My Girlfriend has been with a number of sexual partners, and it's playing on my mind?

[Anonymous]

I've been seeing this girl since mid October and she says we're basically official (but we're not rushing things). I have known this girl for about 2 years and in the past I've given her a lot of advice about her partners whilst not having feelings for her at all, which meant I was never really bias. Then it started to happen, we got with each other of a night out and things escalated. I could tell she was starting to like me and because of this I started to like her back. We slept with each other in September and then in October decided to give it a go. The thing is, I'm struggling with her past. Obviously being her previous best friend she has asked me a lot of questions and told me a lot of things I wish I never heard. I haven't had as many sexual partners as her so it's really playing on my mind. The fact that she has enjoyed things (not just sex) with other people, sometimes even my friends, is starting to get to me. She still actively hangs out with one of the people she slept with a couple of times, and considers him a really good friend. On multiple occasions she told me he was the one she loved, but he got a girlfriend shortly after and is still dating her I think. I feel like I'm the alternative in all of this and it's really starting to frustrate me. I want to talk to her about it but whenever I mention one of her ex partners she gets upsets because it makes her feel bad (which is really patronising). How do I deal with this?

[CallMeDave]

I've been in a position of being with a woman with many more prior partners than I had and one that she still had frequent contact with (for valid reasons) and I understand that it feels uncomfortable knowing she's been with a lot of guys and still spending time with one of them.

Here's the thought process I went through that helped me. Those relationships, hookups, etc. were in the past and are over. She chose not to stay in a relationship with any of those guys but chose to be in one with me. In my case, her relationship before me lasted a while so it was easier for me to feel like she was past the wild days and really ready to be in a monogamous committed relationship. I have past partners and it's totally normal that she does too.

That approach worked pretty well for me and we even went to dinner with a couple of her former partners (one of which was married and the other was still single) and I really felt OK with it because I knew she was with me and not with them and at the end of the night she was going home with me and would be sleeping with me.

If you think the relationship could be good, I think it would be wise to try to forget the past as much as possible and focus on the present and the future. Think about who she's with now and what you're going to do in the future and not what she did before you got into a relationship. If you dwell on that, it might kill your chance at a good relationship with her.

It might help you to talk with her about how you aren't feeling very secure about being the one she really wants because you know she loved that other guy and she still spends a lot of time with him. Hopefully she'll understand that and take your feelings seriously and explain to you why she's no longer interested in that guy and wants to be with you. That might help a lot. It did help me when the girlfriend I'm talking about make it clear that she didn't want anyone else but me. Hopefully you can get the same kind of reassurance.

[TingaTinga]

This is why friendships often don't turn into a good relationship. You just know way too many details and know more than most people know. Lots of people don't want to know the full details of their partners past, just the basics.
You knew all this before you got with her, and you decided to look past it. So now you can either continue to look past it or you can go back to being friends. She can't change her past, she can't erase the memories of what she told you from your mind, all she can do is show you its you she wants now not that guy.