Handling Old Flames in Couple's Intimacy

What makes couple's intimacy special is making your partner number one emotionally in your life—and keeping it that way.

Easier said than carried out. Especially when old flames compete for your heart’s allegiance.

Most people have tried their hand at couple’s bonding. Most have failed their first time out of the chute and have a broken heart to show for it. The upshot? We develop relational histories with past boyfriends or girlfriends we’ve known; sometimes former spouses with whom we have parted company.

The thing is, old flames are hardwired into the brain’s RNA memory coding. Even after going separate ways, old flames remain emotionally significant. They can suddenly appear in daydreams, night dreams, or associations to a song you hear or a photo you see. You might pine for them, hate them, or wish you two had never met, but short of a lobotomy, their memory lingers.

That’s okay. The best way to get on with life after heartbreak is to build a new collection of memories and adventures with your new companion.

So how do you handle it when something reminds you of your old flame? Let’s look at three ways that this can happen.

1) First there’s the old flame you must keep seeing in the person of a former spouse with whom you maintain a co-parenting relationship for the sake of the children. I believe it’s wise to work and pray for conflict resolution and the cessation of hostilities: to make peace and treat the ex-spouse with fairness and civility. Many couples don’t go this route, one or both preferring the heady sensations of righteous indignation and/or character assassination. They pay the price of a festering bitterness that is guaranteed to infect the new relationship and the children’s personalities.

I’m sure you know couples that perpetuate this Chinese water-torture game. I suggest you not follow suit.

2) Then there are the daydreams and fantasies you might have about an old flame in terms of the good times once shared. This is normal, especially when you take into account that your unconscious never quite grasps whom you once loved, or whom you are committed to now. The unconscious sends fragmented thoughts and images into the conscious mind the way nature send birds flitting through trees.

These thoughts about an old flame are like magpies. If you don’t chase them out of the tree of consciousness, they’ll nest there and pester you daily.

Nesting magpies can drive you crazy. A man who left his wife and two children to marry the sexually hot woman he worked with later had second thoughts. He kept thinking about the sex he and his former wife used to have. Finally, he paid her several visits and actually talked her into sex on two occasions. But when the ex-wife realized he wasn’t coming back, she called the new girlfriend and told all. In the end, both women dumped the man. He had entered mortal combat and lost.

I suggest that you gather up the memorabilia from any former flame and toss it into the trash. It will only incur bittersweet memories at best and jaundiced fantasies at worst. In matters of the heart, emotional and physical fidelity to the person you live with are challenging enough, without throwing a magpie into the mix.

3) And finally, the reality that baffles many couples is a psychological phenomenon called projection. From time to time you will project an experience based on your history with your old flame into a current experience with your partner.

Dave was cleaning out the garage. Nicole’s voice sang out from the kitchen that the orange-glazed duck she prepared as a romantic treat was almost ready. Only she didn’t convey all that. She simply called, “Dave, dinner’s almost done,” to alert him.

Enter Dave’s previous wife into his unconscious. In the last year of their mortal combat before Dave and Sarah divorced, Sarah had a nasty habit of yelling, “Dave, get your butt in here before dinner gets cold!”

Now Dave hears his new wife calling, but can’t make out her words because he is in the garage. His unconscious mistakes Nicole’s gracious invitation to dinner for Sarah’s sarcastic cattle call.

Throwing down the tool in his hand, he rushes into the kitchen, and says sternly to Nicole: “Don’t you ever yell at me like that again!”

Nicole stands frozen with a plate of Duck L’Orange and steamed vegetables that she’s about to place on a candlelit table. Instead, she whirls around, dumps the plate into the sink, and streaks out of the kitchen weeping.

It’ll take some sincere exchanges to straighten out this mess, but if Dave and Nicole are learning how unconscious projection works, and how real it is, they will eventually make mutual amends and reduce the chances of such future distortions. 

For more on couple's intimacy, read:

STAYING IN LOVE:

DR. DAN & SIGGY'S GUIDE TO COUPLES INTIMACY