We aim to get to the heart of your sex and relationship problems, so if you need advice, please contact us.
Q: Struggle with the fact that my girlfriend was previously with a man.
Dear KitschMix,
I’m not her first girlfriend, I don’t have any trust issues with her, and I have no doubt about how much she loves me and that she doesn’t want to be with anyone else. But these extremely unpleasant thoughts of her being intimate with her ex are driving me crazy.
She has a daughter, and I don’t know if that triggers it (reminds me of how she came into this world). The thought of her being with her ex-girlfriend doesn’t bother me, just the father of her child
A: Reader, this is something I hear all the time. You are definitely allowed to have your preferences – but allow me to explain how they’re unfair to your partner.
You say you can tell that she loves you and has no desire to be with anyone else. The only person who’s thinking of her and her baby daddy is you. She has had sex with a man, yes – but that was before she met you.
Quite frankly, most women (even those who identify as lesbians, myself included!) have, at one point in time, been with a man. There are a number of reasons for this – they could have had something to prove (my personal reason), they could have wanted to have a child “naturally” (an ex of mine), they may have been confused (numerous other exes), or they could possibly not have a preference between men and women (pretty much covers the rest of my exes).
This can be particularly unfair to the child, believe it or not, because whether the child is aware of it or not, she is indirectly the reason for your internal struggle. She is the reminder of something from your partner’s past that you don’t agree with. If your partner had only been with men before you, but didn’t have a daughter, would you think differently of her? Or is it only because there is a verification of her past?
What should matter to you is what she does now. If she had expressed an interest in returning to men, then this would be a cause for concern. But if it’s an area of her past that you’re having a hard time accepting, you are judging her based on a person that she no longer is.
If you truly can’t come to accept her past for what it is, it’s best if you get out of the relationship before it gets too long and she ends up more hurt. Dragging these things out only causes more pain in the long run, as it can lead her to feel that her time was wasted.
