Jealous of partners past (which is on his ex-wife’s blog in extreme detail).

I’ve been with my partner for about 1.5 half years and we recently got engaged (for Next Sept). We are pretty honest about our past relationships, however I’m struggling to cope with jealousy, comparing myself and now my past issues are creeping in.

He’s been married twice. He’s 31, former military for 12 years and has a 9 year old daughter with his first wife. His first wife, whom I’ve met, I’ve have little issue with her other than she just sorta of rude which isn’t helpful when it comes to his daughter.

His more recent ex wife is an other story which I have some serious retroactive jealousy and now developed insecurities over. His ex ran (and stills runs) an online sex blog in her ‘spare’ time, and of course being married to her for 4 years a large amount of it is about him. But wait, it gets better, they were both involved in the BDSM community and she blogged detailed accounts of their adventures and their attempts at having an open marriage...and lots of photos (without faces) all over the site. We both also are slightly involved in the BDSM community as well I just don’t push for exploration as hard as his ex probably do because if my partner isn’t excited about the exploration as much as me it takes a lot of the enjoyment out of it. I want sometime to try new things because they want to, not becuase they feel obligated to. Mind you his marriage ultimately failed because he really did not want an open marriage and she eventually started to lie manipulate cheat amongst other things. We’ve gone from daily sex to maybe twice a month in a short amount of time while he and his ex were multiple times a day b/c she made him agree to that before they got married. I am trying to understand why it seems he was more interested in sex with her and not as much with me...the sex we do have is amazing so I really don’t get it.

I hate that I’ve read the blog, I can’t undo what I’ve read or seen. Now I find myself often questioning our sex life versus theirs. We work opposite shifts for right now and we rarely see each other, and half the time we do it’s with his daughter present. So now creeps in feeling alone, undesired (he does not initiate sex and says he can take it or leave it...except you wouldn’t know that based on what the blog shows or our first 8 months being together) and overall confusion.

I’m frustrated, confused and really really tired of trying to talk about it when he just gets defensive (and flat out hates if I bring up the blog) and shuts down. Add that he still occasionally reads her blog and checks her twitter account...which I’m not okay with. I’m also tired of feeling jelous and want to figure out how to move past these issues before we get married. We love each other, that’s not even a question in my mind. We just have conflicting baggage that I am at the end of my abilities in figuring out how to deal with.

Well, from the frequency of sex you're having, I would say the relationship is dying. How often are you bringing up this sex blog and his part in it? How often are you reminding him about how much sex he had with his previous wife? How often are you talking about your relationship together?

You should have approached your relationship as a clean slate, basically asking no questions about past wives and girlfriends. But even you've said you've probably seen too much and if you're constantly bringing up the blog and the situation with his wives, this would have shut him down and have him push you away. If you want to win him back, you've got to totally pull back from discussing this area and just be supportive. And he may come back to you and check in with his wives less and less. Make him comfortable, not uncomfortable with you or there won't be, or shouldn't be a marriage in September.

I can absolutely relate to the way you feel. It's not an easy situation if your partner keeps sharing too much information about his sexual past, but I can't imagine what it's like if his ex has a blog and you can just read about their shared sexual past in detail. You mentioned you shouldn't have read her blog and I assume you have these images of your husband and his ex just flowing through your mind on a constant basis. I've been there myself. When I met my husband he talked openly about his past and mentioned sex buddies and one night stands and I kept questioning him as well to get more information. In hindsight, getting and asking for all this information just poisoned the image I had of my husband and it took me about a year to get them out of my daily thoughts. I had to read a lot about my condition in order to beat retroactive jealousy. The more you know, the better you can fight it and be happy. Here's a good article that explains what causes retroactive jealousy in relationships: retroactivejealousycrusher.com/what-causes-retroactive-jealousy If you really want to be with your future husband, you need to forget about his past and live in the moment.

Responding to some of DanZee’s questions/comments

We don’t actually talk, bring up or discuss his ex wife or blog at all anymore, and probably the last time we did was over 6 months ago. I don’t have an issue with the lifestyle he lead, the experimentation he’s done with others, or that he and I connect in some similar ways within BDSM. It took me a while to stop comparing our situation with theirs in conversation, and I haven’t done that as well in over 6 months. Internally I still have the struggle and keep it to myself and am trying to find ways to completely leave it.

I also highly disagree with your comment about asking no questions about someone’s past...there are some essential conversations that have to take place simply from a standpoint of STD risks and knowing if there are patterns they repeat, major trauma, etc etc. Also the fact that he was open with me about his past relationships is far better than him hiding in shame from it out of fear of judgement. However finding the blog (which was beyond easy to find) and reading as much as I did was damaging, and also a pretty unusual circumstance That has been difficult to find advice on how to manage my feelings and in some respects heal from it.

He also doesn’t check in with his ‘wives’, his first ex wife he has a child with, we interact with her weekly for that purpose and I have zero issue with her or his daughter, and I never have. He occasionally checks his other exes blog for the purpose of ‘making sure she’s not still writing about him’ apparently...but I question the motive but again I don’t bring it up anymore at all.

I also know he’s not done much healing in repsepcts to his ex, specifically around his being used, manipulated and deceived for 4 years. It’s evident in his defensiveness to some topics of conversation...which creates conversations we just don’t have that we should. He’s pretty overtly ashamed or regretful of a lot, so when we have talked about it previously I have been cautious about sounding judgemental...heck we’ve both experimented and have both disclosed that to one another.

In response to Melanie356

Thank for the link, I appreciate it and definitely want to make efforts to work on the retroactive jealously. It’s frustatibg to feel it and not really understand why or how to get ride of it. I’m sure it will make a huge difference in my ability to participate as his partner.