Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
Thanks for your reply, you clearly understand how I feel, at least a little. It's not about me not being the best - obviously, if she loves me, she will tolerate me until I get more experience, and you're totally right about sex not being just in the bedroom - and it's not about them cheating, I don't think either of those are things that I fear. It's that I waited for marriage and she didn't, so someone else has experienced such a level of intimacy with her, and intimacy with me will not feel as special as it otherwise would have; being "the first" for everything would have been far more preferable, and the thought of someone else having done it to her besides me is painful. SubstantialFrivolity effectively convinced me that I should try to not learn any more than that, and my brain will probably eventually find a comforting headcanon if left to its own devices. I guess it boils down to just plain jealousy and some sense of purity. But like most of my anxieties, I find that keeping them private and not doing anything about them generally helps them go away without incident.
I support this and I want to double up on his advice not to talk about it. Probably for different reasons - I think his wife was being a bit unfair by turning it around back on him when he expressed his jealousy. But talking about it is a catch-22. It makes you appear weak to your partner, and will increase the chances of something negative happening as a result, as you can see from his anecdote.
In the modern world I'll throw something out there - a woman who's slept with ~<1 person a year since becoming "active" is probably a good deal on the sexual market. To me that shows a significant amount of personal restraint. I would be pretty happy with that if I were still dating to marry.
Best of luck!
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As somebody who have been in relationships before "settling down", this is not true. I don't feel like my previous experiences - many of which I don't even remember now - diminish my bond to my wife in any way, and I don't think she feels our relationship is less special because she was married in the past too. It's all the past and gone, and the special thing is now.
In marriage, sometimes you need to make sacrifices. I think sacrificing the part of your selfishness that is jealousy to the past is not a bad thing to do. And if you keep in mind why you're doing it and what you're getting in return, you may feel better about it. You can't make yourself not feel things that you feel, but you can conquer those things and not let them make you unhappy. Fortunately, these are things that depend only on you alone - so nothing prevents you from doing that.
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