Boyfriend and threesome

LegacyUser

Hi guys,

I've been with my boyfriend for 6 months and everything is going great so far. I do have insecurity issues from things that have happened in my past but I am getting counselling for it.

My boyfriend tells me everything, has done from Day 1 which is great but one of the things he told me was that he had a threesome a few months before he met me. Don't ask how we got on to this but it just came up. One of the girls involved wasa girl he had been seeing for a year on and off, basically they had a friends with benefits arrangement. It all ended after their threesome, it was down to my boyfriend. When we started going out she rang and texted hin declaring her love for him, he showed me everything. She even found me on facebook and sent me a message. Anyway, sorry for getting off topic but I trust him 100% but I can't stop thinking about the fact he had a threesome. The thought of it makes me feel ill and makes me wonder why he'd ever desire me even though he goes out of his way to prove he does.

I know this is down to my insecurities but I'm also angry at him for telling me. He has been honest about his relationships in the past. He's very much of a 'let's share everything' person whereas I am 'the past is the past, leave it there'. I don't know what to do, how do I stop these thoughts from destroying what is a wonderful relationship in other ways?

booboo88

If it makes you feel any better, im in a similar situation. only theres no threesome.
Im hurting quite a bit at the moment. when the doubt starts you start pushing them away to save yourself the hurt but it ends up hurting more.
Insecurities are in your head for thats where they fester aswell.
Sorry if im babbling, just trying to distract myself even if its not working.
Well done you though for seeing someone about it, im not even sure where to start if i did see someone

tenchi-fan

From problems pages rather than personal experience, threesomes are often a fantasy that should not be played out. Either they tried to add some spice to a flailing relationship or the threesome killed it.

Either way, I think it's good your boyfriend can be honest with you. It's great he can be open with you and recognise that while he has a past, he is comfortable to discuss it. You have no reason to be angry with him. It would be a lot worse if you found out some other way.

booboo88

tenchi-fan wrote: »

From problems pages rather than personal experience, threesomes are often a fantasy that should not be played out. Either they tried to add some spice to a flailing relationship or the threesome killed it.

Either way, I think it's good your boyfriend can be honest with you. It's great he can be open with you and recognise that while he has a past, he is comfortable to discuss it. You have no reason to be angry with him. It would be a lot worse if you found out some other way.

when you have insecurities though they play on your mind.....sometimes u'd rather not know

Wagon

Tell your boyfriend to keep his mouth shut in future. The ****in idiot. This "lets have no secrets between us" is such a load of star gazing, romantic bollix that rarely has any relevance in the real world at all.

I know that insecurity can drive you crazy even when logically you know you've nothing to worry about. I know insecurity can totally destroy reason. But I've got to be blunt. You need to get over it. He didn't do anything wrong. This happened before he met you, and he hasn't looked at her since. In fact he's been a model boyfriend. He's told you everything, he's the one who ended things with her. Everyone has a past. At least he's honest about his. Don't punish him for it by making him constantly justify his attraction to you.

metrovelvet

The toughest tension of relationship is negotiating between who the person really is and who you want them to be, that is why honesty is both so hard for the teller and the listener.

Part of your job is dealing with who he is, and who he is, is a man who had a threesome. What that mean exactly I dont know. Why does that threaten you?

Cheap Thrills!

Got to agree with Wagon.

If we knew the half of what went on in our partners heads no-one would ever have a relationship.

You need to explain to your BF that honesty is not always the best policy.

LegacyUser

i dunno. i think id be the same as the bf. id like to be able to be honest with my partner and for them to accept me. thats jsut me i guess...

metrovelvet

Cheap Thrills! wrote: »

Got to agree with Wagon.

If we knew the half of what went on in our partners heads no-one would ever have a relationship.

You need to explain to your BF that honesty is not always the best policy.

Sure if you want to have a pretend bull**** relationship where you are not in a relationship with the person but your construction of them.

Id like to be with someone I DONT HAVE TO LIE TO. It kind of defeats the purpose doesnt it?

seenitall

metrovelvet wrote: »

Sure if you want to have a pretend bull**** relationship where you are not in a relationship with the person but your construction of them.

Id like to be with someone I DONT HAVE TO LIE TO. It kind of defeats the purpose doesnt it?

Not lying when asked about the specifics of one's sexual history, and unsolicited volunteering of sensitive information (sensitive for the recipient's ego, that is) are two different things.

Cheap Thrills!

metrovelvet wrote: »

Sure if you want to have a pretend bull**** relationship where you are not in a relationship with the person but your construction of them.

Id like to be with someone I DONT HAVE TO LIE TO. It kind of defeats the purpose doesnt it?

lol there are degrees.

I'm talking about sexual fantasies/past sexual experiences. Not all are suitable for sharing and neither should they always be shared.

omega666

metrovelvet wrote: »

Sure if you want to have a pretend bull**** relationship where you are not in a relationship with the person but your construction of them.

Id like to be with someone I DONT HAVE TO LIE TO. It kind of defeats the purpose doesnt it?

Yeah maybe if we lived in an eposide of the waltons!
As Wagon put its a load of star gazing, romantic b***x

Back in the real world honesty can do more damage than good.

Fine if your thick skinned enough to be able to handle it but
boasting about your past exploits to your current partner is just plain stupidity
and relationship suicide.

metrovelvet

omega666 wrote: »

Yeah maybe if we lived in an eposide of the waltons!
As Wagon put its a load of star gazing, romantic b***x

Back in the real world honesty can do more damage than good.

Fine if your thick skinned enough to be able to handle it but
boasting about your past exploits to your current partner is just plain stupidity
and relationship suicide.

Maybe it wasnt boasting. Maybe he didnt see it as a big deal.

I don't know if this is the case or not with the OP, but I've noticed alot among Irish women they play this delicate ego game that has us all blackmailed into repressing every goddammned thing they might find offensive or hurting their feelings, which means everyone has to sit on their feelings, edit their pasts, basically not get to be who they are. Sorry. Not good enough.

seenitall

metrovelvet wrote: »

Maybe it wasnt boasting. Maybe he didnt see it as a big deal.

I don't know if this is the case or not with the OP, but I've noticed alot among Irish women they play this delicate ego game that has us all blackmailed into repressing every goddammned thing they might find offensive or hurting their feelings, which means everyone has to sit on their feelings, edit their pasts, basically not get to be who they are. Sorry. Not good enough.

This isn't an "Irish women" thing (a poster or two disagreeing with you on here are males, and there have been quite a few RI threads in the past in the same vein, started by males). Fragile egos are a human nature thing.

metrovelvet

seenitall wrote: »

This isn't an "Irish women" thing (a poster or two disagreeing with you on here are males, and there have been quite a few RI threads in the past in the same vein, started by males). Fragile egos are a human nature thing.

I dont think its a human nature thing. I think it's an Irish thing.

Wompa1

I don't know my girlfriend told me a lot about her sexual past. She had a threesome and did pretty much everything there is you can think of and had a good load of partners. It got to a point she's start to talk about a guy or something and I'd cut her off and tell her I didn't want to know...

I feel for you OP...All that stuff played on my mind for a long time in my relationship.

Neyite

metrovelvet wrote: »

Id like to be with someone I DONT HAVE TO LIE TO. It kind of defeats the purpose doesnt it?

seenitall wrote: »

Not lying when asked about the specifics of one's sexual history, and unsolicited volunteering of sensitive information (sensitive for the recipient's ego, that is) are two different things.

Aside from the ego thing, the way I see it is, If I am with someone who told me every sex detail about a previous partner, I would be wondering who he would tell my private life to after we split. What I do behind closed doors is for me and my partner only. I would not discuss sex with Ex's with a current partner as I think its a private thing between those involved.

omega666

metrovelvet wrote: »

Maybe it wasnt boasting. Maybe he didnt see it as a big deal.

I don't know if this is the case or not with the OP, but I've noticed alot among Irish women they play this delicate ego game that has us all blackmailed into repressing every goddammned thing they might find offensive or hurting their feelings, which means everyone has to sit on their feelings, edit their pasts, basically not get to be who they are. Sorry. Not good enough.

he must be incredibly naive in that case.

im male and dont think its anything to do with Irish women. Men dont
want to hear about the gory details of thier partners past either just as much as
women.
Why would you find it necessary to detail you past sexual exploits if you
know you partner is not comfortable with it and it will hurt them.
How is that going to improve a relationship.

Its unnecessary information that should be kept between the two(or three!) people involved.

LegacyUser

Foodefafa wrote: »

I do have insecurity issues from things that have happened in my past but I am getting counselling for it....

My boyfriend tells me everything, has done from Day 1 which is great but one of the things he told me was that he had a threesome a few months before he met me....

The thought of it makes me feel ill and makes me wonder why he'd ever desire me even though he goes out of his way to prove he does....

OP, I see this as emotionally abusive, there's no other word for it. He surely knows you are in counselling for insecurity issues. And what does he do? He asks you to imagine him in bed with two sexually adventurous girls just months before you met. Of course you feel that you can't compete with that, so your inadequacy is triggering feelings of insecurity from your past.

Not only was it wrong of him to tell you this, but in your position of needing counselling for insecurity issues, it was downright cruel. I'd put an end straight away to his policy of disclosing all the things he's (allegedly) done with other women. You don't need these mental images floating around in your mind as you try to deal with all your other issues.

Wagon

metrovelvet wrote: »

Maybe it wasnt boasting. Maybe he didnt see it as a big deal.

I don't know if this is the case or not with the OP, but I've noticed alot among Irish women they play this delicate ego game that has us all blackmailed into repressing every goddammned thing they might find offensive or hurting their feelings, which means everyone has to sit on their feelings, edit their pasts, basically not get to be who they are. Sorry. Not good enough.

Being a woman has nothing to do with it.

So you think it's your God given right to just say whatever the hell you want without considering your partners feelings?

I never mention a thing about my past relationships to a girlfriend. What's the point? I don't want to talk about them and nor does she want to hear it. I take on board the lessons I learned from the past and get rid of the rest, never mention it to anyone.

I expect the same in return. Why shouldn't I? I don't want to know what sex acts she got up to with how many partners and where and when. I think it's very disrespectful to just tell someone this stuff when they don't want to know, nor need to.

What I'm trying to say is, not telling about your past isn't the same as lying. It's merely not saying anything that could potentially damage a relationship. Which in 90% of cases, it does.

metrovelvet

Why would that hurt your partners feelings what you did in the past? Seriously, the behavior isnt directed towards them or even about them. ANd im not talking about going into the nitty gritty detail, but what difference does it make except of course if it becomes about a sexual preferences and these involve your current partner?

Maybe it wasnt a big deal to him.

And as for privacy concerns, I am very doubtful too many people are that honourable there. Lots of people talk over brunch about the things they did in the past or even last week.

Wagon

metrovelvet wrote: »

Why would that hurt your partners feelings what you did in the past? Seriously, the behavior isnt directed towards them or even about them.

Nobody wants to imagine the person they love fúcking someone else.

Maybe it doesn't bother you, but the world doesn't sing to your tune.

It would bother me, others and the OP. Doesn't make us bad. Just the way we're made.

If you can't grasp why people get bothered by this stuff now, you clearly haven't got a clue.

metrovelvet

Really? You wouldnt want to know if they were involved in orgies or had sex in toilets or had homosexual relationship in the past? You want that all swept under the carpet. Right ok then.

metrovelvet

Wagon wrote: »

Nobody wants to imagine the person they love fúcking someone else.

Maybe it doesn't bother you, but the world doesn't sing to your tune.

It would bother me, others and the OP. Doesn't make us bad. Just the way we're made.

If you can't grasp why people get bothered by this stuff now, you clearly haven't got a clue.

Seriously, what you just pretend your a virgin, that your girlfriend is a virgin? FFS.

You dont want to know who they are, you just want to pretend they are who you want them to be.

Wagon

metrovelvet wrote: »

Really? You wouldnt want to know if they were involved in orgies or had sex in toilets or had homosexual relationship in the past? You want that all swept under the carpet. Right ok then.

No, i wouldn't want to know any of that. Once they have a clean bill of health and no STI's, then i will never ever ask. I also expect to never be told.

Seriously, how the hell can't you understand this?! It's really straightforward!!

metrovelvet

I understand it. I just find it limiting and uninteresting.

star-pants

metrovelvet wrote: »

Really? You wouldnt want to know if they were involved in orgies or had sex in toilets or had homosexual relationship in the past? You want that all swept under the carpet. Right ok then.

There's one thing asking a question, and there's another thing being told everything.
No one is saying 'sweep it under the carpet'. People are saying that if they want to know, they'll ask, if not, they don't want every little detail outlined to them.

'God you're so uninteresting in not divulging all information EVER with me'
It's not about hiding anything, it's about not wanting to visualise your OH doing whatever with an ex. Yeah it happened, of course it did, but most people don't like to think about it, oddly enough.

In response to the OP - I can understand why you feel upset over hearing such information, but I don't think your bf said it to hurt you. Perhaps he was just 'sharing', maybe he wanted to say 'been there done that, don't wanna do it again' or maybe he wondered if you had ever and thought if he went first you'd answer.
Some people are very honest and like metrovelvet feels - they want to share everything with their partner. Each to their own & all that jazz, but the thing is it bothers you.
I would sit down with him and just explain that you'd rather not know all his sexual achievements, not that you wish to imagine him as some sort of virgin, but that you just feel uncomfortable knowing that type of information (especially if you know the ex gfs at all). He may not realise that, and will perhaps curtail some of his stories in future.

I personally don't like to speak about my bedroom stuff to anyone. I think it's between the two people involved at the time and that's that.
If someone asks 'did you ever do this?' I may say yes or no, or whatever. I'm not saying I won't answer a question, or that I wouldn't ask a question myself, I'm just saying there's one thing saying 'I had a threesome before' and there's another saying 'I'd a threesome with X & Y right before I started dating you'. There is a subtle difference in how you broach such information.

metrovelvet

No, its not about me 'wanting to share everything.' Not at all. Its that people come with histories and pasts and those histories are what make them who they are and sometimes its nice to think that someone can put their imagination aside so they can be accepted for their pasts.

Neyite

star-pants wrote: »

I personally don't like to speak about my bedroom stuff to anyone. I think it's between the two people involved at the time and that's that.
If someone asks 'did you ever do this?' I may say yes or no, or whatever. I'm not saying I won't answer a question, or that I wouldn't ask a question myself, I'm just saying there's one thing saying 'I had a threesome before' and there's another saying 'I'd a threesome with X & Y right before I started dating you'. There is a subtle difference in how you broach such information.

See, this explains it far better than I could - If someone asks, fine, but I dont think that naming names is a nice thing to do. As star-pants says, there is a big difference between 'yeah, I did X before, and it was great' and yeah, I did X before, with Mary, Ann and Samantha.

Wanting to know if someone had previously risky behaviour is something that cannot be diagnosed by finding out who he slept with, you can only know that with a proper STI test. And I have absolutely no problem if a partner requested one, but they dont have the right to hear about private moments that concern others.

OP, tell him that if nothing else, its disrespectful and immature to blab about previous partners to anyone. Instigate a no names policy in your relationship. Tell him also that if you want to know something, you will ask.

I am a friend

metrovelvet wrote: »

No, its not about me 'wanting to share everything.' Not at all. Its that people come with histories and pasts and those histories are what make them who they are and sometimes its nice to think that someone can put their imagination aside so they can be accepted for their pasts.

I 100% agree and in fact consider it weird and somewhat dysfunctional when people can't bear to think their partner having a past. I would not want him to give me a paint by numbers picture of his past sex life but it shouldn't be a taboo subject. That just reeks of insecurity for me.

booboo88

I am a friend wrote: »

I 100% agree and in fact consider it weird and somewhat dysfunctional when people can't bear to think their partner having a past. I would not want him to give me a paint by numbers picture of his past sex life but it shouldn't be a taboo subject. That just reeks of insecurity for me.

She did state that in her first post......

star-pants

metrovelvet wrote: »

No, its not about me 'wanting to share everything.' Not at all. Its that people come with histories and pasts and those histories are what make them who they are and sometimes its nice to think that someone can put their imagination aside so they can be accepted for their pasts.

Everything has to be put into perspective - she's not saying she can't accept he had a threesome, she's saying she can't get the image out of her head.
Whether she accepts it happened or not, she's still going to have that image in her head. And there's no benefit to her current relationship in knowing that particular piece of information. He told her who it was with as well, which isn't fair on those involved either, having private information about them said to others.

I am a friend wrote: »

I 100% agree and in fact consider it weird and somewhat dysfunctional when people can't bear to think their partner having a past. I would not want him to give me a paint by numbers picture of his past sex life but it shouldn't be a taboo subject. That just reeks of insecurity for me.

Wanting to be accepted for your past also reeks of insecurity then in that case. Means you feel you need validation & acceptance for previous actions.

No one said that they don't want to think their partner had a past, they're saying they don't want to think about the specifics of that past.
Yeah you had 10 partners, yeah you had sex in a toilet. So what? Do I need to know? not really. Unless it impacts largely on who you are today, or on you in a relationship, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference, so why force information on someone who doesn't want it?

No it shouldn't be a taboo subject, but it shouldn't be a paint by numbers either as you said. In this case specifics were given, who it was with, and these women are known to the OP, so I think it would cause most people to feel a bit awkward.

zxcvbnm1

metrovelvet wrote: »

No, its not about me 'wanting to share everything.' Not at all. Its that people come with histories and pasts and those histories are what make them who they are and sometimes its nice to think that someone can put their imagination aside so they can be accepted for their pasts.

You are coming from some ridiculous hippy-free-love vibe here. Most people wouldn't share your point of view.
If you are this liberal then good luck to you. But how you don't understand that most other people don't always feel this way is bizarre.

I'm guessing you're quite young and are expressing these viewpoints from a theoretical view point without ever having experienced them.
I think you need to live a little first young man !

Lady von Purple

Wow, is it just me or has the OP been given very little actual advice so far? ;-) She knows she's insecure, she's dealing with it, that's more than a lot of people do. And regardless of how much or how little of a problem this would be for some people, it's a problem for her! OP, I think it's great that you're seeing a counsellor to try and get through something you recognise as an issue. Make sure you talk to your counsellor about your boyfriend's past too. And I reckon you should try and get a bit of space from the women involved because, if you're seeing them around, that won't help you getting over the issue. Talk to your OH, and tell him that you'd rather not have known since you're still dealing with insecurities. But to be honest, I think the best healer for this is just time. The longer you and your boyfriend are together, the more confident you'll be that he wants you and nobody else. And that's also really good for insecurities! Best of luck. (Also, sorry about layout, mobile device here.)

metrovelvet

I am a friend wrote: »

I 100% agree and in fact consider it weird and somewhat dysfunctional when people can't bear to think their partner having a past. I would not want him to give me a paint by numbers picture of his past sex life but it shouldn't be a taboo subject. That just reeks of insecurity for me.

To be blunt I think being with someone fully takes more self esteem than people are willing to bargain for.