How Much Of The Past Do We Really Need To Know?

The first thing I thought when the pictures of The Dream were released was “Are we really surprised?” He already had left a wife and their small children before meeting Christina. Doesn’t that show you what he thinks of commitment? And then I thought of all the previous mistakes I have made. Would I want a future boyfriend to assume the stupid things I did in my past will happen in our future? People change and mature, right?  But The-Dream did leave his wife with small children like he did in his previous relationship. So is it fair to assume what someone did then is what they are going to do now?

In one of my past relationships, we didn’t really discuss much of what happened in the relationships before us. We discussed the broad strokes; our longest relationships and situations we would never want to enter again but that was it. No list of who we've been with and exactly what happened in each relationship. Honestly, it was the most freeing situation I had been in. I didn’t have to worry about introducing him to an ex; having to deal with any sort of jealousy and more importantly I didn’t have to deal with any judgment. I liked not knowing what happened in his previous relationships because it allowed me to just deal with our situation.  But now that the relationship is over, I often wonder if I knew more of his past, could I possibly have known more of our pending future? Could the issues we dealt in the relationship be repeating issues for him? And if I knew that before, could I have avoided the situation?

Now today with Facebook, twitter, etc we can know a lot about a person before we get to the first date. Information overload is so much the norm that lately I’ve been uncomfortable with going out with someone that I don’t know anything about. Because information these days is so accessible, it’s odd when the person is the only source of information.  But does knowing previous information cause unwarranted assumptions that can ruin a possible relationship or save possible partners from a pending break up?

If I had known about my ex’s past relationships would I go into the relationship with the same excitement? Possibly not but again is it fair to assume what happened in the past is going to happen in the future? I have a friend who cheated in past relationships but wouldn’t even think of cheating in her current situation. If her boyfriend made assumptions from her past they would not be able to have the bond they have now. On the other hand, I have a friend that has cheated in all of his relationships and continues to cheat in his current. Obviously the assumption for his is a correct one. So how much do we need to know about our partners past? And honestly, how much does it really matter?

Regardless of what happened in my past relationship I definitely do not regret not worrying about the past. The worry and the agony is more damaging then any possible action. I’d rather not worry about someone who is cheating on me then worry about someone who is not cheating… but that’s a whole other post. The truth is we trusted each other to purely be in the now. That feeling is not only priceless and it allowed our situation be just that…ours.