Boyfriend's Exes: How to Stop Being Jealous and/or Sad

[D. It Is Written]

I'm getting stuck in this hole of obsessing over my boyfriend's exes. I know a lot of girls struggle with this kind of thing. It's just... it makes me really sad, and I want to know how to stop.

 

It isn't really affecting our relationship at all at this point because I've never said anything to him about it. He probably has no idea that I even know who his exes are. We've never discussed our romantic histories with each other because we felt it wasn't important, but it's been kind of unavoidable that I've found out things about the other girls he's dated from mutual friends and Facebook.

 

First, I had met my current boyfriend and knew who he was a long time before we ever started hanging out / dating, and I knew he dated this girl back then. This was probably 6 or 7 years ago when he was 19-ish. And I know that she broke up with him way back then for some other dude. She didn't bother me until I found out that they had dated again... recently. And she was the one that broke up with him again, around 5 or 6 months before we first started seeing each other. This is making me really uncomfortable because I know that they have such a long history, and he obviously has no qualms about getting back together with exes. I worry that he has some sort of deep attachment to her and would take her back again.

 

The OTHER girl he dated was for the few months in-between this old girlfriend and me. I didn't put the pieces together until recently, but he was still getting texts from this girl in the middle of the night when I started dating him. Also, we took a 3 or 4 week hiatus in the beginning after about a month of casual dating, and I know that he started seeing this girl again during that time. Or he was seeing her the whole time, I'm not sure. Anyway, I keep running into old Facebook pictures of our group of friends and she's in them and it upsets me, blah blah blah. Also, my boyfriend was checking his text inbox in front of me last week and he had 6 messages back and forth with this girl. It displayed the latest one which said, "well it was nice seeing ya." He also mentioned her in a story he was telling recently and referred to her as his "friend."

 

It's getting really hard on me emotionally. And I think it's just exacerbated by the fact that I'm away at school during the week. I try to see him every weekend, but sometimes I'll be gone for 2 weeks at a time. AND it's making me kind of sad that these two girls are both really pretty, petite, soft-spoken, size-2 skinny uber-Christian girls. I'm 5'8, a curvy size 6, not outspoken about religion, and don't put a lot of effort into dressing cute on a regular basis (because I'm too poor to buy new clothes, and I'm exhausted from going to school all week).

 

Ahhhh! What should I do? I don't like this.

Edited July 28, 2010 by D. It Is Written

[oldfashiongirlie]

Well you def need to talk to him about this issue and the way you feel when he's still in touch with one of them.

I've always been against "being friends" with an ex, just cause you can't truly be friends with someone you cared about so much to be a couple.

Talk to him, and do it without fighting be calm, cause if you're defensive about it he will take it on the wrong side.

Good luck and don't let it get to you that much, after all he's with you and they're exes for a good reason..

[make me believe]

I agree you need to talk to him about why he is still "friends" with the one ex. Both of these situations would bother me, too. How long have you two been together? I feel like in a serious relationship, it's common courtesy to inform your partner of what you're doing, who you're doing it with, etc. So you should have known in advance that he was hanging out with a girl he dated (even in just a group), and not just some random friend.

 

As for the ex from a few years ago, I think you should ask him about her too. Your fears are understandable since they got back together once and she has always been the one to end it. On the other hand, I got back together with an ex of mine a few months before I met my current BF and immediately realized what a mistake it was. I tried to stick it out for awhile to see if my feelings would come back, but my ex ended up breaking up with me because HIS feelings were no longer there either. If you talk to your BF about it maybe you'll find out something similar happened with him and his ex.

 

It's obvious that the policy you two set up of not discussing your pasts isn't working for you, so if I were you I'd just tell him that and then ask him your questions. Don't accuse him of anything or get too angry/jealous. Just ask for some basic info & tell him your fears. Hopefully he'll make you feel a lot better once he knows that you're bothered.

[D. It Is Written]

How long have you two been together?

 

We've been together about 7 months, not counting that first month and the hiatus that I mentioned before.

 

I feel like in a serious relationship, it's common courtesy to inform your partner of what you're doing, who you're doing it with, etc. So you should have known in advance that he was hanging out with a girl he dated (even in just a group), and not just some random friend.

 

It's just that... I don't know to what extent he hung out with her. I think I know the reason and circumstance he probably ran into her -- a friend of ours was compiling some old video footage and wanted to use some that she had shot, and the story he told me in which he called her his "friend" was about this video footage. I'm not sure that they really are friends because he doesn't see her or talk to her, except for this one time recently, as far as I know. I think I'm already less upset about this than when I initially wrote this post. I even feel like maybe he mentioned her and the video to let me know that he had seen her without telling me that it was someone he had dated because, like I said before, we kind of have a no-talking-about-past-relationships pact. If he is in contact with her again, I will definitely say something, but I think I'm gonna let it go for now.

 

As for the ex from a few years ago, I think you should ask him about her too. Your fears are understandable since they got back together once and she has always been the one to end it.

 

The thing about bringing this up is... um, how do I let him know that I know these details about his ex-girlfriend when we've never discussed her? I feel like I'm going to come off as a psycho if I'm like... "I knew you dated her, so I Facebook stalked her, and asked our other friends about her, and now I know everything!" It would seem really strange and out of the blue.

 

It's obvious that the policy you two set up of not discussing your pasts isn't working for you...

 

I really wish it would just work though... Because I don't actually want to know anything. Details upset me. And I don't really want to tell him about my romantic past because that would probably scare him.

 

Don't accuse him of anything or get too angry/jealous.

 

Basically, I'm never angry with him. Ever. Because I adore him. And I have a hard time even confronting him about these things because I feel like they're just my issues that I shouldn't bother him with.