Ok- I know in a committed relationship it doesn’t really matter, but I’m sorry- I’m just a man who can’t resist a mystery or not knowing things. I have been married to my wife for 14 years and she’s the epitome of class and respectability. But, on our last visit to her first cousins place, we were sitting around chatting about our younger days. My wife let it slip that her mom found her birth control pills while she was in grade 11. Wow- news to me... laughing, I asked about it later and she shut me down right away. When we got married at age 27, she told me she had only two previous partners, and lost her virginity when she was 21, no mention of the high school stuff. Then I heard subsequently from a friend she had a summer job working with wildlife where it was just her and a younger married man in a cabin for the summer. She told me that he did have an affair with her. Whether it was sexual or not she wouldn’t say, and I left it. But that would bring the total to 4 (and not the 2 as she said) before me. But what’s the real number?

Interestingly, in recalling past conversations, she does deal with anxiety and gets unnecessarily concerned with her health from time to time. But she also told me one time before me, she was afraid she had ‘aids’. Knowing she didn’t have it, and thinking she was just being a worry wart, I chuckled and left it. Although we’re married, and it won’t change anything, I’m still DYING to know the truth...it’s burning me up not knowing. She’s very closed to any discussion about previous relationships. How do you think I should proceed- knowing she will try to shut me down right away?