NewBride Posted July 15, 2003 Share Posted July 15, 2003 I am a new bride (2nd marriage) and moving in with my new husband. He has been mostly at my house for a year, but I have not lived in his house. Here's the problem. My hubby is a collector. He keeps everything. And when we first met, I saw that he collected beautiful "nothing books" that people use for journaling etc. Once, we were in his library and I took one from the shelf of other books and opened it to look at it and saw instead of blank pages, a page from his journal of some years ago. It was a sexually explicit encounter with a woman I hadn't known about until then. I shut the book and didn't say anything since he was right at his desk, but I was sick to my stomach. I couldn't believe he would have that out and I am wondering how much more of this there is in his study. He knows what happened (I told him later) but I don't think he knows how much it hurts to remember those literary images. I am having a tough time with our first home being ours when I am scared that the study we will share might hold some other secrets that will hurt. He seems oblivious to this and I don't want to seem pushy. He has every old photo I think that he's ever taken and I haven't said anything since he keeps everything in boxes, but the journals really bother me since I know they are there and yet I'm terrified to look again to see how many, what kind. I don't want to know and I want them out of our common area since we will share the study. How do I ask nicely without sounding like I'm nagging? New Bride Link to post Share on other sites
quankanne Posted July 15, 2003 Share Posted July 15, 2003 does he already have the books in your shared study, or are you worried that he'll put them in there? either way, point out to him that because he's got some explicit writing in them, you don't feel comfortable with the idea of him leaving them someplace that a visitor can just pluck the book and read of his exploits. Offer a compromise -- if he wants to keep them, maybe there's someplace else to store them where only he has access to them, like in a closet or in the attic. Better yet, offer to burn them for him as a symbol of your new life together! ( okay, so that's what i did when I married my guy, and he had pictures of his live-in girlfriend .... yes, I tend to be jealous when it comes to things like that. he didn't say anything, though ) Link to post Share on other sites
EnigmaXOXO Posted July 15, 2003 Share Posted July 15, 2003 Have to second the great compromise offered by quakanne! Made the same deal with my partner..."You can keep your old photos and love letters, just so long as I don't have to share the same living space with the memories of your ex-lovers." A box in the garage, attic, or safe deposit box. Why is it we females are so bothered by those things??? Anyway, have stopped trying to analyze my rationality. Just figure, if they want to display "trophies," then let them hang a moose head over the fireplace! Better yet...how 'bout that big-boobed blond with an apple in stuffed in her mouth!! Link to post Share on other sites
jalexy Posted July 15, 2003 Share Posted July 15, 2003 as much as i hate to say it and i dont like it, the past is the past, to a certain extent. he is with you and he has been faithful, correct? hes not cheated in the past, no? well than you should be ok. i just think you need to tell him what you feel, maybe you can get him to compromise and move all that stuff to a storage place instead of keeping it in your home. youve had sexual experiences in the past, yes? well then you both are equal if you have. Link to post Share on other sites
Just A Girl2 Posted July 15, 2003 Share Posted July 15, 2003 Hi there, How you're feeling is completely understandable. While it's true that the past is the past, your husband owes it to you to be much more sensitive to your feelings...of course, you have to ensure he knows just how bothersome these journals are to you. Yes, we all have a past, but generally people don't keep graphic logs of their past sexual encounters, on the shelves in their office/study, for pete's sake! I lived with a guy once who was a bit on the odd side (for various reasons, it turns out).....he kept an old journal from a past relationship....sort of like a day planner. Didn't keep it hidden, it was in his top desk drawer (he worked from our home and I often did secretarial type stuff for him when he was really busy).....I looked through it, whatever. He'd had a year long relationship with some young chick a couple years prior to me...and he'd make note of all the things they did (dinner, movie, etc)...including whether they had sex, whether he got a blowjob, etc. I was pretty creeped out. Not sure why a grown man would keep a log of when he got a blowjob from his g/f LOL He also kept boxes of pictures (some very vulgar) from his exes.....not even very well hidden, just on the floor in his clothes closet....and he kept bags of pictures from when he was with his ex wife .....from the time they were dating in high school to their wedding to the years they were together. There must have been hundreds of pictures. He just left the bags sitting out amongst his stuff that was in the basement...didn't even put the bags into a box or anything. Just sit down with your new hubby and explain to him that you realize we all have a past, and a history.....but you accidentally encountered this journal and fear there are more, and now that you know about it, it really bothers you........you don't feel it's right to be starting out a new marriage with this in the home you share. Hopefully he's man enough, and sensitive enough to see where you're coming from. Keep us posted. Link to post Share on other sites
HokeyReligions Posted July 15, 2003 Share Posted July 15, 2003 I kinda can understand how you might feel. When I helped my husband clean out his apartment and move in with me (we moved in together a few months before the wedding) I came across some books and photographs of other women, and some, uh, well, items of a sexual nature (see after all these years I'm still uncomfortable) I knew he wasn't a virgin and in fact he told me about all his past girlfriends and some of his sexual encounters. I tried to play it cool (I was so young!) but they still bothered me because I wanted everything we shared to be a first for both of us. Anyway, about this stuff I told him that it made me uncomfortable and I jokinly said I guess I had a small jealous bone somewhere in body after all. I asked him if he could part with any of it, and some of it he did, but other things he wanted to keep not so much because he was reminded of the women, but because it was a link to his youthful creativity. But he said if it bothered me, he would pack it up somewhere. Eventually over the years, as we moved around, those things got thrown out. In the case of his journals it may be that he's saving them because it was something he wrote and it is his writing that he wants to keep. All I can suggest is to be as light-hearted as possible about it and be honest and ask him if he would consider putting those things someplace else - maybe boxed away. Because he had them right there where he knew you could see them tells me that he's honest and trusts in your love for each other, otherwise he would be hiding this stuff and keeping secrets. Or, he could just be really insensitive to your feelings, because he doesn't feel anything for those women. Kind of like telling someone else to put a sweater on because you're cold! Link to post Share on other sites
Arcane Posted July 16, 2003 Share Posted July 16, 2003 How is it even remotely conceivable that you can fault someone or worry because of an old journal??? People keep jurnals all the time and if it's from a time before he was with you, then you're just being absolutely ridiculous. Let the man keep memories of his past, it's not like he didn't have a life before you, and maybe sometimes he just wants to reminisce. Nothing wrong with that. Stop being so nosy. Link to post Share on other sites
Just A Girl2 Posted July 16, 2003 Share Posted July 16, 2003 Arcane, just because you can't understand where "new bride" is coming from, that's really NO reason to insult her by calling her absolutely ridiculous and being nosy. Geez, chill out already. Link to post Share on other sites
Arcane Posted July 16, 2003 Share Posted July 16, 2003 I didn't mean it to be an insult, but look at it this way a) she IS being nosy. b) it's a pretty stupid(and by stupid I mean silly/ridiculous, again, not an insult) thing to get mad/insecure over. Link to post Share on other sites
wideawake Posted July 16, 2003 Share Posted July 16, 2003 I don't think she's being stupid or nosy, that was kind of a rude commment by the way. My girlfriend and I recently bought a home together and moved in. I have been married before, and she hasn't. Some of the pictures that I still had of my ex and I (on vaca, etc..., nothing sexual) did upset my girlfriend. She also had some photos of her and her ex boyfriends (same kind of thing except she had some sex pics as well...), and those upset me as well. Well, we burned all of the sex pics, and we boxed up all of the other pics and put them far away in a corner of the basement. Some of the items that I had bought with my ex and we also boxed up or threw out. We both talked about this and agreeded that we since we both were upset by some of those pictures and items, this was the best solution. Hey, we're building a new life together and we don't need these old trinkets and trash hanging around. I think the last act of really letting someone go is being able to toss their pictures, and other stuff out. It's cool if you want to keep some stuff, and your partner is ok with that, but why would you want to hang onto things that are going to hurt the person that you're now in love with? Is it really that important for me to keep some old seed packets that my ex and I had framed and hung in our kitchen? Probably not, and those were some of the items that went in the trash. I think you need to sit down with your new husband and explain to him how much those sexually explicit journals bother you. Hey, they would bother me as well. A comprimise might be reached where he does keep them, but in boxes put far, far away. Though personally I think he should toss the nasty crackers. I don't think they should be in the library, it's YOUR home now, and you both have to be comfortable in the new home. This needs to be a safe place for both of you to build your new life and grow together. I think they need to go. Take care, Link to post Share on other sites
wideawake Posted July 16, 2003 Share Posted July 16, 2003 Originally posted by EnigmaXOXO Why is it we females are so bothered by those things??? Anyway, have stopped trying to analyze my rationality. Just figure, if they want to display "trophies," then let them hang a moose head over the fireplace! It works both way, some of my girls old pics of old boyfriends bothered me as well. Some of my stuff bothered her. We either threw the crap out or boxed it up and put it far away. Now if only she would let me hang my Brown Trout over the fireplace....ah.....no such luck. Link to post Share on other sites
quankanne Posted July 16, 2003 Share Posted July 16, 2003 [color=green]Now if only she would let me hang my Brown Trout over the fireplace....ah.....no such luck.[/color] HA HA HA .... you're too funny! though I could probably stomach tacky decorations much more easily than photos or journals of my husband's past conquests. arcane, I don't think the new bride is being nosy if she's worried about pulling stuff off the shelves of her own home and finding **** that doesn't need to be there! maybe it makes her seem stupid or insecure, but that also makes a case of her husband not being sensitive to HER likes and dislikes, and he's planning to make a life with her! Hence the compromise saying "you can keep these, but please put them up so that only you have access to them." He gets to hang on to these "important" papers and she doesn't have to have them staring her in the face. though I think that if she talks to him about it, he probably won't have a problem of moving them if it bothers her that much .... Link to post Share on other sites
NewBride Posted July 16, 2003 Share Posted July 16, 2003 Thank you all so very much for your many replies! I talked with my hubby today as we were setting up the new library and I told him how I was feeling. He said that he had not planned to bring the journals to the new house except in boxes and in fact had been trying to figure out how to get rid of them. "It has become a burden to lug all this around", he said. He says that he wrote about the past because it seemed like he needed to fill in the blank places in those relationships by writing it in, and curiously, after 20 years of journal writing, he hasn't written about us. "I'm too busy for the first time really living life to write about it." To those who thought I was nosy: I don't look anywhere I'm not supposed to, ever. My husband and I were in a room at the same time. I could have looked into his journals a thousand times since, but I haven't because they're his things. And he knows that I did see the one journal and he knows under what circumstances. Anyway, thank you all so much. I felt fortified by your posts to bring it up and now I feel almost silly that I didn't do it sooner because he was feeling the same confusion over the whole thing. Thanks!!! Link to post Share on other sites
quankanne Posted July 16, 2003 Share Posted July 16, 2003 hey, I'm glad that you've got that resolved, i know you must be feeling a lot better about the situation! Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts