Always remember: his past is your past

Our pasts, especially the less than rosy parts, are things we are determined to leave behind. It’s drummed into our ears, day in day out, how your past shouldn’t control your present. We go into romantic relationships determined to leave our pasts behind. Consequently, we don’t question the pasts of the men we get together with. I have my own past. His past is his past. I don’t need to know, right? Well, wrong.

Last month a 32-year old woman found out that she is the second wife to the man she is eight months pregnant with. Perhaps thinking the man was a little out of her league and not wanting to jinx this near perfect relationship, she bit back her questions on his past relationships when they first got together.

“I found it strange that he was 40, well-adjusted yet single but I consoled myself that I was just lucky. I told myself that if there was something I needed to know, he would tell me. No need lurking looking for trouble,” she tells me.

So she accepted his proposal to move in with him and fell pregnant, only for a female relative of his to disclose that she was indeed the second wife and his family was in on it. The hardest part for her is that his first marriage isn’t even unhappy. It’s functioning. The man is just polygamous. When she asked him why he kept such a secret, he told her that she didn’t ask. Would he have come clean had she asked? I don’t know. But if she had asked more questions, wanted to know more, she wouldn’t be feeling stuck. This man’s past is now her reality, her future.

If you are getting into a relationship, especially a serious one, I say dig. The quickest way to get into debt today, next to taking out loans to have that grand wedding you do not need, is to marry a man whose financial past you do not know. We all know that every other person you brush shoulders with on the street is borrowing to keep up their lifestyle but you want to imagine that the man who worms his way into your heart isn’t.

Ask questions. You will not always like what he has to say about his past but asking will save you from surprises, heartache and possibly even save you some money. If he offers to talk about his past relationships, listen. The things he says about his exes will tell you things you otherwise wouldn’t know about him, like his perception of women, how he handles conflict and if the two of you ever break up, will he drag your name through the mud without remorse?

You deserve to know how much baggage he has. You deserve to know why he is the way he is and honestly, that sense of mystery in a relationship gets old.