Let me say up front that my situation is very strange. For some reason, my wife's promiscuous past from before we married 28 years ago has returned to my thoughts, and I am devastated by it.

Before my wife (I'll call her J) and I met, she had a year of having intercourse on the first date with several guys. J had just gotten out of a bad marriage and she felt broken. She felt like a failure --unlovable, very low self-esteem, and almost desperate for affection. She didn't want or like having sex with men she barely knew, but she thought she was required to in order to have a chance for a real relationship. Plus, J was afraid of being rejected if she said "No".

I have very old-fashioned, wholesome principles about relationships and sex. I never dated for sex nor had sex at all if there wasn�t a genuine connection. When I met and got to know J, I could see that she was good, kind, smart, loving, fun, and wholesome too, I thought. A year and a half into the relationship, it turned cold and we broke up for 6 months because our love banks were depleted. But after being drawn back together, I learned about her year of promiscuity. I also learned she had intercourse on the first date with a guy she dated during our breakup. I was shocked by it all, hurt and disgusted, tormented by every thought. There were months of talking about it, trying to reconcile it in my mind. By focusing on her goodness and the fact that she was emotionally broken back then, I somehow got over all of the unwholesomeness. We were married a couple of years later.

Since then we have had 28 good to very good years of marriage without any issues of unwholesomeness. But about half a year ago, right after several months of rekindled warmth and closeness with J that came from filling each other�s love banks, memories of her promiscuous past reappeared in my head and have been infecting my thoughts as if it all happened just yesterday. Plus, because I insisted on radical honesty, she recently admitted that there were more guys (6 in all) and first date sex before we met than she told me about before, and that the first date sex during our break up occurred very soon after our breakup, even though she claimed she still loved me. So I now wonder if there are other deceptions waiting to be uncovered. I keep asking her, �Who are you, and how can I be sure?� and �After all your sex without a genuine connection, how can what we have be any different?�

These last many months have been almost unbearable, filled with gut wrenching pain and doubt. I am trying so hard to make sense of and get over what she did (remember, I got over it thirty years ago), but so far I am failing. I am being honest with J, and I think she is with me, although the story of what happened back then seems to change sometimes. She claims it is because her memories of 30 years ago are fuzzy. J reassures me she is wholesome and has been completely faithful throughout the ups and downs of our marriage. She tells me how ashamed she is for what she did, and that it happened because she was broken. I can see that she is so much stronger and self-assured now than she was then. That all helps me move forward, but then the infected thoughts jump up like a jack-in-the-box and I'm right back in my hell of pain and doubt. It is also hell for J because it is so painful to be reminded of the things she did and to see the pain it causes. Strangely enough, every now and then during these many months of mental torture, there have been periods of a week or two when I had no infected thoughts and things were great again between us.

I realize how crazy it is for events from thirty years ago to all of a sudden be crushing me now, but they are nonetheless. We truly love and are committed to each other. We have stronger and deeper feelings for each other than we ever had for anyone else. When things are good with us, it feels so natural and right, but when the jack-in-the-box shows up, it distorts everything. We very much want to work this out. I agree with so much that Dr. Harley has written and I believe it can help. How do I eliminate the infected thoughts once and for all and get past this?

What would you think about writing the radio show to get an answer straight from Dr. Harley?

I listen regularly, I think he would tell you you need to make a decision not to let yourself dwell on the past. It is past, and thinking (and talking)about it is making you both miserable.

It is a big mistake for you to bring up the mistakes of the past with your wife. Every time you do so, it withdraws love units from both love banks. Neither you nor she can do anything to change past mistakes, and bringing these mistakes up makes the present miserable.

What triggered you to think of the past after you've been married for all these years, apparently very happy years?

Dr. Harley would advise you to never bring up this topic again with your wife if you want to have a happy and fulfilling present and future.

Do you spend at least 15 hours a week together doing things you both enjoy?
Are you familiar with Dr Harleys books or Radio Show?

Dr H says when you are happy in the present you don't think about the past. It sounds to me however like you were triggered at a time of closeness!

The emotional closeness gave you confidence to dig a bit deeper and rooting around for more info brought the past into the present.

I think that's OK, you should have full discolsure I think the mistake is in keepin git alive in your discussions since then.

You need to focus on her present day qualitites, just as you did when you got over it in the past.

I appreciate that getting a reluctant trickle of truth over such a long time period is unnerving and makes you doubt her honesty, but you now know about that weakness and can learn from it. We all have weaknesses.

Old_Fashioned,

In spite of it occurring so long ago the fact that your W concealed the true extent and details for so long, makes it all the more fresh for you. I have a similar issue with my W before marriage except now my W will not talk about it.

Does your W continue to have, or has during your marriage, ever had contact or communication with any of these OM, and do you know who they are?

God Bless
Gamma

They are not "OM", Gamma. This happened before marriage and when they were not together.

You are projecting infidelity issues onto a non-infidelity situation.

Oldfashioned, longway is correct, this should never be brought up again. While definitely hurtful, these were not affairs. Every time you bring it up, you make the pain more real and you damage your relationship with your wife. I would focus on making the present great and leave the tragedies of the past in the past.

Just have a minute but I want to say thanks for all the replies so far. Much appreciated. My responses:
-emilyann: Writing the radio show is a good idea. I will do that.
-MelodyLane and LongWay: I sure wish I could just not think about the past, but it randomly intrudes with a vengeance on whatever I am doing.
-Jedi: We are doing things we enjoy in order to fill each other's love banks. It makes all the difference.
-indiegirl: The trickle of truth (or put another way, the discovered deceptions) clouds everything we talk about with doubt. I don't invite thoughts about the past; they intrude and stick.
-Gamma: Agreed, it does make things it all seem "fresh" in a rotten way. I wish you all the best. Send me a PM is there's anything I can do to help.

We understand. Between us, we have overcome affairs, the death of children, divorce, etc. The solution is not to speak or write about it. It should never be brought up again. Eventually the pain will fade away as long as the present is happy.

Personally I have found old traumatic memories do not just pop up randomly. There is usually something in the present that is jogging these memories.

I'm a bit confused about not bringing up the past. Isn't the policy of radical honesty all about not hiding anything? Since bringing up the past is how hidden things are being uncovered, why is it taboo? Not bringing it up seems like pretending there's no elephant in the room.

Kind of like long ago when I had spider phobia. Only after I fully admitted to myself that it was a big problem and decided that I wasn't willing to be a victim of it anymore did I face it head on and overcome it.

Your spider phobia is quite different from your wife's past, though. Whenever you bring up your wife's past, love units are withdrawn from both love banks. Once you have the truth about her past sexual history, and she should have yours as well, then the past mistakes should never be brought up again.

It's different from being radically honest about your spider phobia, because your phobia doesn't affect your wife in the same negative way as bringing up her past mistakes.

It's an enemy of good conversation to bring up the past mistakes. It will never makes things better to talk about it. Never. It will only serve to make you both feel worse.

Radical honesty is used when negotiating, so you can both be very frank with each other about you each feel about a particular solution, in order to avoid reluctant agreement. It's also used when a particular behavior of your spouse is bothering you. But if one of you were to continually bring up things from the past that bothered you that now cannot ever be changed, that brings the ugly past into the present, ruining the present.

Now that you know the details, let the past stay in the past and concentrate on making the present great. It is the ONLY way to get past resentment.

Once you know about a negative thing you should use that knowledge to exclude it. RH is used for the purposes of excluding old lovers for example. Knowing who old lovers are keeps the foxes out of the hen house.

You wouldn't invite these men to come live with you, so why summon their ghosts as frequently as you do?

Not talking about it is counter intuitive but it works.

SC,

Your wrote, They are not "OM", Gamma. This happened before marriage and when they were not together.

However we know that ex'es of any description are a threat to any marriage, which is why I asked if oldfashioned wife still sees or communicates with these men. It's also important for oldfashioned to know who they are, they could still be in their community. For example the usher at their church could be one of these men.

The other factor here is minimization, it was only kissing, it was only touching, it was only a ONS. And while the actual physical extent from so long ago might not matter, the fact that she is still lying about it NOW does.

God Bless
Gamma

I wasn't challenging your point about knowing who they are. I was challenging the use of the term "OM". in your own marriage you use this term to describe the man you call "OM2" and you treat your wife's relationship with him from before your marriage as if it were an affair. You should not encourage this poster to take the same approach as you.

Gamma that doesn't make them other men. Dr H is very clear on the treatment of former lovers as opposed to the treatment of affair partners. Affair partners are confronted and exposed because they pose a great threat - there is an active love bank.

Former lovers are merely excluded because they simply pose a risk of a threat.
So it's important not to get the two completely separate things mixed up.



That's not so at all. Affair partners are a threat far, far greater. We are talking about people who have no compunction destroying a marriage as opposed to people who simply were there first. It's completely absurd to lump the two into the basket of 'any description'.

Dr H has never said anything of the kind.

Your feelings about your wife's past is not a phobia. It is a reaction to a possible risk based on the natural instinct to exclude completion from our marriages. One of the reasons Dr H opposes premarital sex is because of the very common pain it causes by triggering this natural response in marriage. Just as you are experiencing now. Few men can think about their wives with others and not care.

We feel for you, because we have all had to eliminate unpleasant thoughts from our mind - many of us have had to heal from affairs for example. While the risk isn't as great as if they were men trying to break up your marriage, you've only just discovered them so your mind sees them as present day threats. You need to put them in their proper positions as posing a risk only if they reappear, just as you did with the men you knew about.

Dr H's position is you use RH to identify and remove the danger completely, ensure it is gone and never can return. Then you go on to live a life in which it plays no part. Even affairs are not to be discussed because it keeps the focus on the pain.

If your wife has given you every practical fact required to ensure these men are not in your circle, you are ready to move forward. The longer you go without discussing it, the less you will think about it. For a while it WILL be like not mentioning the elephant in the room. Though it's OK to say you are upset and wish to be comforted etc. A day will come when there is no elephant. It has not been fed or kept alive.

I am sure you do not wanting her thinking about it either, which is what you ask her to do with these conversations.

Have you read this? Historical Honesty

My thanks again for more helpful input.

A couple of clarifications. I don't see the guys in her past as a threat or a risk. According to my wife, there has been no contact of any kind with any of them for 30 years. And no thoughts or desires at all. She assures me I am way, way above any past guy in all areas.

The issue is that I see her past as so unwholesome that I don't know if I can live with it unless I tame the jack-in-the-box like I did before. Wholesomeness is that hugely important to me, and sex without a genuine connection is about the most unwholesome thing to me other than an affair. If I thought her past actions happened because she wanted and sought out sex without genuine connection, rather than because she was too emotionally broken to say "no" to guys back then, we wouldn't have gotten married.

Trust is also hugely important to me. So the deceptions about her unwholesome past just magnify all the bad. Back then she only told me about some of the unwholesomeness. The added unwholesomeness she has recently admitted to would probably have prevented me from marrying her.