Is it acceptable to break up with somebody because of their past love and sex life? Or would that be totally wrong and pathetic?

My first rational response is: of course that’s ridiculous. The past is the past and if your lover has actually closed off the past (I mean, not secretly longing back for an ex or whatever) then the present and the future are yours. And that should be enough, right?

Unfortunately the past never really stays in the past. It always comes round, closing you in, forcing itself upon you.

Willard the ex played his cards of the past the worst way possible. He told me everything there was to be told. Not only their names and for how long and when they had been together, but also what their bodies were like, what the sex was like, what they liked in bed and what he liked about them vice versa. In a few months time he turned me from quite happily in love into a scared, twitching, burned out, insecure, trembling and retching little deer.

I saw flashes of him having sex with them while we were. I was scared to go to sleep because of the flashes. Scared of silence because of the flashes. Scared of going places where words could be that would remind me of names or situations. Those eternal, never ending flashes. Ghosts of the past keeping me company day and night.

With Matt, things were different. He’d assured me right from the start he’d never been in love before and only had casual sexual flings and mistakes in his little rucksack of personal baggage. I was able to cope with that. Apart from knowing his promiscuous nature, I knew nothing. I was determined to keep it that way. I was determined to not make the same mistake again. To refrain him from making the same mistake. Despite this intention, names and situations slowly sneaked into my mind. Nevertheless they were still acceptable and insignificant.

But I choose to forget somebody crucial. Somebody so obvious that I simply forgot to ask. My intuitive suspicion had always been there, but I was hoping that for once I was wrong. That for once Matt had resisted something, despite the fact that it had been so ‘available’. She’s still a friend. She’s known by everybody in his circle. She’s even been to our house. She’s been in his life for ages. She’s nearly impossible to completely delete out of it. I felt so stupid for not knowing before. His former housemate.

Right in front of Hamley’s, Regent Street, London all the pieces fell together. I had to ask, because I realised I’d find out someday anyway. For a silent second I begged my intuition to have let me down. I got an answer. My intuition had been right all along.

I loudly called him a goddamn, inveterate, pathetic slut and walked off.

From the explanations that followed I am to believe that it had been just as desperate, inferior and insignificant as all the other ghosts from his past. But for me there was a huge difference: For the first time it was somebody with a name, a face, a voice, a personality and a still noticeable influence on Matt’s thoughts about the world.

How can I respect somebody who has spent roughly half of his life merely following his dick? More importantly, how on earth could this be such a big issue for me? He hasn’t cheated on me. He has only imposed a bit more of his past upon me.

I can honestly, cross my heart and hope to die, tell you I know nobody who’s as sweet, respectful and loving as Matt. And, if I would be unable to deal with his past, I’d lose the most special man I’ve ever met.

But I fear what’s coming. I fear going through all the flashes again. They had already been slowly appearing during the past few months. The flashes. I’d force Matt to keep talking to me until I’d fall asleep. I’d brutally kick him off of me when an image would float by when we were having sex. I’d been slowly shutting down my emotions during whatever he does when he feels me up. He doesn’t even know all this.

I fear for them to become so intense and everywhere and constantly that I’ll have to suffer that relational burn out again. I can’t be with a man, when I choke of fear for my own mind when he touches me. Even if he’s supposedly ‘the one’. Even if any rational thought possible tells me my emotions are wrong and pathetic. I can’t accept the thought that a relationship should be such a torture. I mean, it just couldn’t, could it?

Women, hell, every man too, any reader at all: I need your help with this. I need your thoughts on this matter. Would it be acceptable to break up with somebody, just because you’re incapable of dealing with their past? Because I just did.

Column published by Cecile on Monday, June 18th, 2007.

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