The future cost of past pleasures

Susan posts a woman's regrets concerning her past, and her lies about it:

I’m so incredibly sad. I’m living a life full of regret. I am now married to the most wonderful man – he is every woman’s dream:

First impressions: handsome, muscly, tall, the alpha male, excellent communicator.  Lasting impressions: loving, caring, kind, the provider, amazing lover.

Women throw themselves at him.. And he chose to be with me.

Unfortunately I didn’t save myself for him. I was promiscuous when I was single and my sexual past is putting a HUGE strain on our relationship. It is the ONLY thing we fight about. He loves me and cares for me, but he doesn’t respect me. I hope and pray that we can get through this. Your past DOES matter and it will always come back to haunt you.

When my husband and I first started dating he told me that he had issues with promiscuous women, and he asked me what I was like when I was single. I didn’t reveal to him my exact number, I simply said, “I haven’t slept with many guys”. Amongst my circle of friends it was considered a below average number, but on a global scale I now realise it’s a very high number.

At the time he was satisfied with my answer.. But 6 months later the topic came up again. He wanted an exact number. I did what many women do, and I lied. I told him 10 less than the actual number.

Some women are focusing on the lying.  And while I'm not excusing it, the observable fact of the matter is that if a woman isn't a virgin, she's probably lying about sex to some extent, if not necessarily 10 less than the actual number.  That being said, adding 10 to the number reported is probably a much more reasonable approach than taking a woman at her word about it.

Now, it's understandable that it bothers women that men hold their pasts against them much more severely than women hold men's pasts about them.  But that's just the way it is.  Trying to shame men and calling them insecure isn't going to accomplish anything; even if there is sufficient social pressure to cause them to remain silent and not say anything about the way the "phantom fucks" trouble them, it's not going to change the fact that it troubles them any more than a man quitting his job and staying home to play PS/3 all day is going to trouble his wife whether she says anything about it or not.

Honesty is always the best policy when it comes to sexual history, especially since there are a myriad of ways that the truth can eventually come to light.  If it causes you to lose out on someone you really like, better sooner than later.  And don't think that the passage of time is necessarily going to help, as the knowledge of having been knowingly deceived over all that time will actually tend to harden a man's mind against a woman.