Chuck lives in Massachusetts with his wife, kids and a furry drool machine named Sailor. He is a consultant by trade, but make no mistake… he can consult over buildings in a single bound.

With Summer now officially here, my wife and I have begun the annual process of scheduling every one of the next ten weekends. Somewhere in the mix we will be working in a class reunion at my wife’s alma mater and a gathering of my college friends. Both events will include the presence of former relationships, lovers and one night stands. This convergence of people from our past has sparked several deeply personal conversations and observations that I think are worth introspection and sharing with complete strangers.

Let’s begin with a party whose invitee list includes a woman that I was romantic with during my sophomore year of college. The relevant details are:

• We were good friends for several years
• We never dated
• We hooked up three times the last of which actually resulted in sex. This type of thing was exceedingly rare for me. Like it happened exactly, never. I had no moral objection to random hookups, I just had no transition game. I never understood the conversational migration from “High nice to meet you” to “yes, let’s go take our clothes off” in the course of one evening. To this day it is a great mystery to me. I had friends who never spoke a sentence that did not include the phrases “Celtics Rule” or “porn rules” that hooked-up so frequently, you might think they could cast spells. Of course using wizardry metaphors in my everyday speech might have impeded my chick appeal. According to my wife, and I think she is being very kind here, I just wasn’t putting out the “hook-up vibe”. My reaction to that comment is, “Yes I was. I was putting out the vibe with a frigging jackhammer” It’s the default position for anyone with a y chromosome.
• We never hooked up again and in fact our friendship was severely damaged as a result
• We have had little to no contact since
• Although this woman is attractive, I would consider my wife to be much more in line with my tastes. It’s the Ginger vs. Mary Ann decision. I guess I dig cute farm girls in cut-offs and polka dot blouses more than vampy sex bombs.

When I heard about the party, I brought the subject up casually with my wife to gauge her reaction. The conversation went something like this (I’ll skip the usual chitchat and cut right to the chase):

Me: Hey, you know what? A bunch of my friends for UMASS are getting together this summer for a sort of reunion. It might be fun to go.

K: Who is going?

Me: The usual crowd, plus someone from my past.

K: Who is that?

Me: Suzanne.

K: Suzanne? The Suzanne you hooked up with?

Me: Yes, that Suzanne, she is married now with two kids. But look, if that makes you feel uncomfortable, I totally understand and we don’t have to go.

K: Can’t say I would like to spend a Saturday hanging out with your fling, but, it’s probably not a big deal. If you want to we can do it.

What is stunning, is that she actually is ok with it. By contrast, here is what happened in the opposing scenario. The key facts are:

• They dated seriously for 3 years during college with the usual college relationship cycle:
  • date and breakup.
  • date again because they are in the same group of friends and it’s easier to go back to the bad relationship than watch each other date mutual friends then breakup because …“I hate you.”
  • date one last time because maybe things have changed then breakup because things haven’t changed at all.
• My mother in-law once referred to him as “just like” the character Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility. For those of you who are not Jane Austin fans, Willoughby was a dashing character with impossible good looks, a huge estate in the English country side, and a tendency to destroy the lives of the woman he encountered.
• At one time, he gave her a fraternity pin, a tradition that indicates an imminent engagement.
• He continued to call her after we started dating
• He stopped calling when he went to jail

When she brought this up, it went something like:

K: Hey you know what? My Bucknell class is having a reunion this year in Lewisburg. It might be fun to go.

Me: Yes, 14 hours in a car to see a bunch of people I don’t know is always a good time. Plus, I am guessing your pal will be attending.

K: Yes, he probably will. He is out of prison and he goes to all of these things. You have nothing to worry about, but if it bothers you, we don’t have to go.

Me: Yeah, well, it bothers me. A lot. (Followed by one hour of pissed-off sulking).

For everyone who is now thinking, “Wow, he is really selfish and insecure” my answer to you is… guilty. Which begs the question: Why do I care about my wife seeing a guy that she dated 14 years ago, whose upward mobility is severely hampered by his collection of prison tattoos? I knew when I married her that she had a past. Of course she did, in fact I would never have wanted to be with someone who has not been through a relationship or two. So, what makes me want to vomit at the prospect of witnessing the two of them together in a casual “remember when” setting?

I am bothered by the past. I want to believe that there are certain pieces of my wife that only I have and have ever had access to. Certain expressions, gestures, glances, smiles, hair tosses, fragrances, underwear, etc. that were only ever intended for, or given, to me. I want to believe I am the only one that ever made her heart go pitter pat. I want to believe that she has only granted me, access to the very delicate parts of her soul. Unfortunately, this is a fantasy. There were others before me. Others that she believed, although naively, were the “one.”

I am bothered by what must have been. The flirtation, the nuances, the “I’m in the mood” expression she surely gave, are all constructed in high def within my mind’s eye. Based on a sample size of 4, I will now make a statistical leap of faith and say that all women present a unique expression communicating that intimacy is imminent. It’s like a fingerprint and will someday be a CSI plot line. Even as I write this, the images sicken me. Why? Because they lead to the inevitable questions of: “Am I just one of several relationships in her life?” “Does she hold some place in her heart for him that is not accessible to me?” “Does her past, somehow dilute my present?”

I am not worried that Kerry is going to be consumed by some smoldering ember of passion for this person. She isn’t going to take off into the hills of Lewisburg with her ex-boyfriend. She loves me. More importantly, she is in love with me. This I know. I am concerned that I might see her give him something as simple as a smile. A smile that I thought was exclusive to me. A smile that reveals too much of what they were. And then we will drive seven hours home having the following conversation:

K: “What’s wrong.”

Me: “Nothing”

K: “Are you sure, because if you are upset we should talk about it now, so we don’t ruin the rest of the drive being irritated.”

Me: “I am fine, just tired”

K: “Come on. I know you. Let’s just get on with it.”

Me: “It’s nothing.”

Repeat ten times until finally:

K: “Please talk to me.”

Me: “Ok.” (Pause for dramatic affect, then speaking coldly) “If you need to talk, maybe you can give your little friend a call. I hear you can do that during visitor hours.”

Pathetic? Yes. Real? Sadly.

I can also step through the logic of what my wife and I have built as a marriage, as a family, and know that it is beyond replication. That it is beyond any questions of trust. No one who came before for me or for her would have been able to build the relationship we have now. This is the adult rational mind that governs our daily relationship. Yet, from a very deep and powerful place, comes the dark antithesis of rational mind. It’s not a green eyed monster. It’s worse. It is vulnerable mind. It is weak, petty, and vain and it is counter to everything I value about myself as a man.

Still, a question lingers. Why is she ok with my past? My conclusion is as follows: Kerry is ok with my past because she is not threatened in the present. She is less concerned with the details of my past relationship and more concerned with how she would fair in a current-state competition. The questions in her mind sound like: “Is she more attractive than me now?” “Is she sexier?” “Is she more interesting? And so on. If Suzanne was the wife nightmare; sexy, thin, and busty, the equation would likely yield a different result. Kerry, like myself, has nothing to fear. I love her deeply. After being together for 13 years, I still look at her across the breakfast table and think “My god, she is hot.” However, the ten years of marriage, trust building, child rearing, and general happiness that we have shared are as irrelevant to her calculation in the present as they were to my consideration of the past. Vulnerable mind.

So where does any of this leave us? Are we all (and by all, I mean me) doomed to suffer from some ragingly immature emotional bullshit. I think not. There are two solutions available. First, is engaging in the process of lengthy analysis to peel back the onion of male insecurities. I can save you the trouble and the money. Shocker! For guys it all boils down to sex. Many of you might be thinking “Shocker! Sex drives male behavior?!?! Finally someone has cracked the code!” Here is the logic train. Men need validation of their attractiveness and manhood. Nothing validates you like having your woman desire you sexually. It should be noted that there is a powerful difference between acquiescence sex and desire sex. One is a “check the box” exercise that offers little to subdue the vulnerable mind. The other is validating. In addition, most men require constant validation. We all have different thresholds, but make no mistake, after the act, a man’s reservoir of ego and vanity issues begins to fill immediately.

There are no less than a billion reasons why desire sex can happen too infrequently to quell the male vulnerable mind. Fatigue, stress, children, and “you ruined my life!” sentiment may all play a role. In fact, we all just need to set some reasonable expectations. This brings us to the second method of vulnerable mind management. It involves a steady diet of red meat, the Godfather Trilogy, and denial. Enough gangster violence will subdue your insecurities. Should this method not produce the desired results, buy your girl some flowers, take her out to dinner, and watch a re-run of Sex and the City. She may actually feel desire for you.

So, the math looks like: Take good care of your woman, in return she might want to wear the thigh-highs you bought her last year (by the way, every man likes these), your validated sense of confidence and attractiveness will allow you to be ok in the presence of her ex-flame. For the record, I hate it when logic leads me to the wisdom of “I have to give in order to receive.” I would much rather beat someone with the lid of a trash can ala Sonny Corleone. Vulnerable mind.