QUESTION: When I met my other half, he was disapproving of women who “sleep around”, so I told him I’d only had a couple of sexual partners.
Which is almost true - apart from my crazy, bed-hopping student days in the Eighties. Now we’re getting married, and I’m worried old friends will allude to my past on the day. What should I do?
ANSWER: The whole point of a mid-life marriage should be that the participants are relaxed and experienced enough to be honest. Who doesn’t have some baggage by the time they’re 50? It’s troubling to hear you felt compelled to hide your history.
No one wants to start married life on a conditional basis. What you’re saying here is: my fiance loves me - providing I am not too sexually experienced. What seems like a small fib is, in fact, placing a lot of pressure on you.
Will you sit quietly for the rest of your life any time your spouse criticises another woman for having several sexual partners?
You may be underestimating your future husband’s capacity to cope with the truth. Most of us have unrealistic ideas of what we want until we meet someone who defies them all. Will your doting man really love you less if he learns you had a few wild moments long before you met?
While I advocate telling the truth, I don’t mean a warts-and-all sexual exposé - just a light confession telling him you went through an exploratory phase.
Hearing the truth from you is preferable to a snatch of banter from your pals. And it releases you from that fearful “what if” scenario on your wedding day.
If your partner is upset by your confession, deliver some home truths: while men feel compelled to appearI more experienced, women are frequently coerced into seeming more innocent.
Above all, your man is lucky to be marrying a one-man woman - that’s who you are today, and that should be all that counts.
Daily Mail