Ex-etiquette: Handling tough questions about your past

Jann Blackstone, Tribune News Service on Jan 28, 2025

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Q. My breakup with my ex was messy, and I stayed away from dating for a couple of years. However, I’ve recently signed up on a dating app and I’ve started to date again. Unfortunately, the first question everyone wants to know is why did I break up with my ex. I don’t want to talk about it. He was abusive and almost killed me and he is now in prison. If I say I don’t want to talk about it, it looks like I’m trying to hide something. If I tell them why we broke up, then I’m the crazy one who got involved with him and I never hear from them again. What’s good ex-etiquette?

A. Really good question. I am not a proponent of dwelling on the past, but I can understand why someone you are dating might want to know what happened in your last relationship. However, telling the same story over and over can make you feel like a broken record.

I know I did and I decided to subscribe to my own Rules of Good Ex-Etiquette. Rule No. 8, “Be honest and straight forward,” prompted me to tell the new people I was meeting that I would prefer to talk about what we both aspire to now rather than to discuss the negatives of a past relationship. I explained that I had no trouble discussing the past and if we eventually decided to date on a regular basis, I would be glad to tell him my life story. But for now, my plan is that I just got finished with writing a book and have been sitting a lot so I would like to spend as much time as possible outside and moving.

That brought us to a conversation of what we liked to do — hiking, traveling, going to a concert and dancing, or maybe just watching a movie from home. That tactic seemed to work, and as a result, we found ourselves planning new things to do together. It made for more interesting conversation than what went wrong in our last relationships, and we got a glimpse of who we are now, not who we were then.

Granted, there is the attitude that if you don’t take the past into consideration you are bound to repeat it. Understandable, and as you get to know someone, it’s natural to want to share your past, and figure out if there are issues you don’t really want to take on.

But, for first dates, particularly online dates, it can get to the point where listening to another sad breakup story and telling one, as well, is a turnoff. You walk away thinking, “Wow, that was a mess,” instead of, “Wow, that was a fun conversation. I really want to see that person again.”

First dates are just the beginning and many of us would not handle past experiences the same way now as we did then. This means a discussion about the past can give you insight, but a discussion about what you learned from the past and how you would handle it differently now will tell you more.

So, my advice is to tell dates the truth but put some boundaries in place about how much information you want to volunteer at first. That’s good ex-etiquette.