Feeling guilty about number of sexual partners /u/Possible-machinery79 Sex

I (F31) am starting to feel guilty about number of sexual partners I have had since I became sexually active at age 22 when I had my first boyfriend. I come from a conservative background, so I was always the friend with no experience, no boyfriends, I didn’t really drink a whole lot in college and it was installed in my brain that sex was wrong. I never agreed with this and was always sex positive in the sense that I never judged anyone for number of sex partners, no matter how few or many, and never based anyone’s value of it. However, my own conservative upbringing apparently did get to me, as I’m starting to feel guilty about my number of sex partners over the course of 10 years (6 partners) and I don’t know how to fix this feeling.

I now have fiancé (M33) and he has only been with one woman before me, very short term. We never really spoke about number of partners, so he doesn’t know exactly, but he knows I’ve had a “long term” relationship before him. (I say “long term” because it lasted 1.5 years)

So my story is that I met my first boyfriend in college at age 22, and we were together for a year. I wasn’t really ready for sexual intimacy, but did it anyway after my first boyfriend kind of pressured me for months. At least, he made it seem that being in a relationship meant having sex. I wish I had been more firm with him, but being that inexperienced, I thought I was supposed to have sex in order to be in a relationship. I always knew I never wanted one night stands, I wanted to have sex only when I was in a relationship or certain that we would end up being together for a longer time, and he kind of used this as well. At the time, I didn’t realize he was pressuring me and he probably didn’t know that was what he was doing either.

After we broke up, I met someone else 6 months later that I found cute and we dated for some months and slept together. I felt like I had never really let loose and at age 23-24, I felt like I wanted to at least have fun for a little while.

After him, I didn’t date or sleep with anyone for 2.5 years, whereafter I met a third guy I started to really like and thought we would be together, but he broke up with me after a couple of months, as he also dated someone else I didn’t know about. Around 6 months after him, I met a 4th guy who ended up being my boyfriend for 1.5 years (the “long term” one) and we were really a good match and I thought we would get married, but we broke up because we didn’t want the same thing in the future after all. No hard feelings, I really learnt a lot from this relationship and I’m happy it happened.

Then approx. 1.5 years after him, I met the 5th guy. In between those two, I did go on dates but never kissed or slept with anyone. But this 5th guy and I really hit it off, and we quickly entered a relationship and everything seemed really good! We were almost 30 at the time, so I was sure that we didn’t need to date for months and months before getting into a relationship. I thought this would be the guy, but after some months we just disagreed on everything and he decided to break up quite unexpectedly, but it was for sure the right choice and things didn’t end bad.

So that’s a total of 5 guys I hoped would lead to a future I wanted which is finding the love of my life, get married and have a child or two.

Shortly after that, I ended up meeting my now fiancé. I didn’t expect to meet him that soon, but he is such a good person, we love each other and are really happy.

So he is the 6th person and even though he has never said anything against people who have more than 1 partners, I’m just starting to feel guilty after we recently got engaged and all the shame I grew up with is starting to get to me.

I always felt like the inexperienced one, but with him I am the experienced one, and obviously as you get older, you get more experience with life in general.

I don’t know how to shake this feeling. Does anyone have any advice?

I (F31) am starting to feel guilty about number of sexual partners I have had since I became sexually active at age 22 when I had my first boyfriend. I come from a conservative background, so I was always the friend with no experience, no boyfriends, I didn’t really drink a whole lot in college and it was installed in my brain that sex was wrong. I never agreed with this and was always sex positive in the sense that I never judged anyone for number of sex partners, no matter how few or many, and never based anyone’s value of it. However, my own conservative upbringing apparently did get to me, as I’m starting to feel guilty about my number of sex partners over the course of 10 years (6 partners) and I don’t know how to fix this feeling.

I now have fiancé (M33) and he has only been with one woman before me, very short term. We never really spoke about number of partners, so he doesn’t know exactly, but he knows I’ve had a “long term” relationship before him. (I say “long term” because it lasted 1.5 years)

So my story is that I met my first boyfriend in college at age 22, and we were together for a year. I wasn’t really ready for sexual intimacy, but did it anyway after my first boyfriend kind of pressured me for months. At least, he made it seem that being in a relationship meant having sex. I wish I had been more firm with him, but being that inexperienced, I thought I was supposed to have sex in order to be in a relationship. I always knew I never wanted one night stands, I wanted to have sex only when I was in a relationship or certain that we would end up being together for a longer time, and he kind of used this as well. At the time, I didn’t realize he was pressuring me and he probably didn’t know that was what he was doing either.

After we broke up, I met someone else 6 months later that I found cute and we dated for some months and slept together. I felt like I had never really let loose and at age 23-24, I felt like I wanted to at least have fun for a little while.

After him, I didn’t date or sleep with anyone for 2.5 years, whereafter I met a third guy I started to really like and thought we would be together, but he broke up with me after a couple of months, as he also dated someone else I didn’t know about. Around 6 months after him, I met a 4th guy who ended up being my boyfriend for 1.5 years (the “long term” one) and we were really a good match and I thought we would get married, but we broke up because we didn’t want the same thing in the future after all. No hard feelings, I really learnt a lot from this relationship and I’m happy it happened.

Then approx. 1.5 years after him, I met the 5th guy. In between those two, I did go on dates but never kissed or slept with anyone. But this 5th guy and I really hit it off, and we quickly entered a relationship and everything seemed really good! We were almost 30 at the time, so I was sure that we didn’t need to date for months and months before getting into a relationship. I thought this would be the guy, but after some months we just disagreed on everything and he decided to break up quite unexpectedly, but it was for sure the right choice and things didn’t end bad.

So that’s a total of 5 guys I hoped would lead to a future I wanted which is finding the love of my life, get married and have a child or two.

Shortly after that, I ended up meeting my now fiancé. I didn’t expect to meet him that soon, but he is such a good person, we love each other and are really happy.

So he is the 6th person and even though he has never said anything against people who have more than 1 partners, I’m just starting to feel guilty after we recently got engaged and all the shame I grew up with is starting to get to me.

I always felt like the inexperienced one, but with him I am the experienced one, and obviously as you get older, you get more experience with life in general.

I don’t know how to shake this feeling. Does anyone have any advice?