Internally Conflicted about Relationship Experience
Hello everyone.
I have an odd and possibly petty issue that is unfortunately causing a lot of internal conflict within me and affecting my relationship with my wife. I currently feel like I am not being fair and empathic towards my wife (at least not in the way I should be) when it comes to past relationships.
I am 30 and have no past relationship experience prior to my wife. I have dated a handful (you can seriously count them on one hand) of women but that is it. She is the only woman I have had a relationship with, loved, had sex with and married. My wife on the other hand is much more experienced. She has had a consistant flow of boyfriends since she was 14. So we are on two complete opposites of the spectrum.
This was an issue early on in our relationship (before we married) mainly because she would talk about her exes constantly. That was resolved before we got married and everything was great. Unfortunately, it has cropped up again and again more recently. My wife doesn't bring up her exes or past relationship/sexual experiences regularly or intentionally. However, because she is so experienced and because she told me so much before, the past naturally rears its head. She will make small comments that remind me that I am not first lover. Sometimes it's not even her, it's her family and friends.
So, why is this an issue? I will admit, it's not a huge issue. We don't fight about this constantly or anything. This is an issue however because I personally don't like hearing about her past. It causes a lot of cognitive dissonance. It's very hard for me to imagine what it's like to have exes and even harder to understand what it is like to have loved someone and just stop loving them. The idea is just so foriegn to me (I know, I'm super weird). What particularly gets to me is that almost everything (aside from getting married) we have done together, she has done with someone else. While, we are doing these activities (trips, dates, outdoor stuff, intimate acts) she makes comments about the last time she did these things etc. It makes me feel like our relationship is less special. I even happen to know of some things she has done with her exes that she hasn't done with me. Regardless, I don't fault her and certainly don't hold it against her. Unfortunately, she doesn't feel that way.
She sees how these small trips down memory lane briefly affect me. She can tell that the ideas cross my mind and that I am briefly hurt/saddened etc. So, she insists on talking about it but it never goes well. She gets very frustrated with me for feeling the way I do. Having exes are normal but I make blow them out of proportion. She feels like I am holding the past against her and refusing to acknowledge who she is now. She feels like I am not being understanding about her and her past and, honestly, I agree with her on the last point at least. I honestly don't understand her or know what she feels. I have no idea what it is like to have an ex, to have made mistakes in past relationships, to have had sex with other people, to be placed in awkward situations the way she has been (think conversations about her exes she doesn't initiate) and have regreted those decisions and try to change. Most of all, I have no idea what it is like to have loved someone else and then suddenly not love them anymore. Just idea is pretty unfathomable to me. I try to understand and be empathetic, but I just have no frame of reference and it's really been difficult.
So, I was hoping to get thoughts on all of this. I am especially looking for advice, ideas, tips etc. on how I can be more empathetic towards my wife. I don't want her to feel like she can't escape her past. I don't want her to feel like I think of her differently or that I love her less because her past self was so different from who she is now. I don't want her to feel uncomfortable talking about herself and her past around me. She treats me with kid gloves when it comes to relationship experience and it seems to handicap her. I just feel like I am failing her, like I am not being the husband I should be. Please help me out guys. I would really appreciate it.
I can go in more detail if need be, so just feel free to ask. Any help at all is greatly appreciated.
@JRyder27 seems like mind filled with endless questions about which we have not even a single clue. It is like hitting darts in darkness.
I hear you and could not even imagine how hard you trying to support and understand your wife. I appreciate it.
Definitely there is a difference of past between two but here you both are. I know mind has own thought process but probably we could redirect and manage it with some positive communication and see what you both have together? Because no matter how much we gooing to think, past will not unchange.
But how you both focus and make efforts in this relation may shape it for better or worse.
Probably take it like this, if she had successful relationships, you both may not be married and here. So she made her efforts, failed due to some or other reasons but ultimately got you.
No matter how many times you fail, at the end joy of success is all you want to experience.
Maybe you were lucky that you got success in first attempt while others achieving it in 100 attempts?
So there is no comparison.
What do you say?
@ASilentObserver
I agree. I am very lucky to have gotten it correctly on my first attempt. I do recognize that. However, there have been times where I can't help but wonder if things would easier or even better if I had my own failed attempts. The reason being is because the mistakes people make in past relationships are the ones I am making in my current relationship with me wife. While my relationship with my wife is great, it certainly is not perfect and it is very much a big learning experience for me. With that said, reminding myself that people don't normally get it right on the first try does help me.
Also, I would like to add that I have made significant progress with this issue since I last posted. My wife and I had a very direct and difficult conversation but it really helped. What I didn't realize was that my wife was having trouble relating to me herself. It wasn't all on me. She took my feelings for granted and instead of empathizing with the way I felt, she was interpreting it as a slight against her, as me scolding her for making past mistakes. She was to a certain extant taking out her fustration and guilt on me which prevented her from remembering that I don't have releationship experience and that she has felt what I was feeling once. Her filtering of past experience also contributed to the problem because it only caused more congnitive dissonance in me and made me more suspicious. Once she recognized that she was partially at fault as well, a lot of things clicked for both us. I think we understand each other more now than we did when I posted this problem initially. It is a significant weight off our shoulders.
