Her Past, and Having Sex Right After a Breakup

[hj2009]

I love my girlfriend. She is incredible and treats me better than anybody I have ever met. We have been together for 16 months, and are now living together. We are both 23 years old.

Recently, I found out about her sexual past and I am having a terribly difficult time dealing with it.

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She dated her high school boyfriend for 2 years, and they broke up during freshman year of college. Pretty standard.

Shortly after they broke up, my girlfriend found out that her ex was having sex with somebody else, and I think this had a large effect on her, since she had not yet gotten over the breakup.

At this point, she "decided to be single and have fun for a while"... ie have meaningless sex with people.

She did this for about 9 months it seems like - I would guess she hooked up with 3-5 guys during this time. She says that she did beat herself up over this, but she has also defended it to me, so I think she may feel ambivalent.

She then decided to start dating again, and dated a guy who was a total d-bag for about 6 months before she went to study abroad. Upon returning to the US, she started dating another guy, her longtime friend.

This relationship lasted about a year. They went months at a time without having sex and were not a very physical couple. They broke up about a month and a half before I started dating her.

Within a week of breaking up with this guy, she contacted at least a couple of the guys that she used to hook up with (she also started contacting me at this time), and she had sex with one of them. She then decided not to do that anymore.

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The fact that she has had other boyfriends before me does not bother me at all. The fact that she had meaningless hookups with a bunch of people does bother me some. The last hookup she had is what bothers me the most.

It's the nature of the sex that bothers me, not the fact that she was having sex.

Say what you will, but the last hookup is pretty much the definition of a booty call. I hate to say it, but I think it's a little slutty.

I have also seen her encourage another one of her friends to have sex shortly after breaking up with somebody as a way to "gain perspective" and get over the previous boyfriend.

I think that going out of your way to have sex in order to get over somebody degrades yourself, and makes you easy.

I'm also concerned with the fact that she would hook up with somebody that she used to hook up with before she dated the last two guys she dated. Did she maintain contact with this guy while dating her other boyfriends? Something about that seems wrong to me, though I'm not exactly sure what. It makes me feel bad for ex boyfriend.

It also makes me wonder if she was using me for the same purpose, at least to start.

Most of the advice that I have been given about this is something along the lines of "just get over it" or "the past is the past" or "women should not have to hide their sexuality".

Look, I don't think women should be ashamed of their sexuality. Far from it. But the fact is that in our society, sleeping around is thought of negatively.

In my mind, it's a question of selectivity. If a girl is willing to have sex with lots of guys for fun or in order to get over somebody else, then she is not being very selective.

What hurts me is that, had I known this about my girlfriend before we started dating, I know that I would not have dated her. I am a very confident person and am very selective with the girls that I choose to be with. I don't want to be with somebody who uses sex as a means to solve her problems.

That being said, I love my girlfriend more than anything, and I really do want to understand her thoughts and feelings about why she decided to do this. I desperately want to get over this so I can just love her without thinking about it, but I am finding it very hard.

Thoughts?

[ecojeanne]

she should have kept her mouth shut, silly girl, this thread is exactly the reason why