Dear Scott:

A couple of things: your thoughts are not totally devoid of practical usefulness. The past sexual behavior you described on the part of your girlfriend while she consumed alcohol and the fact that she still consumes alcohol and is not always in your presence, may have a practical, reality based validity. She behaved that way in the past, maybe she is still inclined. This is not an.. unfair way of thinking. Considering a person’s past behavior is wise, when in a relationship with that person.

I don’t remember if I suggested it before and if you did discuss this with her, asking her what would happen if she drank alcohol when you are not with her, and it so happens she finds herself alone with another man, similar circumstances to what you described happened already. A valid concern: did you ask?

It is also true that just because a person behaved a particular way in the past, does not mean they will behave that way again. How do you know which is the case? Ask, talk about it with the relevant person, her.

You wrote: “I often wonder why I am the way I am about certain things and where my anxiety comes from” – Looking at nature, males of many species are indeed concerned that only they will have access to a particular female, that it will be indeed their genes passed on to her offspring. I forgot in what species this happens, but the male literally attached himself to the female until she lays eggs, making sure it is his genes in those eggs. We are human animals. I do not underestimate the force of nature in us.

In addition to this point that I believe I bring up to you here for the first time (above), I must have brought other issues in previous threads. What did I post there in regard to the why of your obsession with your girlfriend’s sexual past- will you remind me?

anita

Dear Scott:

You wrote: “my parents being divorced and for some time I was very upset with my mom for being with my step dad and I would think that they weren’t supposed to have sexual relations or that she didn’t love me as much”-

You were angry at your mother for having sex with her new husband. You felt that it meant that she didn’t love you as much.

I am thinking that the anger you felt then is not a thing of the past. It gets reactivated in context of your girlfriend. You may very well be projecting your mother into her, and the same hurt and same anger gets activated.

What do you think?

anita

Dear Scott:

There is probably a combination of factors involved in this obsession. Your experience with your mother having sex with the step father while you were a child, reads promising to me as a strong factor.

If you would like to elaborate on that experience, what you felt, for how long, and why do you think you got over it, please do. Also, if you would like to elaborate on that “little bit of sexual abuse” with a step cousin, please do (not in graphic details if these details are not necessary).

anita

Dear Scott:

I am back following a little break of… sixteen hours.

A summary of what you wrote in your original post, I am paraphrasing your problem as presented here: you often think and visualize (as pictures and scenes) your girlfriend’s sexual past: who she had sex with and what was her sexual behavior with other men, and you compare the latter to her present sexual behavior with you. You think less of her for having that sexual past and you feel jealousy (an angry feeling). At times you see her as  “the one I love and care about and the one that loves me” and at other times, you see her as “a slut (or some other sexual being)”. You “feel like shaming her for the experiences she had that were so ‘promiscuous’”. You care about what your girlfriend wears, “trying to prevent this ‘slutty’ behavior or appearance”.

You try very hard to not think and feel these things but when you are tired, when she is moody or is drinking alcohol, this problem returns.

You wrote that as a child, following your parents’ divorce and your mother getting together with another man, you were “very upset with my mom for being with my step dad and I would think that they weren’t supposed to have sexual relations or that she didn’t love me as much”. Around puberty you asked your mother if she had sex with her new husband, your step father. She said yes. That set you “into this spiral of sadness and sickness”. You “then wanted to have control over her and would always have her promise me she wouldn’t do anything with my step dad”.

You wrote about a sexual encounter with a step cousin that you had. You wrote: “this did not feel wrong at the time”. Later on, in counseling, you examined “what was right and wrong and how I was innocent and that I wasn’t gay”. You had a motivation at one point to be with a woman so to prove to yourself that you weren’t gay.

And now, my input:

1. Regarding the sexual experience with the step cousin: I believe that in itself it didn’t bring about the problem discussed in this thread (and in previous threads). At the time it didn’t feel wrong because, in itself, it wasn’t wrong, as I understand it: there was no violence involved, no significant age difference, no fear involved, no trust betrayed (correct?) and therefore no innocence shattered. It is only later that this experience was reprocessed in the context of other experiences and the teachings and attitudes of society. It is not a positive experience in your life only because of what it meant later: fear of societal disapproval, fear of being gay. (To me such an experience does not at all indicate sexual orientation. What it indicates to me is sexual curiosity and sensations, sensations that can be stimulated by anyone and anything, male, female or an object).

2.  Regarding your experience with the thoughts of your mother having sex with your step father- this is It, as far as I can see. The problem you have with your girlfriend is the same problem you had with your mother, continued. You thought you forgot or got over the problem with your mother, but you didn’t. It got reactivated as it got projected into your current relationship.

That “spiral of sadness and sickness” that came about then, is the same spiral you are experiencing now, plus, added to it the details relevant now. The reason you asked your mother to promise you that “she wouldn’t do anything with your step dad” is because the thoughts and images of them doing those things caused you much distress, just like the thoughts of your girlfriends doing those things is causing you much distress now. And just like you “wanted to have control over her (your mother)”, you also want to have control over your girlfriend, not only have control over what she wears but over her past.

It is as if you think that if you think enough of her sexual past, you will be able to change it.

Frued came up with the concept of Oedipus Complex: the son/ father (in your case it would be step father) competition for possession of the mother. Wikipedia states on the subject of Oedipus Complex: “when children become aware of their bodies, the bodies of other children, and the bodies of their parents, they gratify physical curiosity by undressing and exploring themselves, each other…The boy directs his libido (sexual desire) upon his mother, and directs jealousy and emotional rivalry against his father—because it is he who sleeps with his mother”

From my experience, for a child, be it a boy or a girl, the mother, the primary caretaker, is Everything, The Most Important person in the world. There is nothing a child wants more than to be loved by his mother. Nothing sexual, I believe (unlike Freud). When a child doesn’t get enough of the mother, enough attention, approval, time, the child craves more. To this craving, add the complexity of a child’s sexual development, experience, societal input… and you get to where you are, experiencing this problem that this thread is about.

Please re-read this post attentively and reply after some calm consideration.

anita

Dear Scott:

Your understanding, as expressed in your first two paragraphs (ending with “in fear that she would stop loving me or would lead to more trouble.”- reads very accurate to me, amazingly accurate, clear thinking and evaluation on your part.

In your third paragraph you wrote that “in competition with my step father when he first came around”- to complete your accuracy, I state:  you were in competition with him since he first came around to this very day.

In your fourth paragraph, you bring about the issue of Control. You wrote that you are “seeking to gain control”. To gain is to get something you don’t have. A definition of control: “to direct the behavior of a person… to cause a person to do what you want”- I am thinking, in the situation with your mother, what you didn’t have is adequate attention from her. What happened next is you focused on the step father as the reason for the lack of attention you suffered from. He, you figured, was getting the attention that you lacked. He was the reason. And the context in which he was getting that attention was sex.

You wrote: “I’m prioritizing sex over intimacy”- the problem with your mother, I am thinking, was inadequate intimacy, attention. The connection in your brain was made at the time between this lack to sex.

So you tried to control the situation, at the time, by having your mother promise you that she will not have sex with him… change her behavior, that is. (And cause your girlfriend to change her behavior, as in clothes she wears). You are also trying to control the situation by being more sexually desirable (“being fit or attractive or making lots of money”).

This “pressure to impress or strive for something and I don’t know why”- I think you are striving for attention, emotional intimacy, to be loved and that you lacked it as a child.

This is all I have for now. Let me know what you think, maybe later, take your time, whenever you feel like it. Regarding solving this issue- we can discuss it after your response to this very post and after some more time, if required.

anita

Dear Scott:

The key to your current obsession with your girlfriend’s sexual past: “I ended up asking my mom if she had sex with my step dad and when she told me she had, it set me into this spiral of sadness and sickness”- that “sickness” is what gets reactivated.

The child that you were, who “would kick my walls at night”- the walls of your room, I figure, maybe to stop your mother and step father in the next room from having sex (?)-

First you tried to resolve your distress, that “sickness” by trying to stop them from having sex, kicking the walks, asking your mother to not have sex. Those efforts failed and your mother’s expressed disapproval of your efforts caused more fear, fear of losing more love from her.

Because your efforts to change the real situation itself failed, and because neither your mother, nor any other adult understood your distress and tried to help you, because you were alone with this distress, you (automatically, not using words or pre-thinking) figured something like this: I cannot change the situation, so I have to change my experience of the situation. Like you wrote, you repressed the distress best you could.

What was repressed was not eliminated. It comes back to the surface in a new context, your girlfriend, and previous girlfriend, friends, people close to you. For that “consciously securely attached/bonded to my mother and step father” you pay the price of distress in any other close relationship.

Quality psychotherapy is the only thing I see as a place to resolve this. The distress has to be returned to its original place- where it started and where it belongs, and rest there. That way, the distress will stop rising from its temporary place where it is now, bubbling under the surface and then flaring up when it gets something to attach itself to.

anita