Dealing with his past...

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-21-2004
Dealing with his past...
3
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 3:26pm
My boyfriend and I have been together for a year now. We have something incredible together, there's intimacy, passion, love, trust, and we share so many goals and dreams. Its a match made in heaven, to be cheesy.

However, I am having trouble dealing with something from his past. The relationship before mine was with a woman who was married. Their relationship lasted about a year, and then they became just friends, about 3 months before I met and started dating him. The woman tried to back away from the friendship, they were best friends. They did for a long time, and they still don't communicate like they used to (the used to talk every day... after the sexual part of the relationship ended). Now they are communicating a bit more than they have a over the last year, and it is really bugging me. He does not talk to her in front of me, nor does he talk about her much. He's been nothing but honest about thier relationship.

She is important to him, but I have a horrible time accepting her in his life. She's older (about 14 years?), has 2 kids, is married, is highly religious, yet she did this to her family. She cheated. Its one of the few moral vilations I truely subscribe to. My boyfriend and I are both in our early 20's, but I think I could marry him. How can I get past this? Should I be honest about how horribly upset her presence makes me? I deserpately don't want to lose him.

Help?

Avatar for northwestwanderer
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 5:44pm
Hmmm...that would be a tough one for me, not so much because of their continued contact, but because I would have a hard time being with someone whose morals and values said it was ok to be involved with a married woman. Are you sure you can be ok with that aspect of his character?

Being ok with their contact basically boils down to whether you trust him or not. I'd frankly have trouble with that given his past behavior. Can you really trust him to make the right choice and keep their friendship platonic, given his past behavior?

Sheri

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-2003
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 5:56pm
Hello starchayser!

 
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-21-2004
Thu, 07-22-2004 - 10:38am
Thanx guys. I know that I am very very important to him, more so than she is. And he knows that what they did was wrong, in fact when he told me he was a wreck. He cried and panicked and begged me not to leave him. We worked it out. He fell into the relationship with the woman when him and his ex (who were in an open relationship), started to fall apart, and things in his life were extremely difficult to deal with. Once he got things together the inapropriate relationship ended. They became close friends after that, they talked a lot on a very innocent level. I just still feel its inapropriate for them to have contact much at all. They are not close like they used to be now because she respects him and me and our relationship, and she backed off. So did he.

He really is a wonderful man, and I do not want to leave him. He's very stressed with work right now and I can't bring this up. But soon I will ask him to adjust his behavior with her. Thank you both.

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