Past sexual experiences accidentally blurted out to current partner

[Dzaster]

My boyfriend and I have had a difficult relationship. We dated for just over 11 months and broke up for a week and tried again for about 4 days but couldn’t get past our hurt. We broke up for 3 months more. We’ve both experienced unattached sexual encounters with other people during those 3 months. We care deeply for each other and want a life together so we are trying to do this again. 

During the 4 days we’d tried again before the 3 month break up we had gone to a bar. At the bar one of his sexual encounters over that week long break up was there and he felt it was important to let me know. At that bar I had years prior had sex in the back room. So during that same conversation of him telling me about his sexual encounters sitting 2 tables down from us I’d told him about having sex at that bar years before. 
fast forward to now.

I was looking in his dresser he uses as a junk dresser. In one of the drawers he’d said there was a sex toy of his. I said ooh where did you get that. He said a friend let him borrow it. I pulled it out. It was a silicone vagina. Without even thinking I’d said oh I’ve used one of these put it aside and continued to look at his drawers full of stuff.
 

He’d asked a few minutes after that if I’d used it with someone I’d said yeah not thinking anything of it. He’d become bothered by this. Asked why I felt the need to tell him that. He was in the right to ask that. I would want to know too if I were him. The truth of I was not thinking much on it and it was just something that I had remembered so I’d said it. Id asked about the friend that let his use it. He’d said he made it up and bought it himself. 

Now it’s turned into a big discussion of how I am inconsiderate of his feeling and he thinks I think about my past sexual encounters often. He’s bringing up the time at the bar. I’ve told him I am sorry and I did not think of how it would affect him until after he’d brought it to my attention. That past sexual encounters are not on my mind often and if an event or item reveals a memory the memory is out of mind as quickly as it came in and that my intimate times with him is where my focus is and what I care to remember. 
 

I know I need to be conscious of the things I share and how they will affect him. Does anyone have any advice for me? On how I might be able to repair this with him before it get really bad. We are both over thinkers and he has a tendency to keep bringing up the past and holding things over my head where I’m an air head just happy to be here be with him and I don’t let the past get in my way of the present and the future. 

[Andrina]

1 hour ago, Dzaster said:

he has a tendency to keep bringing up the past and holding things over my head

It's important to discuss relationship rules. The very thing I've quoted is something my husband and I agreed NOT to do. It's also something marital counselors will recommend--that once you have a discussion to resolve a problem, and the problem's resolved, that bringing up that issue as a weapon will cause bitterness in the relationship, eating away at it like a cancer.

Discuss going by that rule and other important rules that will benefit the relationship. If neither of you can stick to it, go your separate ways. On-again, off-again relationships usually mean two people are totally wrong for one another. Then stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I see you've learned to no longer bring up sexual details from a past encounter to a SO. Better to keep things vague and in general such as the longest relationship you had and how long ago it was. Basic info that gives important info, but leaves out details a new dating partner would rather not hear. If learning from mistakes doesn't help you in this particular relationship, at least it will be helpful in a future dating situation.

[Wiseman2]

2 hours ago, Dzaster said:

I was looking in his dresser he uses as a junk dresser. He said a friend let him borrow it. . It was a silicone vagina. Without even thinking I’d said oh I’ve used one of these put it aside and continued to look at his drawers full of stuff.

Unfortunately it seems like power struggle if you both share TMI and he's "holding it over your head". Instead of discussing former sexual encounters and sex toys, please try to figure out the real reasons it's on/off, "difficult" and what the power struggle and hurting each other is about. 

[smackie9]

Looks like this is why things have been and still are difficult in your relationship. Maybe some couples counseling as a last ditch effort might help. 

[MissCanuck]

This latest issue seems to be a symptom of the general dysfunction in this relationship. 

Rather than argue the nitty-girtty of over-sharing, step back and ask yourself if this is really a viable match. These on-off situations point to deeper incompatibilities and people who just don't mesh well. 

You might care about each but that does not mean you should force a relationship that plain isn't working anymore. 

 

 

[Batya33]

You are the same in how you enjoy and seek out sex with multiple people as soon as you've stopped being exclusive.  You enjoy having sex using different toys and in public places.  You both were comfortable talking about specific details of the sex you had with other.  Until you weren't.  Or he wasn't. To me these conversations are fine if you two decide you enjoy them, maybe it's a turn on (I mean I can't relate but I'm not you). 

You're a person who is as you say it an "air head" so you can conjure up one of your former partners for a comment and then you're done.  The problem is this "past" is quite recent.  And past behavior is indicative of future behavior so now he's concerned that when some thought about a sexual situation with one of your former sex partners come up you will airily think before you speak.  He's not ok with that.  He feels disrespected when you do that.  And he doesn't trust that you're going to stop doing that especially since you go to a bar where you had sex.

I don't think he is overthinking.  He is thinking of your regular practice of referring to prior sex partners.  Maybe he was ok with it and now he's not.  

2 years ago my husband made an offhand comment about his ex who he hadn't mentioned at all in years.  It was because we were in a city he used to live in and we were driving by where she used to live so in pointing out landmarks he mentioned that's where she used to live.  He apologized especially since our son was in the car. It really just slipped out and it ended up being no biggie.  But it would have been if he hadn't apologized and it wouldn't have been if he kept mentioning her or mentioned her regularly (and they had worked together and still were in the same field). 

See- it's about extent.  He mentioned her once offhandedly in about 10 years (and the last time was because he was going to meet her for dinner and wanted to check with me that I was ok with it -I was).  I trusted him to behave appropriately at the dinner and I've never snooped in his junk drawer. We understand each other. We understand each other's boundaries when it comes to exes.  We respect each other and behave appropriately and don't dismiss it as "oh I'm just an airhead" or "you're overthinking this."  That is what it's like to care about someone.  I think you care more about yourself in this regard -you want to be able to airily breeze through life blurting stuff out about vaginal toys you used with another partner, or how you remember a certain place because you had sex in the bathroom there.  I mean this is why many couples if they are going on vacation to a place they went to with an ex in the past they might say "yes I was there in [year ] but not with who -and this is so even if their partner knows full well who they were there with.  It's common sense.  

Listen to the Carly Simon song "we have no secrets"

[lostandhurt]

Wait what?  He borrowed a sex toy? 

Sorry I didn't get much further into the story after that.

[ShySoul]

10 hours ago, Dzaster said:

he has a tendency to keep bringing up the past and holding things over my head

Sounds like the key issue and this topic is just an example of a larger problem. We can't change the past. We all make mistakes. In a healthy relationship you own up to your mistakes, recognize the other person's feelings, and agree to work harder on it in the future. Then you move on together. But if one side can't let something go and has to continually hold it over the other, then there will always be a problem. They will find opportunities to start an argument all over again. And you will never be able to develop the trust that is needed to make a relationship work. If you want things to work out this time, the two of you need to discuss this issue and find a way to deal with it. Otherwise, you'll be stuck in the cycle you seem to be in now, together, apart, together, apart.

[Jaunty]

On 1/5/2024 at 5:34 PM, lostandhurt said:

Wait what?  He borrowed a sex toy? 

Sorry I didn't get much further into the story after that.

I enjoyed that as well.  Hey brah do you wanna borrow my fake vagina?