religious or not, most people find it very unpleasant to think about the person they love being intimate with someone else.
I’m not sure where you are with your faith, but if you are able to put aside the idea that she “sinned” I think that will be helpful. You mentioned not being bothered by her intimacy with her ex-husband. I completely understand this and, though my wife was never married before, I agree that had she been it would not have been an issue for me. Why? Because I would not have viewed sexual intimacy with her ex-husband as wrong. That’s what married people are supposed to do so those acts wouldn’t cause me sorrow. Weird, I know. But I’m guessing you probably understand that. Give it some further thought. Why is it ok for her to be sexual with an ex-husband but not an ex-boyfriend? Answering this probably won’t cure you but it will help.
This is a complicated issue and unfortunately there is no magic pill or phrase or single perspective that will remedy the problem. It will take work and time and the path will be different for everyone. For me, one of the painful loops I got stuck in was this idea in my head that sexual sin was a very grave sin (next to murder according to Alma 39:5). God then makes the urge to commit this sin greatest when you are 15-16 years old and for all intents and purposes unable to marry and fulfill those needs “legally.” God also made it so our brains are unable to properly predict consequences when we are teenagers so we are primed to commit this grave sin. And this sin happens to be one of the sins that can’t be undone. If I steal I can pay back the money. If I lie, I can go and tell the truth. But when a teenager inevitably fools around they have committed the sin next to murder and it can never be undone. I had a very hard time with this. It just didn’t seem like something a loving heavenly father would do and I felt like God had left me to hold the bag and suffer.
I also want to touch on OCD as I did previously a year or two back. OCD is a very common denominator among people suffering from a loved one’s sexual past. If you’re like I was you may be thinking, “Well, I don’t have OCD. I never wash my hands 42 times. I never count floor tiles. I never lock my doors 27 times.” I never did any of that either. But I did obsessively think about my wife’s past when I discovered it. I thought about it literally all the time for probably 2 years (and still occasionally think about it 6 years out.) If you find yourself with an obsession on your loved one’s past, and have a compulsion to ruminate or think about it all the time then you might be suffering from OCD as I was. When what you are thinking about is your loved one being intimate with someone, that is unpleasant and you will suffer constantly. That’s exactly what happened with me. It was agony. How did I beat it? Life came along and my focus was eventually forced onto other more pressing matters. Before my focus shifted I did go to professional counseling for a few months and it didn’t really help. I probably should have stuck with it longer. I also would plead nightly with God to help me access the enabling power of the atonement (the lesser known part of the atonement that helps us deal with the fallout and consequences of the sins of others) and that didn’t do it for me either. All I can do is share my experience. Your mileage may vary.
I am no longer a member of the church. I didn’t leave the church over this issue. In fact, I wanted nothing more than for the church to be true during this process and this challenge actually brought me closer to God when I was in the throws of it. I simply find myself now at a place where I no longer believe. That said, I don’t think that leaving the church is required to overcome the difficulty in dealing with a loved one’s sexual past. I’m all for someone choosing to StayLDS if that is what’s best for them.
I hope some of what I’ve said is helpful. If you see this and have questions for me don’t hesitate to ask! I wish you all a Happy New Year!
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