My musings for this morning.

What is one of the worst pieces of advice you think you’ve ever gotten?

Mine was; “Don’t talk about your ex with someone new”.

Here’s why I think it’s really bad advice. For some reason people are afraid to talk about their past. They feel like it’ll bring up feelings of jealousy or insecurity to their new partner. And maybe. Maybe for some people, mainly the wrong people. Or perhaps, my favorite, is they think you’ll be comparing your ex to your current. Gasp! (dripping sarcasm). Perhaps I guess if the person is not healed. I hate the term “over them” by the way.
Everyone has a past. And that past has been a huge part of building and shaping who you are. And that is something no one should ever be ashamed of. No matter what that past was, or the people in it. Look, we’re not 14. Believe me no one should be naive enough at this point to think you haven’t had other, SIGNIFICANT relationships in your life. And to attempt to hide that so as not to offend someone new in your life is just plain silly.
If you must be careful about talking about your ex, you’re just with the wrong person. Jealousy at this stage of the game is just nonsense. How on earth, is someone supposed to understand that perhaps you are a certain way because of something in your past, if you’re never “allowed” to tell them because some stupid dating rule. In my opinion it would be similar to “My Dad was a drug addict, so I have a fear of this, this and this…. And that is why this triggers me to be scared, or sad, or angry…” That’s pretty good information for your new partner to have is it not? Clears up a lot of confusion when you act a certain way. They can then be sympathetic to that need, speak to it, earn trust over it, and most importantly UNDERSTAND it. And I’m not talking about just the negative either.
You were in love once? That is fucking beautiful, tell me about her. I want to know. What happened? Did she break your heart? Was it mutual? Why was she so wonderful? Clearly you loved her so some part of her took care of your heart. That’s amazing and rare. Come across a picture of her, wow she was beautiful. I’m so glad she was a part of your story. Because guess what, it’s part of what made you who you are.
One gal you trusted, and she took all your money, so money is a trigger for you, cool, now I know. She cheated on you, so trust is an issue? Here have my password, I’m not her and I have no problem showing you that, and putting your heart at ease. It takes nothing away from me, but what it does do is allow me to see YOU better and allows you to see ME better. Is this making sense?
We’ve all grown because of someone amazing. We’ve all been damaged by someone who did us wrong. We’ve all been shaped by someone or something in our past. And it’s ok to talk about it. What is not ok, is pretending like the last 20 some years of your life didn’t happen. Because if you do that, who you are right now makes absolutely no sense to someone just stepping in.