We get a lot of advice questions coming in at EMandLO.com, but sadly, we just can’t answer them all. Which is why, once a week, we turn to you to decide how best to advise a reader. Make your call by leaving your advice in the comments section below:
Dear Em & Lo,
I have been with my boyfriend for 6 months now. We have a very open relationship and we tell each other everything. He recently just bought a new condo and I was telling him I thought it would be fun to have sex in all the rooms (sofa, dining room table, kitchen, etc.)
I then, unfortunately, asked if he’s already had sex on his dining room table (because he’s had it a while). Turns out he’s had sex with all of his ex-girlfriends on it! I know that’s what I get for asking, but now I’m sort of disgusted. I frequently cook special dinners for him, or we have stay-at-home dates, and we’ve been eating right where’s he’s had sex with his exes!
Obviously it would be completely out of line to even suggest he get a new table, but I don’t want to go anywhere near it. He has all these memories of having sex with girls right where we’re supposed to be having a special date. Am I being too sensitive, and how do I get over this?
— Spoiled Appetite
What should S.A. do?
Yes, you are being too sensitive. That’s in the past.Why don’t the two of you have sex on the table? Then you can think about that when you see the table.
Wipe the table down. With bleach. Then have sex with him on it and you have effectively claimed your territory.
reclaim the table.. ;0) Have hot kinky sex on it, if you feel a little resentful or angry about it still why not channel that and tie him down on it and take charge and blow both your minds :0) or if that’s not your kink do whatever helps create a good enough memory to expunge any bad thoughts.. guarrenteed after that neither or you will see his exe’s when you look at it ;0)
Don’t ask questions that you don’t want answered. You asked, he answered honestly. As long as he wipes it down thoroughly between partners, I don’t see what the problem is.
If you don’t want to hear details about his past sexual adventures in the future, you could warn him not to volunteer these details, but you have only yourself to blame since you asked in the first place.
How do you get over it? Probably the same way he looks at the table without immediately thinking of sex: think of all the other things that table has done. I expect that has spent less than 1% of its existence being a piece of sex furniture. It has hosted a number of special meals. It has held ordinary meals. It has sat there unoccupied. It has been cleaned off. Surely you’re able to look at all of his body parts without thinking of all the other people who have touched him, right? It should be even easier with the table.
When I was 18 years old I walked into a room where my mother and my 16 year old sister were in having “a talk.”
Without absolutely no warning, my mother asked me if I was having sex with my girlfriend. Her intent was to hold me up as an example to my sister. I was someone she respected and surely by example alone my continued abstinence would keep my sister on the straight and narrow path.
My sister knew what I was up to with my girlfriend.
In an instant I was forced to choose between maintaining my sisters respect or my mother’s appearances.
My response “Yeah, we’re sleeping together but we’re being careful.”
I then said to my mother “You might want to think about why you’re asking a question and whether or not you really want to know the answer to that question before you ask it.”
I think the same applies here.
In addition to the above comments, which have very good suggestions/thoughts, I have another idea to help you with your table issues. You’re right in that you can’t expect him to get rid of everything he has ever had sex on. You’d probably end up requiring to sell his house and move clear to another city, since he kissed that one ex-girlfriend in the park down the street, and had a first date in his favorite restaurant.
But if you feel like you just cannot get over his sex table, and won’t demand he get a new one, why can’t you just change it up a little bit? Of course, get his permission first, but maybe it could use a new coat of paint, or a new centerpiece, or some reupholstered chairs. If you see a future for the two of you, this could be a good way to turn HIS table into YOUR table, to create something together. Plus it will dramatically change the look of the table, so instead of first thinking “That’s the table where he had sex with those other girls,” your first thoughts will be of the weekend when you sanded it down and painted it together. Like I said, you of course need his permission to do this first, and hopefully his cooperation so you can make it a fun, coupley project, but if he is down with it, it could really be a good way for you to move past your table issue and strengthen your relationship at the same time.
So he has had sex on this table with another woman – and this means he’s got memories with her regarding that table.
But he’s got memories with you there, too. Memories of many nice evenings in which you cooked him wonderful meals, ate with him on that table and surely had many an intense conversation which may have ended in bed.
He may have a past with other women, but he has chosen you. YOU.
Just take the luck you have and don’t think/doubt it into pieces.
Agree 100 percent with Johnny-too much sharing is unsexy and unrealistic.
LW please GROW UP!
I agree with everything Dannie said except the “tell him how you feel, work toward a solution” part.
There’s such a thing as over-communication, and this is one example. Turns out you didn’t really want to know EVERYTHING about your man, did you?
No good comes of “telling each other everything.” That’s’ a recipe for past-sex-life-resentment (unless, like me, you’e a perv who gets off on hearing these things; most people, like you, original poster, aren’t that way). Some things are best kept to oneself. Whatever happened to a little mystery, anyway?
“Communication” and “sharing” and “openness” have become knee-jerk prescriptions for all relationship complicatons. Call me an old-school, but I think some things are best left unsaid. No more communication about this. You asked a question you didn’t want the answer to – that’s your bad. Now suffer in silence. You’ll get over it. Don’t make him feel guilty about his table.
Especially since you seem to realize that this is a touch irrational, and as Dannie said, you could apply the same reasoning to anything, including his bed or your bed or your bodies.
Do you shrink away from him his bed? What about the sofa? What about the coffee table? I guarantee you, if you suggested screwing on all these surfaces, so have past partners–not to mention his bed, where he’s almost certainly slept with other women. What about his body, the active agent in all this sleeping around? And what if we turn this around? What if being around your bed, or table, or couch made him extremely uncomfortable because you’ve slept with other men there? How would you feel? What would you suggest to him? While I think that no person should ever be forced to be uncomfortable or unhappy in a relationship, I do think awkwardness is just a fact of life, and especially relationships. Try to approach it from his angle. Remember that tables can be cleaned and sanitized. Know that you’re the one he’s with, now. Try to approach this the same way you approach the fact that his body, and not a table, has slept with other women, because I think that’s what all this comes down to. You need to come to terms with his past relationships, and to realize that you are his present and possibly future, and that’s what matters. Don’t have any expectations of him that you wouldn’t want to have placed on you, and if things get totally uncomfortable, just talk to him the same way you’d talk to him about his sexual history. Let him know how you feel. Work toward a solution. If a table ruins your relationship, you have to wonder how a strong a relationship you had in the first place–and from what you’re saying, your relationship is pretty good!