Upset about my wifes past

[autumnnight]

I told a lie the other day.

 

I was looking for some old photographs because of an event I was attending, and I ran across my journal/diary from my junior year of high school and my freshman year of college.

 

The journal in my junior year was mostly full of encouraging verses gripes about my mom, and angst over whether A) "John" liked me "that way," and B) whether or not I would be allowed to go with him to the junior banquet. The one from my freshman year was racier. I spent several pages obsessing over whether kissing "David" was a good or bad idea and then lamenting when he didn't try to kiss me.

 

No WONDER my marriage failed.......Subconsciously I was carrying a torch for John and David

[deadelvis]

I told a lie the other day.

 

I was looking for some old photographs because of an event I was attending, and I ran across my journal/diary from my junior year of high school and my freshman year of college.

 

The journal in my junior year was mostly full of encouraging verses gripes about my mom, and angst over whether A) "John" liked me "that way," and B) whether or not I would be allowed to go with him to the junior banquet. The one from my freshman year was racier. I spent several pages obsessing over whether kissing "David" was a good or bad idea and then lamenting when he didn't try to kiss me.

 

No WONDER my marriage failed.......Subconsciously I was carrying a torch for John and David

 

Well then. Are you starting to reverse your opinion on this issue?

 

"Carrying a torch" is a perfect descriptive phrase to summarize the problem with this type of situation. And that's what OP is so worried about. The last thing anyone wants is their SO carrying a torch for someone else.

Edited October 2, 2015 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[BlueIris]

jh21: IMHO, what your wrote above is your real problem not her past sex life nor her journals. your discomfort with her past and journals were just a reaction to the above.

she was wild when she was single and young, you got bit of that at the beginning of your marriage, she kept slowing down with time, notably after having kids, until she almost lost all her sex drive while you are still at your prime 36 years old and fit. the past and journals triggered your pain, but IMHO you should concentrate all your efforts to address the main issue, once you do that you will be able to handle the retro-jealousy.

I do not know much about restoring sex drive I'm sure there are some experienced people here that can help, you should definitely have her talk to her doctor about it too. do not exhaust your energy fighting jealousy, believe or not she is hurt by the whole thing too.

 

I agree with this, and with the portions of OP’s post that you highlighted.

 

One thing OP could do to GREATLY improve the odds of wild monkey sex is to take over the care of the household and children, who are 4 and 2. Do that for a couple of years so that Wife just has to “help” or “pitch in” when she has the time and energy and when her schedule allows. This approach will have a much greater chance of resulting in more monkey sex than getting upset about her past will. And the true bonus is that being the primary parent for your children at this age will result in a fulfilling bond that will last for a lifetime.

[jh21]

I agree with this, and with the portions of OP’s post that you highlighted.

 

One thing OP could do to GREATLY improve the odds of wild monkey sex is to take over the care of the household and children, who are 4 and 2. Do that for a couple of years so that Wife just has to “help” or “pitch in” when she has the time and energy and when her schedule allows. This approach will have a much greater chance of resulting in more monkey sex than getting upset about her past will. And the true bonus is that being the primary parent for your children at this age will result in a fulfilling bond that will last for a lifetime.

 

I do all the house cleaning. I do all the yard work. I work 40 hours per week and she works part time. I take care of the kids with bathing, feeding and activities as much as she does. I BBQ the food. She cooks the meals but I always do the dishes. She does the laundry when she is home and Im at work during the day.

 

I find it insting that you assume all I do is "pitch in"

 

I could do absolutely everything and she still wouldn't have the sex drive she used to.

[Got it]

I agree with this, and with the portions of OP’s post that you highlighted.

 

One thing OP could do to GREATLY improve the odds of wild monkey sex is to take over the care of the household and children, who are 4 and 2. Do that for a couple of years so that Wife just has to “help” or “pitch in” when she has the time and energy and when her schedule allows. This approach will have a much greater chance of resulting in more monkey sex than getting upset about her past will. And the true bonus is that being the primary parent for your children at this age will result in a fulfilling bond that will last for a lifetime.

 

And I think this brings up a bigger point, are we expected to be forever locked into our exact actions, interests, and passions from the first day of marriage till the end of our lives? That everything we did, exactly how we did it is not allow to evolve, change, adapt over the years and decades?

 

I am really sorry but I thought that was life and marriage. That things ebb and flow and the two work together to tackle, compromise, and carve out new agreements.

 

I promise, anyone with those expectations will be sorely disappointed fairly quickly into a marriage if one takes such a rigid stance.

[Horton]

Sorry but 1) having journals from years gone by does NOT mean anybody is "more concerned" with the past, he was out of line reading them and insisting that she burn them AND holding it against her that she didn't burn them, and for what was in them. This is ALL about his insecurity and NOT about her journals or youthful behavior. :mad: She will never be able to do enough to appease this kind of insecurity and it's not even her job to do it, if he doesn't like feeling so badly he should go to counseling to learn how to deal with HIS problem OR end his marriage!!!

 

You're one of several people that have inferred or outright accused the OP of invading his wife's privacy. This mindset is so foreign to me that I'm not even sure how to respond to it. Why would a married person need or even want to have secret parts of their life that are 'off limits' to their own spouse? If you want to live two separate lives then why bother getting married in the first place? Marriage is supposed to be a 'one flesh' union, not just some financial partnership/roommates scenario.

[BlueIris]

I do all the house cleaning. I do all the yard work. I work 40 hours per week and she works part time. I take care of the kids with bathing, feeding and activities as much as she does. I BBQ the food. She cooks the meals but I always do the dishes. She does the laundry when she is home and Im at work during the day.

 

I find it insting that you assume all I do is "pitch in"

 

I could do absolutely everything and she still wouldn't have the sex drive she used to.

 

If all she does is cook and laundry and you do everything else plus working double her hours (40 versus 20?), and you take equal responsibility for the children… the journals pale in significance. This imbalance of responsibility and contribution to the marriage is unsustainable.

[autumnnight]

You're one of several people that have inferred or outright accused the OP of invading his wife's privacy. This mindset is so foreign to me that I'm not even sure how to respond to it. Why would a married person need or even want to have secret parts of their life that are 'off limits' to their own spouse? If you want to live two separate lives then why bother getting married in the first place? Marriage is supposed to be a 'one flesh' union, not just some financial partnership/roommates scenario.

 

I agree with this. Reading journals that were lying around is not invading privacy. Sharing passwords is not invading privacy. Sharing phones is not invading privacy. Privacy means I don't bug you when you're on the potty. It doesn't mean you get to keep pieces of your life hidden from me.

[Dolfin80]

Ach, autumnnight, it really isn't that complicated. How many of us grown men have an old, still wrapped, condom tucked away in our wallet as a memento of our younger, glory days? The condom in my wallet is over 25 years old. I rarely take it out to look at it, would *never* dare to use it now, but I still know it's there...

 

Gawd....us women don't think like that

[Poutrew]

Gawd....us women don't think like that

 

And that amongst other things is why we men love you women so much:love:

But, if it makes you feel any better, I just went through my wallet and along with the condom, there is my old Woodstock patch taken from my tattered Levi's jacket before I threw it away in '81, and a Domremy patch, which is the home town of Joan of Arc who happens to be a personal hero of mine though I'm not catholic. So, I hope I don't get judged too heavily for just the condom. On the same note, I really hope the OP can realize that his wife is a multidimensional creature and can eventually get over her negatives, because I'm sure there are also many positives that will outweigh them.

[Mr. Lucky]

I agree with this. Reading journals that were lying around is not invading privacy. Sharing passwords is not invading privacy. Sharing phones is not invading privacy. Privacy means I don't bug you when you're on the potty. It doesn't mean you get to keep pieces of your life hidden from me.

 

We're usually on the same page but I disagree here.

 

If you could get audio tapes of your spouse's IC sessions, would you listen to them? Transcripts of time spent in the confession booth?

 

Some of us - me included - need a place and manner to vent darker thoughts, feelings and reflections so we can act more lovingly with our spouse. Writing those things down can be cathartic and I'd be mortified if my wife read some of them. A private journal or diary should be just that.

 

Mr. Lucky

[Rejected Rosebud]

And I think this brings up a bigger point, are we expected to be forever locked into our exact actions, interests, and passions from the first day of marriage till the end of our lives?

:( sadly from this thread and a couple others I get the feeling that yes, we are, if we are women and the subject is "wild monkey sex." Does anybody here who's a married man (OP!) feel like examining whether he is exactly the same in his relationship with his wife as he was when they were courting? I bet not.

[TaraMaiden2]

......That is why you don't go digging into the past. You rarely like what you find.

 

Bingo. QFT.

[Got it]

As a guy, I will say that I don't expect a woman to act the same on day 1000 as she did on day one, no. I also hope that she doesn't expect me to be the same after a while, either. Relationships evolve and change. When it comes to crazy monkey sex, maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't really expect that either. I doubt the OP expected anything crazy either, but reading about her past sexual experiences made him feel uncomfortable, and caused him to wonder why she was doing those things with other guys, but not him. That is why you don't go digging into the past. You rarely like what you find.

 

As someone with old journals somewhere around it is just mind boggling to me that some vapid entry I wrote at 21 would be held against me so many years later. I know I spent one afternoon reading through them years ago, actually making my husband suffer through listening to some of the ridiculousness that I was so adamant then. But to be held to that as something he may not get know? I doubt that crossed anyone's mind.

 

While my past is pretty tame, especially compared to his, there are still high level of emotion at times for certain people, events, etc. that to be judged on them outside of an evolution of how I have grown seems grossly unfair.

 

I mean, I was at the height of my anorexia through some of the journals, is my husband now suffering because he doesn't have the 100 pound person that I once was? Or my codependent and unhealthy focus on an emotional unavailable man that I cycled through over a multi year time frame? Is he lacking because I don't have this obsession and focus on him? I mean I chased and put up with a lot of crap from that guy who I finally learned to just write off as broken both on a platonic and romantic level. But should my husband be jealous of him and my actions then?

 

And should I expect from my husband what he was like in some of his younger years? His Mrs. Robinson encounter? His almost threesome? And his never deflating boner? I mean even he admits in his early 20s he was all about sex and can see how time has tempered this? Should I rise up against the injustice that these other women got the energizer bunny and I get . . . him?

 

I guess I scratch my head trying to figure out, is he here to supply aspects of what strike my fancy or is he a greater sum of his parts? Should I know appreciate and love who he is today and loving him for that? I guess I look at it, I don't want the man of the past because I wouldn't have the man of today. Without his experiences it wouldn't have shaped who he is today and while he is not perfect, no one is, he is absolutely perfect formation of all his experiences to make him the right person for today. And I pleasure in the fact that we will influence who we both will be tomorrow.

 

If one needs to constantly look to the past it is because you refuse to work together in the present for tomorrow. That we expect people to be objects for our fulfillment and so rail against some unspoken contract that one can never change. Well marriage is about change. You either evolve, compromise or fall apart.

 

Not all marries work, sometimes some change in ways that can't be accepted. And that is life. Then respect them as an independent being and let them be free. Same goes with recognizing that we change(d) and owning it without holding it against someone.

[GoodOnPaper]

:( sadly from this thread and a couple others I get the feeling that yes, we are, if we are women and the subject is "wild monkey sex." Does anybody here who's a married man (OP!) feel like examining whether he is exactly the same in his relationship with his wife as he was when they were courting? I bet not.

 

I think it all comes down to the man's satisfaction level with the quality of intimacy in the marriage. If that's met, then the style of sex is a secondary thing. If it's not met, then it's easy to think of sex style as a barometer. Openness and uninhibitedness = better intimacy. Tame and vanilla can convey that she's holding back, intentionally or not.

[autumnnight]

We're usually on the same page but I disagree here.

 

If you could get audio tapes of your spouse's IC sessions, would you listen to them? Transcripts of time spent in the confession booth?

 

Some of us - me included - need a place and manner to vent darker thoughts, feelings and reflections so we can act more lovingly with our spouse. Writing those things down can be cathartic and I'd be mortified if my wife read some of them. A private journal or diary should be just that.

 

Mr. Lucky

 

I can see your point too.

 

I make a distinction (albeit tiny) between, say, journals from high school and college and my current IC/thoughts.

 

I wouldn't care who read my past stuff. However, when my ex and I were in serious crisis, I really DID need a place to vent certain thoughts and emotions that I was told I wasn't allowed to have. I followed the HORRIBLE advice to let him read them if he wanted. He got so angry about some of my feelings. So yes, I agree that expecting a spouse to recount their IC word for word, etc is just plain invasive.

 

For me, if I stumbled on journals from 20 years ago and realized there were some things in there I didn't want mental images of....I'd just close them.

 

Which to brings to mind a question....if you KNOW that what you are reading might upset you AND that it is decades old....why do you keep reading.....

[Mrs. John Adams]

Many years ago....as a young teenage girl...I kept a journal. I told all about my feelings...and i disclosed that i had sex with my boyfriend. Little did I know....my mother read my journals.

 

She confronted me about my journals....and it changed my life.

 

that boy was mr. Adams....and at age 17 and 19...we married. It was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.

 

I burned those journals.....and every letter he wrote to me while he was away from me in the military.

 

There are times...I wish i had them back...to relive those moments again....however

 

it is probably better that they are destroyed....

 

I understand that this wife did not disclose information maybe she should have...but I also understand...she never meant for anyone else to ever read what she had written.

 

My mother...had no right to read my journals....they were not meant for her....and while i understand i broke her heart because i had sex with my boyfriend...she should never have read my journals in the first place.

 

Was I wrong to write the journals? was I wrong to keep them? or was my mother wrong to have read them?

 

Too late now for my mom...and too late for the op of this thread....

 

 

Is his wife "guilty" for writing the journals...never imagining that he would read them? or is he wrong in reading her private journals?

 

The right answer depends on who you are.

[autumnnight]

Is his wife "guilty" for writing the journals...never imagining that he would read them? or is he wrong in reading her private journals?

 

The right answer depends on who you are.

 

Wow. This is so insightful.

 

And the answer, to me, is representative of the two types of men. One type, while understandably upset about a journal's content, will agree that perhaps reading them was not best. The other will maintain it is all his business and that it absolutely SHOULD change the way he should feel about his wife of decades.

 

I do know, for me, which one I would rather be married to.

Edited October 3, 2015 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
Removed non-topical reference to other LS participants. ~V

[Mrs. John Adams]

The problem is this...now that he has read them...he cannot UNREAD them.

Now he has to determine if the content is more than his Psyche can bear...

 

If he cannot look favorably upon his wife...if he cannot disassociate her past from her present....then he has no choice but to let her go.

 

It's a shame really......i truly believe what happened before their relationship should be irrelevant....but i am not walking in his shoes.

[TheGuard13]

You're one of several people that have inferred or outright accused the OP of invading his wife's privacy. This mindset is so foreign to me that I'm not even sure how to respond to it. Why would a married person need or even want to have secret parts of their life that are 'off limits' to their own spouse? If you want to live two separate lives then why bother getting married in the first place? Marriage is supposed to be a 'one flesh' union, not just some financial partnership/roommates scenario.

 

I agree with this. Reading journals that were lying around is not invading privacy. Sharing passwords is not invading privacy. Sharing phones is not invading privacy. Privacy means I don't bug you when you're on the potty. It doesn't mean you get to keep pieces of your life hidden from me.

 

STDs and lying notwithstanding...

 

Two individuals, even married and "one flesh", are still two individuals, and should be able to pursue individual lives, and yes, have some private thoughts and experiences if they so choose. Pretty much any counselor will tell you the same. As long as the secrets and private things aren't destructive to the other person, and an argument can absolutely be made about her lying and hiding the STD thing (assuming she knew the specifics of it and that she still had it, etc, lots of people are clueless about these)...it's healthy.

 

There's a world of difference between opening sharing of passwords and phones, and intruding into someone's private diaries or journals because they were lying around.

 

The idea that people cannot have private thoughts and experiences just because they're married and "have to share" is a bit much.

 

And the suggestion that he has the right to read someone's private thoughts and continue reading them because they were lying around is asinine.

 

The more I think about it, while I do feel for him, the more I feel it was incredibly rude and stupid of him to read those journals and to keep reading them once he realized their content.

Edited October 3, 2015 by TheGuard13

[ShatteredLady]

After my world fell apart on New Years Day I found that writing my own journal of sorts was incredibly therapeutic. I vented my pain & anguish. Confessed my deepest darkest thoughts to myself & analyzed them. I'm ashamed to say these included 'final solution' type ramblings. I was in such a desperate state that ANYTHING to stop the pain was a viable option at the time.

 

I've since discovered that my H was reading every word I wrote at the time. The obvious depths of my pain had zero effect on his behavior. The betrayal & invasion of my privacy is actually LESS painful than the fact that he appeared unmoved by the mother of his children contemplating suicide AND wasn't driven to stop or disclose his A, even though it was clear that so much of my emotional distress was caused by NOT KNOWING what was going on in my life & blaming myself for EVERYTHING bad in the world!!

 

Yet I know that he would of been heart broken if I'd been writing about my feelings & actions in past relationships or fantasies about new men....

 

I don't write anymore even though it did help. I'm sure that writing here is a bad idea but I need the connection so desperately.

 

If a person hasn't done anything wrong shouldn't they be allowed their privacy or should everything in marriage be an open book? Sometimes thoughts just swirling around in my head are toxic. Getting them out helps.

 

Before this nightmare I would of been happy (even proud of my M) sharing everything & anything but once you feel judged & betrayed its a painful vulnerability...

 

I guess for me it's the lack of compassion & judgements rather than the invasion of privacy that hurts.

[Mr1oyalty]

While I somewhat agree about private thoughts as many say, written words are not exactly private thoughts to the same degree. Especially of a sexual nature. A man could have a private thought or memory of making love to a women before he met his wife, but a private video or diaries of it is a bit different. Who knows if she was aware she had them but her reluctance to toss them says something as well. Also no one here seems to have a diary quite like what the OP described. Its a bit much, imagine a father with that kind of diary laying around, oh "then I dumped into her mouth"? Come on now, enough is enough lol. Talking about how he slept with different guys girlfriends and lying etc. Its quite different from the scenarios many are citing. I just don't see any justification for it.

 

 

Whether it was initially wrong of him to read them depends on his relationship with his wife. I think if anyone has said he had a right to read them (I don't think anyone has) they may be referring to there own relationship. The amount of sharing between couples is as different as the individuals that make up the relationships. Some couples know much of what their spouse will and wont reveal in IC. Every couple is different as each individual is different.

 

Also not all men want to know the past of their W for purposes of a purity check lol. For those who must have a story book romance with unicorns everywhere, yeah the past is not good to look into because the purity check might turn into a reality check real fast. However for some its different, some like to see their spouses scars, ugly parts and wounds to understand the story behind the person they love. Others will want to see wounds to reopen them sadly. The OP has a chance at understanding his wife more then he ever would if he so chooses to see her entire journey into the person she has become. He can let the entire film play through his head and understand the entire film in its glory which maybe a thing of beauty or he can rewind the worst parts over and oover (retro mind movies). In other words he can now see the big picture if he so chooses and understand his wife and her journey as a person in ways he could not before. He really has a chance at lemonade though it will take work from both sides.

[Mrs. John Adams]

When my son was 18 years old...I was cleaning his room. There was a vcr tape that was unlabeled. I am OCD.....and everything is in it's place in my home. I plugged the tape into his vcr to see what it was so i could put it in the right case.

 

It was a video of my son having sex with his girlfriend.

 

First I screamed...then i fell to the floor and turned it off. I called my husband and asked him what should i do?

 

He said put the tape back where you found it and leave it alone.

 

that night we sat our son down and talked to him...and told him to destroy the tape. It was never mentioned again. I have no idea if he destroyed it or not.

 

Was i wrong to look at the tape? It was truly an accident.....what if my son did not destroy the tape? what if his wife found the tape years later?...he did not marry the girlfriend.

 

Would he then be responsible to explain every detail of that tape to her? and does she have the right to hold it against him?

[CarrieT]

I could do absolutely everything and she still wouldn't have the sex drive she used to.

I think I said this ten or fifteen pages ago but...

 

Every person's libido changes! Why do you expect someone to have the same sexual urges now that they did one year, five years, or ten years ago?

 

I am now in my early 50s.

- In my 20s, I wanted it every two weeks or so.

- In my 30s, I wanted it every six months or so.

- In my 40s, I wanted three and four times a day!

- Now I am happy with it every three or four days.

 

Don't you see that this is not about her journals at all, but some longing for an ephemeral person that has not existed for years?

[autumnnight]

I lived at home during my undergraduate studies, but I went off for my first graduate degree. My mother and I were working in my room and closet, deciding what to take with me, what to box, what to toss (she was going to redo my room).

 

We happened upon some of my old high school binders. She opened them up and found some old assignments, a couple or so of which I failed or made poor grades on. I should point out that I still graduated with an honors diploma and didn't have to pay a dime in college tuition.

 

Our day devolved into lectures about my irresponsibility, my deceit in never showing her the assignments, her disappointment with me, her concern that I would flunk out of grad school "if this is how seriously I take my work." I was 15-17 when I made those grades, and I was 22 when i went to grad school.

 

It didn't matter that they hadn't paid a dime for college. It didn't matter that I graduate Cum Laude and had secured a full graduate assistantship for my Masters. All that mattered was I "embarrassed her" by doing poorly on some high school assignments and "deceived her" by not showing them to her at the time.

 

Sometimes it is prudent to have some perspective about the past.