My [24 F] boyfriend [26 M] of 6 months told me that I need to “unlove” the men from my past before I can love him.

A Reddit user shared her relationship dilemma involving her boyfriend of six months, who believes she must “unlove” her exes to truly love him. Despite her reassurances that she has no romantic feelings for her ex.

Her boyfriend insists she shouldn’t feel any form of love for past partners, leaving her questioning whether his demands are reasonable. Read the original story below to delve into this complex situation.

‘ My [24 F] boyfriend [26 M] of 6 months told me that I need to “unlove” the men from my past before I can love him.’

I’ve been dating Mark for 6 months and have known him for around 8 months. I just moved to my current city 9 months ago for grad school, and Mark was one of the first people that I become close with. He’s been really great and helped me feel comfortable in a new city.

Recently, Mark and I said “I love you” for the first time. Everything was fine for a while until he told me that I was the first person he’s ever said that to. I was a little surprised but not in a bad way, and didn’t really make a big deal of it. He asked me how many other guys I’ve said it too. I told him 1. That seemed to bother him.

Mark knows that I’m still occasionally in contact with one of my exes (Eli) and it has never been an issue for Mark. However, after our conversation, Mark asked me if Eli was the ex that I had said I love you to. I was honest and said yes. Background: Eli and I grew up together and dated from when we were 15 to 22.

We broke up when I got accepted to grad school and found out I’d have to move across the country, because we realized that we had grown into different people and weren’t going to spend our lives together.

The breakup was extremely amicable and we remained close friends while I was town before I moved, and we talk maybe once a week currently – just basic “how are you” texts. Mark asked me how I feel about Eli now.

I said that while I don’t love him romantically anymore, he was a huge part of my life since childhood, and I still have very positive feelings about him and consider him an important person. Mark kept pressing, asking me if I still “love” Eli in any sense.

I said that no, I am not in love with him, but Mark almost didn’t seem to believe me? He kept prodding me until I finally said that I will probably always love Eli as a person and respect him a lot, but that I have no romantic connection to him and fully accept that we are different people now. Mark was upset by this.

The next day, Mark told me that he doesn’t think that I can truly love him unless I learn to “unlove” the men from my past. I asked what he meant – and again clarified that I am not in love with Eli – and he said that I should retain no love in any form for any other guys I’ve been with.

I was, quite honestly, shocked and tried to explain to him that me loving someone as a friend is totally and completely different than being romantically in love with someone, and that he is the only one I have those feelings for.

He insisted that I need to change my feelings about Eli. He almost seemed mad that I’m not resentful over the breakup. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Is this totally weird and out of line, or am I overreacting? Just to be clear, Eli and I talk very sparingly. Probably 10 texts a week, if that, just to check in.

I have NO feelings for him anymore. But he was a huge part of my life for many, many years, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to have generally positive feelings for him. Is Mark out of line, or am I?

Here’s what people had to say to OP:

[Reddit User] −  Anytime someone especially someone you are dating makes you feel like you are taking crazy pills that is a huge huge red flag. He’s being unreasonable.

mech1up_forher −  I know he can’t control his feelings but like.. is he 26 or 16?

idonotlike___jelly −  I dated someone like that. It turned out he had a lot of self-esteem issues, and held on to all of the negative things that had happened to him in the past. He couldn’t understand that people could look back at their pasts fondly and still move on from it.

No matter what I said, he always felt threatened by the fact that I had had one boyfriend before him. In a way, your SO wants to be your everything. He wants to be your present, your future and your past.

Sounds impossible? That’s because it is. You’ve only been together for 4 months. It will take a lot longer for him to change the way he thinks, that is if he even decides to.

BalancetheMirror −  It’s not too often that someone can sound creepy and laughably immature at the same time. It sounds like he wants to posses you, erase your past, blot out anyone or anything but him. You are a person. You have a past.

I get the same creepy vibe from guys who get upset knowing they weren’t a person’s first s**ual partner. The next day, Mark told me that he doesn’t think that I can truly love him unless I learn to “unlove” the men from my past.

Oh, RILLY? **I sure as sh!t didn’t get the memo.** When did this policy get put into place? Do I need to contact all my past loves and tell them “I unlove you”, or is Mark’s Edict not retroactive? The guy has never been in love before you, and now he’s making rules up.

And he thinks YOU need to learn how to do this? How about you learn to not be so creepy and controlling, Mark? Could ya maybe learn that love is not a finite feeling? “Unlove” someone? FOH with that. Pfffft.

Rogue_Like −  Just because you dated someone and broke up doesn’t mean they just magically disappear from your life and your memories like they didn’t exist.

Mark is talking some very immature nonsense from the perspective of a person who doesn’t have any dating experience. Mark needs to grow up.. ​I think it’s perfectly fine to be friends with an ex.

Phobos75 −  How does one actually measure that? You told him multiple times “no I don’t love him” but that wasn’t good enough. So how exactly is he going to go “yep she doesn’t love him anymore so I am perfectly secure in my #1 space in her heart”?

How will he measure that if he doesn’t take you at your repeated insistence that you don’t love Eli any more? Lets not ignore the fact that he pushed and pushed to get an answer he wanted. This is something that will come again, you can bet on it.

Every time he’s insecure or you’re having a fight, you can bet he is going to call your feelings for him into question. Also, will this extend to other men in your life and circle?

Will he get insecure if he perceives you for having deep or caring feelings for friends? If it extends to family, that’s definitely a truck full of crazy. You need to find out how bad this insecurity is.

[Reddit User] −  6 months is an appropriate time for wacky, controlling behavior to come to the surface. Holding up a mask gets tiring after a while. You’re not taking crazy pills but he’s certainly trying to feed them to you. It’s like he thinks you need to erase your past before you can be with him. Lol, no bud.

[Reddit User] −  Mark is insecure and he’s trying to make it your problem. Either he trusts you or he doesn’t. Whatever happened in your past is irrelevant. He sounds a bit emotionally immature at the moment although if he’s only 26, he still has time to work on it.

As a sidenote, so many of the people mentioned in problems on here seem to strangle the life out of their relationships by not really trusting the person they are with. If you trust them, trust them and take the risk of committing to the relationship. If you don’t, work on it or end the relationship.

FormalBee9 −  This sounds like a VERY typical trajectory of a guy who turns out to be an abuser. Starts out by rushing things crazy fast and then love-bombing you, soon gets crazy jealous and controlling over bizarre things, acts so crazy that you can’t tell if it’s him or you who is crazy.

The next step after feeling like you are taking crazy pills is usually that you will begin to be verbally abused. Called a s**t or l**r or something like that. After he does it he will desperately apologize and probably even cry. Then the cycle of abuse has begun.

ansibil −  Other people are taking a better stab at the main point but I just want to add: Shouldn’t we be loving more than one person in our life at the same time? Loving our family? Loving our neighbor? What are friends if we don’t love them? If anything we should be saying “I love you” to \*more\* people in our life, not less.

Is it fair for Mark to expect her to “unlove” her exes, or does his insecurity undermine the trust in their relationship? How would you handle a partner with similar expectations about your past? Share your thoughts below!

For those who want to read the sequel: https://aita.pics/tSqsp