PLEASE HELP My Girlfriend Use to be a stripper and Now she is the best woman

After my girlfriend and I got together, she told me she use to be a stripper.
At the time i wasnt taking her that serious, so to be honest it was horrible but i didnt really care. Aside from stripping, i believe she slept with a lot of men. Of course i found this terrible but again, i thought she would be someone just to waist my time with. All her life (until recently) she has been very insecure, seeking and needing valation from men and people for her outer appearance. It is apparent that she never had a sense of selfworth after some of the trauma in her life. Her father left her was she was a kid and since, she lived in a disfunctional home with family. She was molested once before in her life but remembers very little of the incident or has suppressed it (which is why i dont understand why she became hyper sexual instead or not wanting to engage at all). She would jump into a relationship/hook up, then into another. Few relationships normal and others very sickening/abormal causing her depression and PTSD. She was a horrible person, the type of person perhaps no man would ever want to marry, everything she did was a matter of choice... However she has drastically changed! She is a completely different person, the type of woman any man would love to marry. I want to marry her but I have a huge issue that is ripping me apart. The better she becomes, I fall more in love with who she is today. Also the better she becomes, the more i see the disgust of the person she use to be and who i use to date. Throughout the day, i have panic attacks thinking of her gross past (the stripping, sexual hypersexualization, sexual relationships, probably even prostitution) Thinking about everything she did and stood for. I have so many questions in my head that will never be answered. I have entered into a depression because I WANT TO MARRY THE GIRL, she is so perfect but her face and presence is a reminder of what i hate more than anything in life. I am afraid i will have these thoughts on my mind for as long as i live. I dont know how to remove these thoughts, images and memories of her out of my head. I have severe PTSD and depression. I dont want to live life like this! And i dont want to live life like this with her but i also can not stand the thought of not being with her. Help me, i am so very desperate.

Hello peaceseeker16: This appears to be your first post. So... welcome to PsychCentral… from the Skeezyks! I hope you find the time you spend here to be of benefit.

With regard to your predicament, I'm afraid that, from my perspective, there simply is no way to remove the thoughts, images & memories with which you are struggling. And the more you try to ignore them, stuff them down, or destroy them, the stronger & more persistent they are likely to become.

The reality here is that your gf was the person she was. And she now is the person she is. If you are going to have a chance of making a life with her, you are going to have to find a way to accept both of those personas & reconcile them in your own mind. (If you find that you simply cannot, then the best option is probably to end the relationship sooner rather than later, before things become any more complicated than they already are.) The typical way people approach these sorts of dilemmas is via counseling or therapy... individual counseling / therapy for yourself... & perhaps couples counseling for the two of you at some point, if your gf is willing.

Although I am an older male, your gf & I have something in common. When I was young I was also a person many... perhaps even most people would find to be completely disreputable. (I'll spare you the details.) Over the years I "evolved" you might say. I'm still not someone anyone would point to as a role model. But I'm also no longer the disreputable cur I was either.

In my case, the person I was, way back then, still affects the person I am now. And so I wonder if, & to what extent, the person your gf was affects who she is today or will come to affect her in the future... even if she does not talk about it. (I never speak about this myself. It's simply something I carry around inside, although I'm sure it has a major impact on how I live my life today.) This is something you also may want to take into consideration as you contemplate trying to build a long-term relationship with this lady.

PsychCentral is a great place to get information as well as support for mental health issues. There are many knowledgeable & caring members here. The more you post, & reply to other members’ posts, the more a part of the community you will become. Plus there are social groups you can join & chat rooms where you’ll be able to connect with other PC members in real time (once your first 5 posts have been reviewed & approved.) Lots of great stuff! So please keep posting!

You used the word hate when taking about her face and her presence. That's not going to be easy to reconcile. Definitely counseling if you want to try and make it work. Hopefully your hatred isn't coming through to her.

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I think you should see a mental health specialist if you are going to stay with her. You need to reconcile who she was with who she is now and forgive her for her past. You could use some professional help with that.

Like you said she has changed.

Love her for who she is, not what she was. The past is the past and we all have things in our past that we would like to forget. Be happy that she improved herself so much.

Either find a way to deal with her past, not to sound harsh, by trying to just let go or talking to a therapist with or without her, or move on. If you can't get past it, things will get even worse for you and her if you stick around.

You have a lot of judgment toward her being a stripper and promiscuous in her past. A lot of people don't feel there's anything wrong with that, especially when she told you that trauma caused her low self esteem and she's grown.

You say she was probably a prostitute. Are you just judging and condemning her by assuming that? Did she say she took money for sex?

If I were her I would want to find someone to be in a relationship with who didn't think I was a reminder of 'what they hate more than anything in life'. Nobody wants to be with someone who thinks they are superior to you.

Thank you for your response. And the options you have stated for me.. Are the realistic options of course they are all difficult. The thing is... I really do believe she doesn't remember ot choses not to remember or not live in the habits of yesterday. I think and am afraid that i won't be able to remove these thoughts... My mind is a very strong one. I wish i could just remove it all or met her in recent times.

Thanks.

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Its not hating her face or presence.... I admire the person she is today. Its just sometimes, i guess i am triggered by a scent, a view, a thought, something inappropriate not pertaining to her at all. But just the fact that it's inappropriate... I relate it back to the old and bad her.
Yes... It may be difficult... Very extremely

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Your absolutely right... We have all done things we regret. I am not an Angel myself, however, i feel that most people commit the same errors... Bad mistakes that inexcusable but still bad... Stripping is not bad, its not a normal mistake... Its the worst and most degrading thing any women could have ever done...
I know because of my conservative background, this may be x10 worse for me than maybe any other man.

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Thank you for your response. Like I said above, perhaps because I have a very conservative background and come from a conservative family. To me this maybe 10 times worse than it can be to any other man. In my eyes, it is the most degrading and vile thing anyone could ever do. This is no normal mistake, this is not normal at all. Even too many liberal people that I meet, this is the worst.

No she has never said that she has had sex for money however, she did have a relationship with a man twice almost 3 times her age whom she said thought she was in love with... From a guys perspective it is obvious that this man completely used and abused her. He gave her shelter and food just to get "one" thing in return, play... In fact this man traumatized her because of the things he used to do to her. It's very apparent that she stayed in the relationship for a while because of the shelter and food that was provided.

You're absolutely right when you say this and I feel completely guilty. I do not wish to be a reminder to her of her past. Nor do I want her to be a reminder to me of her past. I wish none of this was true or existed in my mind or thoughts. But it is completely constant and I'm trying to remove this from my heart and mind. It's difficult because I love her, she is the love of my life. I really wish that I just would have never known any of this about her. I don't know how to remove this or cleanse myself of this at all. She makes me happy and I make her happy, we truly do completing each other... But I still can't get past these thoughts...

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The problem is that we can't speak about her past anymore because she's moved on from it and is now on a great spiritual journey. And because of this I am forbidden to share any information of her or of her past. This is why it is so difficult for me to move past this as well. I just have so many thoughts in so many questions that I can't even answer.

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She's trying her best to help me in anyway that she can but the truth is that I don't want her to because she's doing so excellent and everything she's doing, and I don't want to bring her down. But I know that I am unintentionally hurting her because she's uncertain of our relationship, due to the fact that I am having many issues right now. I am trying my best to work things out in my head and get cleansed...

I tell her to focus on the positive in life and not to worry about this terrible dilemma.
I don't know if there's anything that she can do to help me, especially since her and I cannot talk about the past...
I don't know what else she can do to try to make the situation better. I personally feel that the more people know about what's going on and about her past, the worse it gets for me. This is why I don't feel like seeing a therapist would help.. I would have to bring up everything about her.

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She was only doing what she needed to do to survive. There are plenty of worse, more degrading things a woman can do. So she danced naked for a bunch of horny A holes throwing dollars at her... So she lived with a dirty old man to have food and a roof over her head... She's a survivor and deserves to be given a break.

It sounds like she dealt with her trauma in a way that you are unable to understand. No matter what background you come from, there is no reason to judge her so harshly for her having to do what it took for her to survive her pain. What she did in the past, who she was in the past, is not who she is now. It sounds like she is moving on from what has happened to her, and so should you. Put aside your assumptions, your judgments, and your obsessions with her past that she is able to leave behind but you cannot. Love her for who she is now. Go to therapy if you must, find a friend to talk it out, meditate, something! And if you cannot do that, then the answer for this is very clear.

It sounds like you just don't understand why she did the things she did. You may not believe it, but many people don't feel stripping is degrading at all. You don't understand why she would, you don't understand what it's like to have to. To be blunt... it's pretty clear you don't understand her. At all.

Couples counseling is the only way I could see your relationship working out. You two seem to come from very different backgrounds. As someone who has known people with her background, and someone who has witnessed firsthand why a woman would choose (choice is important in whether it's "degrading" or not) to strip, and has struggled themselves in a similar way... I can't see this working out unless you learn to understand her past and to get over your judgment. From what I've read the problem isn't her past. The problem is your perception of her past.