Case of the Ex

At first I wasn't so curious about Mr and his past escapades with ex-girlfriends. Like most people, we both had previous relationships and I had figured out, hey everybody has done some things they are not proud of. The important thing was to get to know each other at the early stages and the revelations would come later. But I didn't have to wait long before an incident prompted me to dig into the archives. The story goes like this:

One day Mr told me that he had been invited to a 21st birthday party at the weekend and asked me to come with him. He said he would rather not go, but he had promised the celebrant that he would be there. When I asked him why he was reluctant to go, he told me it was because he used to go out with one of the celebrant's friends, and the relationship had not been a good one and it didn't even end well. He was worried about meeting her or her group of friends there. I guess most of them knew about their turbulent relationship. I was wondering if he should go at all, or if I should go with him because I don't like going to parties where I don't know anybody. In the end, we decided to just go and "show face" for a short while. When we got there, the party was in full swing. It was a typical Nigerian gathering, with lots of people, food, loud music etc. Mr found the celebrant, we said hello to her, and then we went in to chill for a while. He started introducing me to people, and I could feel the eyes burning into me. I asked him if his ex was there and he said he couldn't see her. Soon a girl came to meet us, she said hello to me and started chatting with Mr. I didn't hear most of the gist because of the loud music. We stayed a bit sha and left the party. About 10 minutes later Mr's phone rang. He looked at me and said "that's my ex-girlfriend calling". I asked him if he knew why she was calling him, he said no. I said he should pick up the call. I listened to his side of the conversation but could not understand most of it. When he hung up I asked him what was going on. Then she called him again, this time, she sounded really upset and he sounded guilty. After she finally hung up the third time, he told me that some of his ex's friends were at the party and they had called her to tell her that 'her man' had brought another girl to this party, and was even proudly declaring that I was his girlfriend. So she had called him to confirm and spark. Apparently, him turning up at the party with me was a major disaster. He had embarrased her in front of her friends. She had hoped that they would get back together and she was already on her way to the party when she heard he was going to be there. But her friend (the girl that came to chat with us) had called her to say she should not come anymore because I was there. Mr was feeling guilty and was trying to calm her down. He told her that indeed, he had met someone else, and he confirmed that he had told her friend that I was his wife. I just felt really uncomfortable about the whole story. I guess it took a while for me to get the confidence to believe that it was over with that ex-girlfriend, and I was the one he had chosen to stick with.

After this incident, I sat down and had a talk with Mr asking him for every single detail about his past relationships. I didn't want any more surprises of that kind. What was more important though, was achieving closure with those exes, if need be, apologising and stuff.

For me, I wasn't on talking terms with any of my exes. I didn't even know where they lived or their phone numbers, so it would take a serious co-incidence for me to meet them. And anyway, I didn't think I needed to keep in touch with them. I would find it really awkward to be friends with an ex. Afterall, it didn't work out, so drop it and move on. If you are in a relationship with someone special, you don't need a cloud of past relationships hanging over your head. That said though, my second boyfriend is on my yahoo messenger list, but that's about it :-)