Yeah, that's annoying and somewhat pathetic.
He's doing it because he's afraid of being hurt by you, too. Consciously or not, his constant reminders are a way of trying to prevent you from adding more wounds to his tender battered heart. He might be waiting for you to promise you won't hurt him like the other women did. But that's not how love works, and that's not a promise you can make.
Few people set out to hurt others purposely. Relationships fizzle or go awry and couples break up because they should. It hurts both parties, but some of us handle it better than others. If you two end up splitting, it will hurt him because he's sensitive, and there's little you can do about that. You can't stay with someone you don't love anymore simply because you are worried about breaking his heart. His heart is his problem, and it's time he grew up a little.
Are you concerned that he's still hung up on these old flames? I don't see that. I think he's all about preventing further heartbreak with you, and he only brings up exes as examples of what he doesn't want to happen again. But unless you two stay together forever, it's going to happen again. That's the price of love; if it didn't hurt when it ends, it wouldn't be worth pursuing in the first place.
If you want him to stop, then ask him to stop. Tell him that you're sorry he was hurt, but you don't really enjoy hearing about his exes. If he's worried about you hurting him, you can assure him that would never purposely set out to do that, and you enjoy being with him right now and don't see that changing anytime soon. BUT... you cannot see the future, and you can't promise you two will be together forever--no one can. The day might come when you break up, and it will hurt both of you. You can handle that when it happens. Right now he needs to focus on what you two have and make the most of it, not worry about exes or "what-ifs?" or his fragile heart.
He's missing out on today by worrying about tomorrow. He's missing out on you.
That last sentence is great---sums it up perfectly.
I had an ex that sang that lame ass song. Turned out that he was setting me up. I was young and tried extra hard to do everything so as not to hurt him. He was the one that eventually brought the pain big time.
In meeting some of his exes later, it was the same story with them. He whined about being abused in the past, they bent themselves into pretzels to please him.
We all ended up being the 'abusers' in his tale of woe after he sucker punched us. On the positive side, my skepticism meter became finely tuned.
Same, only in my guy's case it was more like pre-emptive guilt. He complained about everything his ex-girlfriend ever did and made me swear to "never be like her." And if I did? Well, he was suicidal once, and there was no promise he wouldn't be again. I began to see that he was using his suicide as a manipulation tool. But I couldn't tell him that, because that was something his bitch ex used to say. A vicious cycle, and yes, he was the one who dumped me.
Basically, I was dating this guy:
http://www.cracked.com/video_16127_im-gonna-cut-myself-aka-every-emo-song-ever.html
(but not really, because that is Michael Swaim and I have never been that lucky)
I had an ex that sang that lame ass song. Turned out that he was setting me up. I was young and tried extra hard to do everything so as not to hurt him. He was the one that eventually brought the pain big time.
In meeting some of his exes later, it was the same story with them. He whined about being abused in the past, they bent themselves into pretzels to please him.
We all ended up being the 'abusers' in his tale of woe after he sucker punched us. On the positive side, my skepticism meter became finely tuned.