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I was a teenaged bride (really). I began dating a tall, open-hearted 16-year-old guy when I was 14. I had a few middle school boyfriends before him, as well as a crush on a Jesus lookalike named Joe (which ended before it began when I fell headfirst into his locker while trying to coolly walk by) but never a true “past love.” We married when I was 18 and he was 20. Depending on how you look at it, either we missed out on all the fun of falling in love with other people or we were spared the emotional damage of falling in love with other people.
Everyone else I know has been in relationships that ended, often badly. Many of them in marriages that ended, also badly. When they talk about these former partners they tend to emphasize the negative. Surely this is a necessary part of the healing process, helping them to recognize where they were wounded as well as where they may have done some wounding. But sometimes, from my very limited experience in this area, I wonder why pain and anger seem to weigh down the rest of their memories— the funny ones, tender ones, and ordinary ones—memories that are an integral part of their earlier years. In truth, every fully lived moment goes into making a person who she or he is today.
Until I talked to Kate Harper and Leon Marasco, authors of If Only I Could Tell You..: Where Past Loves and Current Intimacy Meet
They acknowledge that there are reasons to avoid talking about memories, but find even more reasons for speaking openly. As they write,
We are forever changed through what we have felt and experienced within an intimate relationship. That in itself is worth knowing. In the light remaining from each previous love, we can better see our inner world, see who we are. No matter how the romance ended, it began in hopes and dreams and that mysterious spark, not all of it physical, that brings lovers together. All of this is true whether we find a new love or remain alone.
And why does it matter if we recognize this? It matters in that we are creatures who thrive on the natural flow of what sustains us, nourishes us, strengthens us. Past loves—the special and profound energy fields they still engender—are one source of our lifeblood.
Their book includes interviews with 28 men and women, each talking frankly about how memories of former loves echo in their current lives. They also write about what is important to consider before sharing, as well as ways to think about when, how, and why that sharing might take place.
I have no memories of past loves to share, beyond those first self-doubting and all too often klutzy moments shared with middle school boyfriends equally new to romance. So I ask you to help me out of this ignorance. Do you hide the tender, funny, ordinary memories shared with your past loves?
Laura Grace Weldon 
Well, I think you were really blessed to marry and stay married to your first love. I do agree that your past relationships shape who you are today. But I honestly can’t say I can pull up many happy memories of the almost 10 year relationship I was in before I met my husband. He was very abusive in every day; I was in the hospital for a fractured eyebrow bone. But I have been incredibly honest and open with my husband. He knows when certain things up up how I will be affected. He’s also told me many stories of his past relationships, too. I’m even friends now with one of his former girlfriends.I think it’s so important to be very honest and open about those things. They have made me so much closer to my husband.
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Ahhhh, I do have cherished memories. And, of course, there are memories that taught me where I ought not to go in another relationship. But both actually help when dealing with crushes and loves of my children and how I can tell them that though something ended, there are things they won’t ever forget, especially when it was something they (and I) needed at the time.
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I only have a passing moment to leave a comment, but I wanted to say that picture is amazing.
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I know lots of lesbians who are friends with their former girlfriends. I think gay men are good at that too. I used to love being friends with my previous partners, but have moved too much (both physically and emotionally!) to have that bond now.
I loved being in a long-term relationship (11 years), and knowing what my sweetie (a man back then) would be ordering for breakfast when we went out. I loved the traditions we created. When we were alone together, I sometimes called him Harl (his middle name) and he’d call me Rose (mine). I knew him well.
I miss the intimacy. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a partner.
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I wrote a book about my years with the Hare Krishna movement which inevitably was also about my first love, who I wanted to marry but did not. I have since married a wonderful woman, but the story of how we met would not make a good book because it lacked the train wreck qualities that made the story of my first love interesting. So the book is out there, under the name “Bhakta Jim” to spare my wife’s feelings (and to a lesser extent my parents). I don’t think my wife will ever read the book.
My wife had a love before she met me that did not work out. If she wrote a book about that I would hope she would use a nom de plume and I don’t think I would read it either. Maybe there are people who can share happy memories of past loves but I’d be surprised if there were a lot of them. I’m happy that my wife had someone who loved her and made her happy before she met me, and I’m happier still not to hear about him.
In my own book I was really trying to talk about my Hare Krishna life. The love element was part of that, but not the motivation for the book. I did not dwell on this part of the story much, but unfortunately its the part of the story everyone who reads it seems to remember. I wrote the first draft of the book thirty years ago, right after I got out of the movement. I only revised the text recently. I don’t think I could have written that book today, because I don’t have the same feelings I did thirty years ago.
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