Finding good in the past.

That article is slightly interesting and relevant to the topic of relationships in general, but I don't see how it is relevant to ILIASM deals in particular. Is it particularly relevant to your situation, GC?

It's normal in most societies for people to have several girlfriends or boyfriends before they get married. Why should we be jealous or care about those previous relationships?

I've never tried to pry information out of my partners about their previous partners, but I've generally been curious and willing to listen when the information was volunteered, because it tells me something about my partners. On the other hand, my wife told me about her previous boyfriends in great detail, several times over the course of our marriage. After the first time, it became a bit annoying and uncomfortable to listen to. The reasons were: I don't like to hear things more than once (I've got a pretty good memory for what people say); the stories took hours to tell; my curiosity was long since satisfied; but worse yet, although she didn't compare me to them explicitly, I got the feeling that she was internally making that comparison and perhaps regretted marrying me. But I felt that I had to listen and maintain a polite facade while listening to those stories.

My wife didn't like that I kept old letters from previous girlfriends, and during one of our moves she threw them all out. She had thrown away her letters from previous boyfriends before she married me.

My wife never met my AP face-to-face (thank god!) but they did exchange a couple of emails. My wife's emails were nasty, my AP's were polite and restrained. My wife was furious with my AP, calling her a homewrecker and so on. That was despite me pointing out that I sought out my AP (not vice versa) and if I hadn't connected with my AP, I would have continued to search and would have found someone else. I told my wife to leave my AP alone. If she wanted to blame someone, blame me. Also, the elephant in the living room was that my wife had been refusing sex for seven years. So (I didn't say it, but) my wife and I should have gone to a mirror together to see who was responsible for what happened.

I still have fond memories of my AP and one of my old girlfriends. Apparently my wife has fond memories for at least one of her boyfriends. I don't really care, but I really don't want to hear any more about them. Thankfully, she hasn't mentioned old boyfriends after I asked her to stop, several years ago.

There was a time in my marriage when my old girl friend came to my fathers funeral. my now ex wife was not happy about that and let it be known. I also had prom pictures of us together and they were shown to my children.

I do find it very relevant with the small sampling of the 5 woman i have dated since my divorce. All of them bring up there past. All of them had a story about a SM. If it wasn't there own it was a man they dated who was going to end his SM. So talking about the past seems unavoidable. How you use it and proceed forward is what's important.

I find it very hard to look at old photos. I see my daughter and grief because I don't see her anymore. And my ex-husband makes me feel sad because of the way he is, causing sadness to everyone around him including himself.
All my memories, even of the (relatively) good moments, make me feel sad. Therefore I try not to think too much about the past. But I don't really suppress it either. Sometimes I allow these negative feelings and hope that eventually it will fade.