Roshan (name changed) is a 27 year old promo producer for a lifestyle channel in Mumbai.
When I say that revealing everything about your past to your new girlfriend is a bad idea I don't mean we should all become overnight liars and ‘forget’ to tell our girlfriends about the big stuff, like STDs or ex-wives. We just need to be a little sensitive about how much we tell them and whenever possible try to skip the details.
Silent treatmentI told my current girlfriend all about my exes and even confessed about a one night stand I had had when I was on holiday in Hampi a couple of years ago. She seemed to be okay with everything I told her and I thought I had the coolest girlfriend in the world but a week later she suddenly stopped talking to me. I knew I had done something to make her angry but I had no idea what it was. After one week of receiving the silent treatment I begged her to tell me what I had done wrong.
Big deal?It turns out that while telling her my school stories I had shown her a photograph of me with my first girlfriend and she found it disturbing that I still kept that photograph. I could understand her being upset about the one night stand but making a big deal about the photograph just seemed stupid.
But now I know that even the small things about your partner’s past can hurt you a lot. For instance I know someone who forgave her boyfriend for cheating on her but couldn’t accept the fact that he and his ex-girlfriend had got matching turtle tattoos when they were still seeing each other.
Jealousy I went out of my head with jealousy as well when she told me about her first sexual experience with her perfect ex-boyfriend. I knew it was all in the past but I wanted to know everything even though it had nothing to do with how our relationship was going.
Predictably things only got worse from then on, I started comparing myself with him all the time and found that I couldn’t match up. I’m not generally an insecure guy but there is something sickening about imagining your girlfriend’s ex-boyfriends, like in movie flashbacks you always see them through sepia tinged lenses where they appear more manly and handsome than you. Then as usual one thing leads to another and you start obsessing about whether she still likes him.
Tell all?The really crazy thing about all the drama that happened is that we both had volunteered this information to each other. Now that I’m a year older and hopefully a lot wiser I think that we don’t have to “tell all” to our partners to be in an honest relationship.
Would you want to hear about your lover's exes? And would you tell all? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below or by joining the discussion on Facebook.