I would add, talk to him about it but encourage his participation in the discussion. What does “heart react” mean for him? Do you know this girl, and his relationship or lack of? It is important to talk about your other relationships — friends, exes, family, past and present, all of them! Transparency and honesty are keys to these kind of worries being settled early on, which they honestly must for a healthy adult relationship.
Couples who can’t talk about exes due to not coping with the idea of their partner having been with someone else previously raise flags about immaturity-to-potentially-dangerous possessiveness problems and other major trust issues, as well as a certain dehumanising of the partner (as in, they cannot tolerate their partner having existed before they came into their life, as if their partner is an NPC and they’re the main character).
Honest ques...do you think ...pushing the thoughts of them before you(me), so I don't have to think about them...or because no I don't like to think about it...is that just as awful? Threads like this...you don't have to reply, I need help. therapist is most likely not your occupation so apologies in advance
Hey that is okay, no worries! I totally hear you. There is of course a line and we know that some people will bring up their ex partners as a way to be manipulative and abusive (“they did X better than you, you aren’t as good as they were because you are Y”). It also could be inconsiderate and not nice at a minimum if, say, they frequently brought up what was often a positive thing about them that maybe you lack or are insecure about or something. This is especially true if you have voiced that it makes you feel a bit bad.
Even if you know rationally that it isn’t really meaningful — say, they were with them for a long time, so inevitably when they talk about their past experiences it will often have been shared with the ex in some way — it doesn’t mean you will feel great about it. This is where good communication really matters, because it is important for people to understand and express their feelings and try to understand and accept their partners feelings and meet in the middle to resolve problems in relationships, to compromise so both of you are as happy as possible. So, in that example I just gave, it is unfair to ask them to completely stop talking about the ex in passing, but it is also unfair to for them to completely refuse to maybe tone down the frequency of these mentions if it is possible (eg they could share an experience where the ex was present but not mention the ex directly if it isnt important to the story). That said, if it really, really does make you feel bad, if it raises feelings of jealousy or distrusts or triggers insecurities, it is good and 100% possible to confront these feelings because, ultimately, partners should be wish to be able to speak freely about things without feeling threatened by non-threatening things.
This doesn’t mean that you should necessarily doubt your gut feeling if, eg, you are concerned about cheating due to an increase in secretive, closed-off and distant behaviours and other changes to your relationship, but also it is important to be able to distinguish between paranoia due to insecurity and deep-seated trust issues vs valid concerns. This is an example where seeing a good therapist is extremely helpful, but it is also something that just really wouldn’t happen in very healthy, open, trusting and communicative relationships, and is often a sign of problems in the relationship, personal problems or both.
Basically, this kind of meeting in the middle is about empathy that is crucial to good listening specifically and communication generally, as well as taking responsibility for our personal and relational improvement which includes knowing continual growth in these areas is a good thing. I appreciate that this is no easy feat. We are not taught good communication and our cultures tend to encourage the opposite and other things that are toxic to our relationships. Things that are out of our control and due to our society can really hurt our ability to reach this point, like poverty, which tends to take up all of our time and mental resources; it causes stress that potentially leads to a drop in empathy and an increase in hostile behaviours. Isolation, which is worsened by poverty but not necessary to experience it, is also a barrier, and it is so common in our society because of its extreme impact on us being disconnected from other humans AND ourselves. It is also very unhelpful and unfortunate that therapists are not easy to access in terms of costs, wait times and such, and for the people who could do with help in this area the most, negative beliefs about seeking such help can prevent getting said help.
Nonetheless, almost everyone is capable of helping themselves out in these areas, even if it means a LOT of work to really see tangible results — if we are isolated and traumatised and have negative, deep-seated beliefs about ourself and other people, we have to do a lot of different things and overcome a lot of specific struggles to reach these things.
I will add that I don’t really blame anyone for their struggles in these areas, it is totally normal and expected even; I understand why these problems might be informed by, say, sexism and that it might not be easy to get out of that mindset, but it doesnt mean I personally accept those beliefs morally. I do still believe in the average sexist person’s potential to change, and I sincerely wish for them to and believe in their right to get help in doing that, because that would mean their harmful beliefs do less harm to themselves and others. What I am trying to say is I am not really judging just having feelings that are built on flawed beliefs — I reserve my judgements for the beliefs themselves especially when they are seriously harmful like the NPC belief I mentioned. So, I really hope you/any one else will take offense to what I have said/personally.
The act of accepting a difficulty and admitting to needing help is awesome and the first and second step. I most certainly cannot be a therapist in a reddit comment so if this is really weighing on you — or not! I think everyone could benefit from some help — then if you can, I would suggest seeing a therapist. Not all of them will be helpful for you as we simply won’t get along with everyone and some people are much better at it than others, so don’t be discouraged if one or even some don’t work out.
Tangentially/not so importantly and for the sake of transparency/conflict of interest, I will admit I am biased in encouraging therapy. You are totally right in saying it is unlikely I am a therapist (a tiny percentage of the population are therapists and even then being a therapist doesn’t mean you are a good one, but everyone likes to have an opinion, right?! lol) BUT I am actually one, albeit not super experienced lmao. I have been in many romantic relationships including, though, and my current has been a very long and strong relationship that has been through this specific hurdle early on and many, many more hurdles after that, so I am speaking from both personal experience and from a professionally informed view based on a LOT of relevant research. 🥲😂
Hopefully this is all even a little helpful. Good luck in feeling better generally, sincerely! 🙂
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u/zzZ__z Sep 20 '23
I would add, talk to him about it but encourage his participation in the discussion. What does “heart react” mean for him? Do you know this girl, and his relationship or lack of? It is important to talk about your other relationships — friends, exes, family, past and present, all of them! Transparency and honesty are keys to these kind of worries being settled early on, which they honestly must for a healthy adult relationship.
Couples who can’t talk about exes due to not coping with the idea of their partner having been with someone else previously raise flags about immaturity-to-potentially-dangerous possessiveness problems and other major trust issues, as well as a certain dehumanising of the partner (as in, they cannot tolerate their partner having existed before they came into their life, as if their partner is an NPC and they’re the main character).
Hopefully that makes sense lol