“I met a guy, I fell in love and I married him. It ended badly and I don’t like to go back there. I was a different person and I am with you now. And there are things I could have told you, could tell you, that could make it easier but I don’t want to go back there, that is why I don’t talk about it.”

Is ignorance really bliss? As a teenager, I always thought I would want to know everything about my boyfriend’s past relationships. I would want to know what he called his ex, what they did together and how intimate they were. My mom asked why I would want to know.

Sometimes I think that way too. Why would I want to know all that when he is now mine and all the adventures would be with me? All the memories would be of me.

I mean, I don’t even remember what “adventures” took place before I met the love of my life, Eli. I do however remember the feeling of being taken for granted and feeling like I wasn’t that “special” person, feeling like I would be better off as a friend rather than a “girlfriend”. And with these “memories”, I bring positivity into my relationship.

Because I know what it is like to give everything, to make time for the person, give the person importance and then get smacked down and made to feel insignificant. And I never want the person I love to feel that way.

Watching the latest episode of Private Practice where Cooper is mad at Charlotte for keeping her previous marriage a secret for so long, Charlotte tells him that she never mentioned it because she never wanted to go back there. It was a painful time for her and she has now moved on. She met and fell in love with Cooper, building new memories and that is her life now.

While I cannot agree completely with Charlotte keeping her failed marriage a secret from her partner after all the time they’ve had together, I now better understand why certain things are better left unsaid.

For the partner – in this case, Cooper – once he learns about something, he cannot unlearn it. He feels the anger towards her for having kept it a secret. On top of that anger, he feels the hurt for never being able to have that experience with her as both their first-times. In this story, Cooper is upset that Charlotte did not want a big white wedding with him because she already had that big white wedding with her previous partner. The second big white wedding will never ever be the first. The memory of the first is still going to haunt the second one, no matter how “perfect” the second one is. Like how your current partner treats you now, if any of it reminds you of how your previous partner treated you, alarm bells start to ring and you may want to bolt.

For the person who kept the secret – Charlotte – it is a painful experience, an unpleasant one that she perhaps regrets and has taken a long time to recover from. She has learnt and grown from that experience, bagged it and never thought about it again. She probably never thought about mentioning it to Cooper because it will not add value to their relationship and also rakes up old wounds, which would hurt both her and Cooper.

I get it now. Because once you learn something you can never unlearn it. Once you’ve seen something, that memory will forever be etched in your mind even if you do not think about it or consciously block it out of your mind. That piece of information may jolt you up from a good night’s sleep, run through your mind all day and worst of all, haunt your present… Your current relationship.

I am all for honesty in a relationship. Eli and I have such a great relationship because we started from a very open and honest platform. From the first date, we were upfront about the values we hold and what is important as individuals and as a couple.

There are some things that we may have done which we regret. We have sincerely repented for them. So why should we allow the mistake from the past ruin the present, and possibly a more positive future?

“I was a different person and I am with you now.”

And that is the most important.