Bah. I am NOT the jealous type. I'm not I'm not.

[Mouse]

Something has been bugging me at the back of my mind for about a week now and I wasn't sure what it was. I wondered if it was something that I'd eaten. I wondered if I were having a bad hair day. I wasn't.

Alright. I am seriously not the kind of person that gets jealous of any of his boyfriend's past lovers. Seriously. I don't know if I'm trying to convince myself or you guys so just bear with me here.

My boyfriend and I are the kind of casual lovers that will sit on a bench in the mall and snicker sinisterly and point out any hot guys we see to each other. We watch. Uh. Things together (you didn't need to know that, but now you do). We talk about any crushes we have and plot to seduce them (we haven't yet, no worries). But generally we are very open to our attraction to other people but still monogamous. We're laid back. It's very, very cool.

Now, also in a positive light, my boyfriend is friends with almost all of his exes. I'm proud of him. I think that is spectacular. Now, most (no, I take it back ALL) of his serious ex lovers are female. When we first started dating I thought he was going to squeal ("It's about TIME I started acting on my bisexuality!" He shrieked at me when I asked him out.). I have reason to believe that he is completely and utterly gay. Actually, I'm sure he is. I have my reasons. I know his ex girlfriends very well as they are friends of mine, too, now and they all admit that he was less than enthusiastic about certain aspects of their relationship. That's cool. He's very enthusiastic about me. The boy is gay. No big deal.

But, anyway, we inevitably spend a lot of time around his ex girlfriends and they are all absolutely sweeter than hell to me. They think I am wonderful for him and that we have an excellent relationship (we've been dating HALF A YEAR already. I can't believe it.)

Everything is good, except.

Well, the first time, as I try to get into as little detail about this as possible, he commented on how something we were doing was similar to something he had done in the past with one of his girlfriends ("Different parts, but same thing." He mused.). That was kind of creepy. But I shrugged it off because part of his charm to me is the way he speaks the first thing that comes into his head without thinking about it coming out of ihs mouth. It's his honesty. I respect it.

And then I awoke one morning next to him, went to retrieve my contact cases which was on a shelf near his bed, dropped it into a box next to his bed and went to fish it out only to accidentally retrieve a box of condoms. These things are not involved in our relationship. He laughed it off and mentioned something about one of his ex girlfriends. I noted that it was an economy size box and decided not to pursue the matter any further.

Now, one of his ex girlfriends is dating one of our friends - a nice boy. I like him. We were all sitting around one night and she enthusiastically brings up some aspect of her and my boyfriend's past relationship and they start discussing it earnestly. Her boyfriend and I stare at each other. Slightly uncomfortable. He then later on goes on to tell me EVERYTHING about her and their relationship together as if I really wanted to know. I noticed she had been flirting with him very obviously and it bothered me a little bit that he didn't even seem to care or notice. Whatever.

So, I'm helping him clean his house up a bit the other day and I'm cleaning off his bookshelves and under his bookshelf I come across this... this... multiple inches thick monster of a... a... well, you can guess. I shrieked a little bit and pretended I hadn't found it but he had already noticed. He doesn't seem phased. "My ex girlfriend Ashley lik-." WHOA. WHOA. I told him I didn't want to know but asked him why he still HAD it. He shrugged.

I love the boy. I really do. He means the world to me and you couldn't pay me to break up with him. However, I am creeped out and okay - slightly jealous. His ex girlfriends have this looming, overbearing prescence in his life and while I definitely do not want to be the possessive type I do kind of want to know that he's left them behind and all. I like knowing that my boyfriend is my boyfriend, you see. Plus - it's creepy. Creepy creepy. I do not wish to have visuals of girls in the manner he describes.

I don't want to make him think he has to hide things from me, though. Gentle way to handle this, please. There are a number of people I was planning on discussing with this privately but I decided, screw it, this calls for a post.

[Longislander]

When I met my first BF ( lasted 7 yrs) I had only been actively gay for about a year. That's when I found out that most gay men do remain friends with their ex's. It took many months to get past the jealousy I felt regarding one of his ex's in particular, once I was convinced that there was nothing sexual going on.

If your BF has told you that he isn't doing anything with any of his ex's, believe him, and let it go. You have enough open communication with him for you to express your feelings about this to him honestly, without accusations.

Good luck, and congrats on the 6 months!

[poet]

It doesn't ever get easier, as you age, that is.  You want to, you need to, trust someone, the person you are dating, that he is telling you everything, that if he says something, you can believe him, period.  But then, since we aren't around our boyfriends 24/7, things pop up which could be seen one way and could be seen another way.  So on the one hand, you want to have cameras up monitoring the off-hours.  On the other hand, you want to go with the flow and not worry yourself sick.  The nice thing is that the more things bother you, the more you feel pangs, the more you know he means to you.  Win

[bravebuddharich]

It's definitely jealousy - if the 2 of you are truly boyfriends, as you say, then you really need to bring this out in the open, otherwise it will fester & grow. If he is bisexual, which i strongly suspect, then it will come up for both of you. I have found it best not to tell my former boyfriends of my crushes and infatuations on others (i'm the type that never ever cheats, but it doesn't matter - it's best not to know. The only exception would be sports figures, actors, not people in our own lives - albeit I did have a relationship with a somewhat famous actor - one of my exes confessed to a big crush on him, and I did have to admit to my previous relationship with him. He's on a television series these days, but is best known for theatre, and a few good movies, too).

Sorry about the digression! Good luck to you - I hope you are able to maturely talk this all out with your guy.

Metta,
Rich