How do you deal with your partner's exs?

[SilverStrike]

What the title says. If you're in a relationship, and you're not the first one they've hooked up with, how do you deal with the knowledge that, to put it bluntly, someone else has been with your girl/guy? Potentially intimately, love, etc. That they loved someone before you, or screwed someone before you. Even if they're safely in the past, it could be an uncomfortable truth.
Or you could simply be completely cool with it and dealing is not required, but, y'know. Some can't.

Personally, I try not to think of my girl's exs with her. Made slightly harder due to the fact I've seen them around, one of them is even on the same floor as me at college. Neither of them treated her particularly well, either. Am I alone in being jealous and possessive thinking about it? Nobody is perfect, but how do others cope with thoughts like that? Especially if bad things occurred.

Because it's gotta come up in conversation occasionally, hasn't it. I like the comforting suggestion as said by Marten on Questionable Content about the hope that all the ex's died due to being involved in horrible skiing accidents and then snowed under by avalanches before being hunted down by polar bears that love to eat bad ex boyfriends.

So, members of the Escapist, how do you handle the knowledge you're not the first one to be with them?

 

[Nwabudike Morgan]

They'll love someone else and fuck someone else after me, too. Who gives a shit.

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

As long as they're not around, I'm totally fine. If she insists on keeping them around, however, she's out on her ass. Sorry, but I don't play that "still friends" game, because there's nothing an ex loves more than to undermine their former lover's new relationship.

 

[Sneaky-Pie]

Well, for me, it depends on how their previous relationship ended.

If it ended poorly, just know that you're the better man because she's now with you.

 

[Girl With One Eye]

I try to block it out of my head, thinking about it would just drive me insane.

 

[Serenegoose]

There's one I don't like, and one I like just fine. It's got nothing to do with their status as 'ex's'.

But, given that I'm polyamorous, and so are my partners, the whole 'you've slept with other people?' thing really, really isn't an issue.

 

[bor3ds0ul]

Be Scott Pilgrim and defeat all of them

 

[Xodyac]

She once had seven.
I killed them all ruthlessly.
She is now all mine.

 

[comet5002]

I have epic duels with them until eventually I pound them into the dirt and they explode into a mass of coins and I get 5000 points. Obviously.

 

[Flac00]

By not randomly challenging them to a fight just to get with her. (ala Pilgrim)

Ok, in reality. I just blow them off. If they really have a problem with me then they can say it to my face. Being 6 feet, 185, and on the football team makes me less likely to get into problems with them. But the best thing really to do is to just avoid them, emotions can get sketchy and you never want to get caught in a "clique war" or whatever they call it.

 

[Flac00]

Because it's gotta come up in conversation occasionally, hasn't it. I like the comforting suggestion as said by Marten on Questionable Content about the hope that all the ex's died due to being involved in horrible skiing accidents and then snowed under by avalanches before being hunted down by polar bears that love to eat bad ex boyfriends.

or a skiing "accident". Bwa ha ha ha ha. Remember kids, its not murder if you don't get caught.

 

[Flac00]

She once had seven.
I killed them all ruthlessly.
She is now all mine.

Is that haiku?

 

[poet_lawreate]

We've been together a year and I still don't know anything about any of my boyfriend's exes apart from the latest one, whom I knew separately. Sometimes I wonder about that big part of his life, what went on, how it made him feel, but I sort of like it this way. Don't have any names or faces to agonise over and there aren't any girls lingering in the sidelines.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I don't fucking care as long as they didn't have aids or something. Actually I met one of my friends that way. We got along great because the girl was attracted to the kind of personality we both had haha.

 

[Ophiuchus]

Eh, I'd just get on with it. As long as she's not still sleeping with them, it's not my problem.

My last girlfriend was still good friends with the guy she dated before me - they were part of the same circle of friends before they got together and their relationship didn't end horribly, so there wasn't really much reason not to continue that way after they finished. He and I became... well, not 'friends' exactly, but he was a decent guy, we got on just fine.

 

[Xodyac]

She once had seven.
I killed them all ruthlessly.
She is now all mine.

Is that haiku?

Why yes, yes it is. Thank you for noticing. I spent, like, 5 minutes trying to make that all fit. I wanted to put "burst into coins", but... You know, limitations and such.

 

[Outright Villainy]

Well the issue hasn't come up, but I hope deal with it with some maturity.
I've a sneaking suspicion I'm actually pretty jealous though, but with no reason to be crazy yet. The world's going to screw me pretty soon I'd imagine...

 

[child of lileth]

...I just never think about it really. I've been with people before too. It's not like they haven't done anything either. The point is that I'm with them now, and they're with me, so why concern myself with people I don't even know?

 

[everfreeDragon]

Obviously I'd have to battle them or they'd just keep trying to kill me or convince me to join their league.

In all seriousness I'd have no problem with her still being friends with them if my girlfriend had any, I'd just live and let live.