Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Confessions of the Heart: How to Share Your Past Without Fear

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you’re unsure how to come clean with your partner about something from your past? It’s uncomfortable, right? In this episode of The Language of Love Sessions, one of my listeners, Sasha, finds herself in a tough spot—she’s not sure how to come clean to her partner after being less than honest about her sexual history. We’ve all had moments where telling the truth feels scary, right? How do you face that kind of conversation? I help Sasha navigate the importance of being open and real with her partner. After all, isn’t love about embracing each other’s pasts, imperfections and all? We also discuss how self-worth and emotional growth can create a deeper, more genuine connection. In this session, we cover:  The importance of honesty in relationships How to approach difficult conversations about past sexual history The implications of hiding personal information from a partner Discussing emotional and psychological aspects of past relationships Affirmation of self-worth beyond sexual history Are you ready to explore deeper connections and transformative experiences? Visit my website for personalized courses like 'Quantum Sex' and more, each thoughtfully crafted to support your unique journey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman, and for the last 30 years, I've been helping people learn to love and be loved better. Welcome to the Language of Love Sessions. This is where I get to work with you one-on-one, on air. You, my listeners, my goal in these sessions is to empower you to enjoy better relationships, both with others and with yourself, and to help you embrace how precious and sacred your body, your love life, and your sexuality really is. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. So this language of love session, we are going to be answering an email question from Sasha.

Remember, if you have an email question, you can send it to languageoflovepod at gmail.com. You can also have a live session with me, but a lot of you are sending in some really great questions that I know we can all relate to. Remember, when you're asking your question, you're asking for yourself, but millions of other people have the same question, so they're getting the answer along with you. This one says, I used to be what some would call promiscuous in my younger years. I'm 39 now, but I want to settle down. I finally found someone that I really want to spend my life with.

He's everything that I've ever wanted. And I'm at the point in my life where I'm ready. He was joking the other day about our numbers. He told me his and mine are greater than his. Once I heard his number, I panicked and lied about mine. I know I need to come clean, but how should I do this? How do I not lose him? I don't want him to judge me.

Okay. I agree with you that you don't want to start a long-term relationship on a lie. And if he is going to judge you for the essence of who you are and what your experiences were and what you learned from, you want to be married to someone who's not only wonderful and interesting and fabulous and has all the qualities you want, but someone who truly accepts you for exactly who you are believe me if you're hiding this from him you're going to be hiding other aspects from him and for true love to blossom and to be sustainable you have to have as few withholds as possible every secret every withhold creates a wall a layer of a wall between the two of you so let's just talk in general and then i'll tell you what to do but

When I am not a fan of the number conversation and I feel that no matter what I have never discussed, I've been married for over 20 years. I don't have an astronomical number, but I would not tell my husband my number and I would not ask kids. And when that joking conversation came up, which always does in every new relationship, I just said, look, the numbers don't matter. What I want to know is what were the most meaningful relationships you had? What are the lessons you learned?

What are any sexually transmitted infections or diseases that you have? What are any kind of traumatic or sexual experiences or relationships that really shaped you for good or bad? Like, those are the kinds of things. The number is irrelevant. Those are the kinds of things that I really want to know about. So if we could rewind, that's what I would say you want to say is like, look, I don't want to know your number.

This is what I want to know. But now you've had the conversation. If this does your relationship in what I'm about to say, then I promise you this guy was never for you, okay, in the long run. And here's what you say is exactly basically what you just said to me, that I have something that I feel uncomfortable about, that I want to talk to you about. When we were talking the other day, I wasn't honest with you. We started talking about our numbers and I panicked and I made up a number I thought

you might want to hear because I have a lot of shame about my history. I was afraid that you would judge me or not be as interested in me or not love me. I don't know what phase you are in your relationship if you've gotten to that point, but that it would affect things. But if we're going to have a real relationship, I want us to be really honest with each other. So do you think you can hold the truth? And he'll say, hopefully, yes. And then you say, okay, well, this is my number. And just even the way you phrased the question, I was very promiscuous. Yeah. I mean, you had a lot of sexual partners. I don't know what your number is, but the reason 99% of the time, and I'm sure it was the case with you when someone is having excessive amounts of sex where

like the number is so high, you know, in the hundreds, thousands, whatever, it's usually coming from a place of trauma, disassociation, really difficult times. And you weren't really conscious. And so what you're going to want to say to him is like, look, this is my number and here's why it happened. And hopefully you have enough insight and awareness of what was going on to make you have as much mindless sex. Cause that's what happens when you're having multiple, multiple, multiple partners. You're just like, you know, unconscious, you're getting wasted all the time, or you're trying, you're reenacting your trauma, or you're trying to avoid feelings, or you're in a really dark place. I mean, there's all kinds of reasons why we have a lot,

a lot, a lot of mindless sex. It's rarely for pleasure. It's rarely that pleasurable, but it's a way to numb ourselves out or distract ourselves or an expression of our low self-worth. Here's a shout out to any woman who has experienced a horrible loss, is going through grief. I just want you to know you don't need to do this alone. And you also don't have to go through this. You can grow through it. You can come out the other side of horrible loss, a more self-actualized, tapped in, tuned in, empowered version of yourself. You can continue a relationship with your loved ones on the other side. I am living proof of that. With the losses I have had, especially of my sweet boy, Sammy, who's forever 16, I can tell you that you actually

don't have to just suffer through this. And that is why I am holding a retreat for women in Chicago called From Heartbreak to Healing. I'm bringing in a whole bunch of my favorite healer teacher friends, and we are together going to take you through the process, not only of showing you how to heal, but making it inspiring, uplifting, and beautiful. It's only women this time. I'll do some for men and for couples as well. But this time it's only women. So come and be embraced by a sacred sisterhood, meet other like-minded people and learn how to not just have to go through this horrible pain, but grow through it in beautiful ways. Just go to the link in my bio on my Instagram page of Dr. Laura Berman, or go to Eventbrite and search for Heartbreak to Healing

Chicago, and it'll come right up. I hope to see you there. so you kind of explain to him what that was about and you also tell him what you've learned and you can even say you know I have a lot of shame about it if I had it to do over if this is true I'm not saying it has to be true but if I had it to do over like I would not have had that many partners but here's what I've learned about myself xyz and I know that like I really want a deep and sustainable monogamous relationship that was a different time in my life and the other thing he's going to wonder about is if you've had a lot of partners or any partners, what your STD or STI, sexually transmitted infection status is. So you have to tell him, I would tell him that

because that may be part of what he worries about. Here's my status. I don't have any sexually transmitted infections or I have one and it's been treated. You don't have to tell him if you had something that was treated long ago and it's gone. But if you had, for instance, herpes or HIV or even HPV, those would be things you would want to say and say, but I treat it this way and I manage outbreaks that way. Believe me, if you can be honest at this point, now that the Pandora's box has been opened, like I said, you don't have to open it in the first place. But now that you have not been fully honest, you have to come clean with him. And if he can't hold it as painful as that is, I promise you he is too judgmental to be a loving partner for you. Now, I'm not saying he

won't struggle with it for a minute or be like, whoa, I don't know how to wrap my head around this. But besides that, so you may need to give him a little time. But besides that, I would say my guess is, is that if he really loves you, really cares about you, really sees your soul, really is interested in you as a human being and a life partner, unless he's from the 1950s, he is not going to judge you in a way that will really negatively affect the relationship. And if he does, then I want you to let me know, first of all, because I don't think he will. And second of all, he's not going to be a good partner to you. He's going to be judgmental about other things. And there's one other thing I want to say to you. If, let's say,

he's a little bit judgmental, but he kind of is like, okay, I can deal with it. And then three months from now throws it in your face in an argument or says some disparaging remarks, regardless, if he does that, then that is a big red flag that he is not someone who's going to be a loving, trustable partner. So instead of looking at this as like a shameful secret, Look at it as a litmus test, like a quiz of sorts to see if he is worthy of you. OK, you are already worthy. I don't care if you had five thousand million partners or three partners. You are worthy of all the love in the world.

It has nothing to do with how many people you've had sex with. And if he can't see that and accept that and honor that and he's not emotionally mature enough to handle the truth, then he's not going to be able to handle most things. And he's going to be a crappy life partner. And as painful as it is, you will have dodged a bullet. Listen, I know you have questions and things that you want some assistance with, and I am here to help. So that's what my Language of Love sessions are for. I can talk to you live on the line, or you can email your questions and I will answer them. And you can send them anonymously. It can be about a friend or a neighbor or someone you know. But what I want

you to know is that when you ask that question, you're asking not only for yourself, but all the millions of other people who have the same question because they do and are learning right along with you. So if you have a question or you want me to talk about something or answer something or help you with a struggle, you can always email me at languageoflovepod at gmail.com. That's languageoflovepod, as in podcast, at gmail.com. So I hope that helps, Sasha. I'm cheering you on. Please keep us posted on how it goes. And if you have a question that you want to answer to, you can always email me and just say, I want to talk in person. It can even be anonymous. Just email at languageoflovepod at gmail.com, or you can

actually email your question like Sasha did. I went to the doctor, said I'm crazy for your love