Well i met this girl when i was 19, am now 20 and planning to propose soon.
She makes me happier than i’ve ever been, we are absolutely perfect for eachother.
The only thing that bugs me is our sex partners.
I lost my virginity to her, and have stayed faithful throughout our relationship.
She on the otherhand has had 4 other partners. One resulting in marriage and a child. She promises she has stayed faithful to me.
Growing up in a strict Roman Catholic family. Four sex partners seems like a lot. It just bugs me all the time. And i really really really want to marry this girl, she is amazing.
Am i just being too uptight.? Is 4 partners for a 23 year old a lot? How can i just get over this?
You certainly sound uptight to me. Four sexual partners isn’t a hell of a lot.
But before I judge you, I am not in your shoes. It’s clearly something that’s bugging you on an emotional level. Perhaps you should examine the roots of your feelings.
Do you think it’s really the Catholicism? Or is it jealousy? Is it that your subconscious doesn’t like the thought of bringing up another’s child? Is it that you fear, given the other three partners, she will stray?
Have you ever spoken to her about it?
Do you think these concerns are something you can reason with? Or do you think they will bug you permanently? If so, what can you do about it?
(I lost my virginity at 18 and by the time I was 23 I’d already had about 15 partners. But then I’m a guy…)
How long have you two been dating? From 19 to 20 could be two months or fourteen months.
Maybe you’ve reached that stage where the initial lovey-dovey feeling has subsided and you’re settling into a bit of a routine so you have some time to think about the future. Doubts inevitably come into the picture, and it sounds like you are using her past against her. Now, you can wring your hands all you want and wail that you really really like her, but some of that is your brain is trying to use a little cognitive dissonance on you to reconcile with the doubts you are having.
Anyway, point is, in my experience 4 at 23 is not a lot. However, my experience is not your experience, so you just really have to think through for yourself how you really feel about this girl, beyond the “She’s the first girl who ever fucked me” feeling. Because, when you envision your life 50 years into the future, what are you doing and with who? If you think 4 is a lot, then it may very well be, but if you are uncomfortable with that, she deserves someone who doesn’t resent her for it. So you have to decide whether you actually love her enough to accept her and the path she’s taken so far in life that lead up to you, or let her find someone who loves her for her. Really, no matter what answers you get from asking people, ultimately, it’s your relationship.
If four partners is a lot then I am a MASSIVE whore, and I’m the same age as the OP.
My first instinct was that it was something other than just the fact that there has been four partners - that it is probably jealousy. That doesn’t mean you can’t work around that and move forward, it’s just something you have to deal with.
You need to make peace with the fact that she’s had other sex partners in the past before you marry her. You don’t want it to be a matter of bitterness that keeps coming up.
Adding to what has already been said, if you do love her you won’t hold her past over her head for the rest of your lives, right? Please don’t do that.
No, four isn’t a lot. If she’s now 23, it’s fairly likely that she had her first serious boyfriend starting around 16. Say that they dated for 6 months – they’re probably going to end up having sex. 16 was 7 years ago. She could have had 14 serious, half year relationships in that period of time. She could have had something like 84 non-serious relationships in that time.
You have to remember dating dynamics. The number of dates that a guy goes out on is directly related to how many women he asks. The number of dates that a woman goes out on is directly related to how many times she is propositioned.
How often a guy asks a woman out is dependent on the guy’s personality. But, how often a woman is propositioned is entirely out of her hands – she’ll end up getting propositioned by hundreds and hundreds of men if she’s pretty, and she has no say over that. And not all of those hundreds of hundreds of men are bastards. Some of them are going to be seemingly decent, reasonable people. She’d have no particular reason to not go and do at least one dinner. And for every one dinner she does, some percent are going to lead to a second dinner.
A guy only has as many girlfriends as he is outgoing. But that’s not nearly as true for a girl. She has as many boyfriends as reasonable, decent seeming people actually proposition her. If she’s reasonably good looking or otherwise desireable, that’s going to start happening from the moment she starts turning into a woman.
It might not seem to you like it would be natural to go out on a first date with someone every few weeks – and that’s true for you – but your experience isn’t what’s true for her. She’s probably had hundreds of guys ask her out since she turned 16. To have only had sex with four makes it likely that she was in a reasonably serious relationship with each of those men. She wasn’t being indiscriminate. True, that means that they were real competitors, but hey, you’re the guy who won!
She’s already been knocked up, married and divorced before she was 23. And now you’re 20 and after dating her for a year you want to propose? People are fickle; I really suggest waiting a few more years (yes, years) before proposing. That advice isn’t specific for you- that’s good advice for everyone.
No, 4 partners by 23 (as others indicated) is not a lot at all. You’re being silly & unreasonable on that score.
That a 23 year old woman with a kid has decided that marrying a 20 year old is a good idea is of vastly greater concern than how many notches she has on her bed post. Unless you are independently wealthy, taking on the responsbilty for a mother and child at this stage in your life is a questionable plan. That you are apparenlty far more concerned about how many penises she has entertained vs the overall advisibility of taking on a ready made wife and child at 20 makes me think you may need to reevalute your prioroties in this scenario.
It’s totally healthy and normal to obsess over your soon-to-be fiancee’s former relationships and secretly think she’s a bit of a slut. You should get married as soon as possible because you two will be together 4eva!
I’ll be honest- it sounds to me like you have some growing up to do.
Love is about loving the other person warts and all, not loving some idealized perfect version of the other person. To love someone is to recognize that every one of their past experiences is beautiful because it led up to the wonderful person that they are today. Your girlfriend is a human being, with parts of herself that don’t include you. You have to come to terms with that. If you are at the point where you are thinking about marriage, you have to be able to even embrace that.
I agree that you are most likely too young to be thinking this seriously. It’s a big world out there, and you’ll miss a lot of it (not just sexually) by spending your youth in a serious relationship. You have time, so take things slow.
Those were my thoughts as well, but I couldn’t think how to express them.
You know how important my parents’ past sexual partners were? Neither knew how many the other one had had. (No, I don’t remember the context in which I figured this out.)
