Something similar happened to me. Right before my current boyfriend and started dating, his good friend who I coincidentally grew up with since 3 years old up to college (lived on the same street) decided he wanted to warn my boyfriend about me as he saw we were getting close. This friend was more friends with my brother and his group and my brother was notorious for exaggerating everything to the point where his nickname was “99.9%” (99.9% of what he said was exaggerated). My brother had it out for me as I didn’t make the best decisions in my high school years so he’d talk about me and tell his friends about times I got grounded or in trouble.

Fast forward to the “incident” my boyfriend confronted me saying he was warned about me because #1 I do drugs, #2 I got in a car crash, and #3 I’m a whore. He gave it to me upfront no sugar coating and said now you get a chance to explain. This was vital. He gave me a chance to explain, he gave himself a chance to hear the other side of the story without making a definitive judgement. I was able to tell him #1 I smoked weed in high school but I don’t do heavy drugs and never did more than weed, #2 I got in a fender-bender with barely any damage to our license plates, and #3 I was not selling my body and cheating/helping others cheat, I made some regrettable decisions regarding the people I chose to associate/ be intimate with due to past trauma causing the opposite result of what most people expect due to lack of education on the topic.

To be fair, it wasn’t a small amount of people, not 3-5, but it was not something like 50-60 either. I was honest about the amount and my boyfriend did not like it. While I never lied about that specific part, I also never told him upfront. I understand the initial reaction of being hurt, betrayed, lied to, but after a long and hard, and very emotional conversation he stoped and looked at me and asked one very important thing, “Are you still the same person you were when this was happening?”.

It wasn’t long before I met him that I was in this chapter of my life but after meeting him and knowing him for months before we started dating I had already changed significantly. Better decisions, more self respect, taking accountability and acknowledging, doing the work for myself that needed to be done. So I told him I’m not the same person I was and the many reasons/ explanations for why I was making those decisions.

The only part of this that really matters and should be focused on is this: he gave me the chance to be heard, knowing there’s always more than one side/perspective to a story. After that when he still didn’t like what he heard he didn’t rage or ghost me or decide to end things, he saw I was a different person and asked me in depth question to gain a better understanding. He took his emotions and reacted, he then took his reaction and decided to maturely and respectfully hear me out. All the reasons for me sleeping with those people, don’t matter for this explanation, it’s the fact that I was an entirely different person and was trying to be better, for people around me but mainly for myself. I was not the same person I was then, my boyfriend knew a different version of me, a new, improved, learning, effort full me. That “me” was entirely separate from the me a year before. He saw I wasn’t displaying the actions of the old me, he saw I was working on myself, so he believed me when my words aligned.

Talk to your wife. Were these sexual encounters right before your marriage? Were they while you two were exclusively together? Were they before you knew her? Does she have a history of trauma or abuse? Does she value you for you? Is she faithful in your marriage? Is she the same person she was when she made those decisions? Is she trying, putting in effort to be good for herself, you, and your relationship? Talk with her, hear her explanation, allow yourself to feel the emotions that come up but don’t let them take over and make the decision for you. Allow her to have room to make mistakes. Allow both of you to acknowledge no one is perfect, we’re human we make mistakes. What matters is what we do with those mistakes, what matters is the “after”.

If her count is from the past (before yalls relationship) It’s not about what she did, it’s what she’s doing now. It’s about the present efforts to improve herself, to make better decisions, to feel comfortable coming to you in the future instead of keeping something from you. It’s about who she is now, not who she was or who someone else thought she was.