My husband found my ‘list’ – and it’s unlocked a kink I never knew existed… Wives reveal what happened when they let slip their REAL ‘body count’ – and it proves some things are best kept secret: SEALED SECTION
There are two words in the dating vocabulary that I can’t stand: body count.
It just sounds cheap and nasty. Like something you should confess with a hint of shame. But if our hippy ancestors from the ’60s and ’70s taught us anything, it’s that free love should be celebrated, not whispered about in hushed tones.
Heck, even Chelsea Handler once joked, ‘I think we can all agree that sleeping around is a great way to meet people.’ And first of all… lol… but also, she’s not wrong! I’m still friends with some lovely former bedfellows.
That said, asking (or, in some cases, demanding) that your partner reveal how many people they’ve slept with is simply uncalled for. When it comes to the age-old ‘body count’ debate – how many people you’ve been with before your current partner – I think it’s fair to say… none of your damn business!
However, in the spirit of nosiness (which is what I do best) and normalising playing the field a little before settling down with ‘the one’, I put a call-out to my Instagram followers and asked what happened when their partner found out their ‘body count’.
Here are a few that stood out…
He found my ‘list’ and turned into a private eye – Emily
Emily told me she never planned to tell her husband her exact number. But she didn’t have to… because he found ‘the list’.
Jana Hocking spoke to several wives – and some husbands – about what happened when ‘body count’ became a topic of conversation. Should you be honest? (Stock image posed by models)
‘I kept a note on my phone from my early twenties with the names of the guys I’d been with,’ she confessed.
‘It wasn’t something I ever looked at anymore, but I never deleted it either. One night, he borrowed my phone to look something up and went for a deep dive.’
At first, he played it cool. Then things got weird.
‘He started bringing up names from the list in casual conversation, like, “Oh, so Ryan took you to a music festival before me?” or, “Did you do that with Tom?” Emily said.
‘I laughed it off at first, but then he started getting really obsessed. He started checking my social media to see if I still followed any of them. Then he started asking if I’d thought about any of them while we were together.’
‘The number kept getting bigger’ – Dan
Some men find out their partner’s number and spiral into insecurity. Others get a little turned on.
Dan’s girlfriend was upfront about her past from the get-go.
Mail+ columnist Jana Hocking says your sexual history isn’t your partner’s business, but some husbands do like to know… and they ask at their peril
‘She wanted to share her history early on,’ he said.
‘She told me she’d been with about 27 guys and a couple of women. I didn’t care. I wasn’t judging. It was just part of who she was.’
But as their relationship progressed, so did her revised numbers.
‘She’d casually mention other guys here and there, and at some point, I realised it wasn’t adding up. So I asked her directly, and that’s when she came clean. It was more like 80+ guys and 40 women – plus some she didn’t even remember.’
Most men might have reacted badly to that. Not Dan. He was just intrigued.
‘It was a turn-on and a surprise at the same time,’ he admitted.
‘It made me see her in a different way, not in a bad way, just differently. I guess I liked that she’d lived such a full life before me.’
And did it change their relationship?
‘Nope. If anything, I respected her honesty, and it made me realise she chose me out of all those men.’
‘My drunken confession ruined our honeymoon’ – Sarah
Sarah and her husband had been married for exactly five days when she was a little too honest after her third round of mojitos. We’ve all been there…
‘We were sitting on the balcony of our honeymoon suite in Fiji, drinking cocktails, when he asked me out of nowhere, “How many guys have you actually slept with?” I was tipsy, so, stupidly, I told him the truth,’ revealed Sarah.
Her husband, who previously said he didn’t care about her past, went silent.
‘He just stared at me. I laughed and said, “What? Did you expect me to be a virgin?” And he said, “I didn’t expect that.”‘
Jess says telling her husband about her wild twenties – including a threesome – invigorated her sex life. Now her husband gets off on hearing her sexy stories (stock image posed by models)
The wife who was blindsided by her husband
It’s not always husbands left picking up their jaws off the floor. In one case, a wife was the one blindsided by her spouse’s sexual history.
Tom had a wild past, but he never thought it would come back to haunt him until a drunken school reunion turned his marriage upside down.
‘I grew up in the country, where, honestly, there wasn’t a whole lot to do on a Saturday night. So, we made our own fun,’ he admitted.
During his twenties, Tom told me had a bit of a reputation as the town man-whore (his words). But by the time he met his ex-wife, he’d left that life behind. Or so he thought.
‘She knew I’d been around, but I’d never given her specifics,’ he said.
‘And she never really asked. We had a good thing going, so I figured what’s the point of digging up the past?’
That all changed when they went back to his home town for his school reunion.
‘The night started off great catching up with old mates, having a few drinks. But then my mates got a little too loose,’ Tom said.
‘One of them started listing names.’
Tom’s wife, who had been laughing along at first, suddenly went silent.
‘I could see it on her face, she was working it out,’ he said.
‘And when she realised just how much of a past I had, it was like a switch flipped. She just stared at me, then stood up and left.’
He told me the car ride back to their hotel was brutal.
‘She wasn’t yelling, she wasn’t crying, just eerily calm. She looked at me and said, “I don’t even know who I married.”‘
Over the next few months, things unravelled. ‘It wasn’t like I’d cheated, but she couldn’t get past it. She said she felt like she’d been “lied to by omission”.’
Eventually, she called it quits.
‘The school reunion was the final straw,’ Tom said.
‘And I get it. Maybe if I’d been honest earlier, it wouldn’t have been such a shock. Or maybe she just wasn’t the type who could handle it.’
Now, looking back, does he regret not telling her? ‘Honestly, no. I don’t think it would have changed the outcome. Some people can separate the past from the present, and some can’t. She couldn’t. And that’s just how it was.’
‘It turned him on’ – Jess
Not all confessions lead to jealousy. Some have the opposite effect.
Jess told me she had been with her now-husband for five years when the topic came up over dinner with friends.
‘We were playing one of those silly “never have I ever” games, and the question was about threesomes,’ she said.
‘I took a sip of my drink, said my piece, and my husband’s eyes bulged out of his head.’
In the taxi ride home, he needed to know more.
‘He kept pressing me. “Was it a guy and a girl? Two guys? When was this?” I figured why not tell the whole story? So I shared about my wild days in my twenties.’
Instead of freaking out, he got excited. After getting home, they didn’t even make it to the bedroom – Jess’ husband tore her clothes off in the hallway.
‘I thought he’d be jealous or weirded out, but he was turned on. We had the most amazing sex and he said he loved that I’d had these experiences. He said it made him see me in a whole new light.’
Since then, Jess says, their sex life has only got better. ‘He even asks me to describe past encounters while we have sex. So, in my case, full honesty was actually a win!’
Something tells me this is just the start for Jess and her husband and soon he’ll be asking her to try out some new ‘encounters’ to tell him about…
‘Was I enough for her?’ – Mike
And then there was Mike…
Mike met his now ex-wife when they were both 20. She had slept with 27 people before him, while he had only been with two. At first, he told himself it didn’t matter, but over time, the stark contrast in experience played on his mind.
‘There was never any judgment from my side,’ he said.
‘I didn’t think any less of her. It wasn’t a “shaming” thing. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sit with me.’
Instead of feeling resentment toward her, Mike found himself feeling inadequate.
‘It sort of felt like I was playing catch-up in terms of experience, but without increasing my own number,’ he said.
‘I wondered if I was enough for her, or if I was missing something that all those other guys had.’
Looking back, he realises it was never actually an issue – just something he’d built up in his head. ‘It wasn’t about her, it was about me. And now, after more life experience, I can see that it really didn’t matter at all.’
I asked him what he learned from it and he told me ‘If you’re secure in yourself and your relationship, numbers don’t mean a thing. But if there’s an insecurity already there, it can latch onto any detail and fester. I wish I’d figured that out sooner.’
And finally…
So what’s the moral of the story? Read the room (or simply don’t ask!)
After hearing so many stories, one thing became crystal clear – when it comes to revealing your past, the key things to remember are:
1) Is this the right time?
2) Do they really need to know?
3) Can they handle it?
Some men might be genuinely open-minded and unbothered. Others might say they don’t care, only to turn into Sherlock Holmes the moment you step away from your phone. Some might never even ask – but that doesn’t mean you should volunteer the information over a round of tequila shots.
At the end of the day, your past experiences shape you, but they don’t define your present relationship. So if you ever get asked the question, remember: some numbers are best kept in the vault. Sure, you might like to visit that vault from time to time to remember the good times. But they were just that, your times, not your partner’s.
Or alternatively, you can simply own it and live as carelessly as Mae West, who once said, ‘I wrote the story myself. It’s about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it.’
