I've been in a committed monogamous relationship w/ my current partner for nearly a year and we've lived together for about 3 months. At the beginning of our commitment we had a long distance relationship for a couple months in which time she was physically intimate w/ 2 other men, which surfaced several months later, I also was unfaithful in a non-physical way. We broke up over this briefly because of the dishonesty and lack of straightforwardness involved when it did come out.
One of the other men is a musician in a band which she has formed a very close relationship to over the past 2 – 3 years -- she has been sexually intimate w/ 4 of the 5 musicians in the band, 2 of which she's had intercourse with and the one she hasn't been sexual with at all is the one she claims to respect and like most of all. These instances of intimacy have all been random inconsistent hook-ups with none being long term usually with her being somewhat intoxicated based on what she’s told me.
I admire her radical honesty in telling me about her past relationships in detail, though it has inadvertently posed a major difficulty for me being comfortable when she wants to see them play and would then be hanging out with them afterwards. Though she says they are only friends, I have a hard time believing there isn't still a lot of sexual chemistry between any or all of them and her, especially since taps on the butt have been described when telling me about her nights hanging out w/ them, since we’ve been together. I am very uncomfortable with this and have expressed it on several occasions.
I believe another difficulty I have with this situation is that her and I have not had sexual intercourse yet and maintain a low number of sexually intimate encounters, fooling around once or twice a week at the most. We have a lot of tension between us and it mainly revolves around a lack of consistent intimacy between us and her relationship to 'the guys' in this band. She wants to continue hanging out with men she's felt more comfortable with sexually in her past than she does presently with me and I feel very insecure and inadequate about that. She expects me to just get over it because "they were in her life before I was... and ... she's not ever going to stop seeing them" and part of me feels like I'm less of a man because I can't seem to just get over it. Asking her to cut these people out of her life seems to be a selfish demand and negotiating hasn't seemed to work either. It isn't like she goes to see them every weekend or anything, in fact its probably been 4 or 5 times since we've physically been together, but every time I get totally wigged out and end up giving her hours full of my reasoning behind why I'm so insecure about her going to see them and even though she says she understands where I'm coming from, it's as though she doesn't care because she is going to do whatever she wants to do no matter how I feel about it. Her thoughts on that are that I would be hurting her feelings by expecting her to end her relationship with them. Another reason she has for wanting them in her life is that she thinks its healthy to maintain ties to those she's been intimate with, because there was more than just intimacy there at first why should they be cut out of her life just because they are not intimate any more. This makes sense to me though I've never maintained friendships w/ anyone I've ever been intimate w/, then again is there something to not being able to let go of emotional attachments to the opposite sex here? I think she has a hard time separating the intimate emotional gains she receives from a relationship from the intimate sexual gains received which are less of a priority for her. I'm very in love with this girl and don't believe she should have to choose between me and her 'friends' but know her continuing relationship w/ this band has been torturous for me so far. I feel like this is a great opportunity for me to develop a tremendous amount of trust, but I'm not so sure I can endure feeling so inadequate, insecure, and used. I'm in major conflict over this and also feel like she needs other men in her life to fulfill emotional needs that I'm not meeting and that she's not willing to let me know she needs met. She wants to see the band play again this friday and I've expressed my uncomfortable feelings about it to the point of ending our relationship for less than half a night. We are now back together and I've said that I will try to deal with the jealousy and envy that envelops my entire being, thinking that its all just a matter of me learning to trust her and have faith in our relationship, but it's tearing me up inside....Am I justified in feeling the way I do? Am I being selfish and irrational?….What should I do? …Should this relationship end once and for all?…Please post any advice, thoughts, or words of wisdom. Thanks in advance. _D.F

Didn't like our responses in the Emotional Needs forum??? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

I don't feel that way at all Seven, I posted all these at the same time, I'm desperately trying to see her point of view on all this, the more input the better. I've appreciated all you've had to say. She says if I Loved her enough and had enough faith and trust in our relationship, her forming platonic relationships w/ former lovers should be something that helped us develop more trust w/in our relationship. She feels controlled and in a way I feel controlling about this. She constantly reverses the tables on me and really does feel like I'm disrespecting her, she is willing to negotiate, but all I want is for these guys out of her life....what is there to negotiate??

dayfuller-

I've posted to you elsewhere. To me the biggest red flag isn't whether she might sleep with one of these guys again, but that she refuses to eliminate friendships that hurt you. To insist that what one wants to do is more important than your partner's hurt...that is NOT a sign of a promising relationship.

However something just struck me. "She says if I Loved her enough and had enough faith and trust in our relationship..." Those are words seen often here, said by people involved in affairs...it is VERY common to try and shift the problem to your shoulders "too controlling" "lack of trust" etc. I am not saying that those words mean she is having an affair, simply that her logic is as warped as someone who is...in both cases, the logic of someone trying to justify selfishly putting their partner in pain.