...to want to stay friends with an ex?

[Explorer]

In brief, an ex and I were together for eight years, and we split up five years ago. It was painful at first but we worked through the difficult times to become close and supportive friends. He's now married, with a baby. I'm really pleased for him - he always wanted to settle down. He's a brilliant devoted dad and it's lovely to see. The difficulty is that his wife has always felt so incredibly threatened by our friendship, and has put all sorts of conditions on it. She has barely ever even managed to be polite to me, she uninvited me from their wedding, she has stipulated that we are only "allowed" to see each other once a month (if that), and on the few occasions when I have visited their house she has never made me welcome (eating separately from us, making snide comments, turning the TV on loudly when we were talking, etc). I often end up feeling really upset after these visits - but the friendship matters to me and I guess it's worth sometimes feeling crap for.
Am I being unreasonable to hope that she would be able to trust him enough to see our friendship as just a friendship, nothing threatening, not something that she has to try to control or destroy? AIBU to hope that she would try to be friendly to me out of kindness to him? I realise that she feels jealous and insecure, but AIBU to think that she doesn't have to act out her feelings like a spoilt toddler?

Yet she posted in AIBU on Mumsnet.

YANBU.

The OP has stated that her ex made it clear to his now DW that the OP was a valued friend at the beginning, she accepted this as part of the original boundaries of the relationship. I suspect had DW refused to accept this then the marriage and subsequent child wouldn't have happened.

It's not something I'd have agreed to, and therefore would accept that this relationship wasn't right for me. Not agree to keep her man then renege her agreement at a later point, that is not fair on anyone.

A ring on your finger and a baby do not give you the right to change the goalposts on boundaries agreed to at the start of the relationship.

Damn right she should renege on the agreement - if that indeed is the agreement!!

This 'agreement' has NO boundaries whatsoever that safeguards the wife's rights in this marriage. In fact I would say she has good grounds for divorce.

I expect the wife, if indeed she was told the ex was non negotiable, put up with it as she loved him or thought it wouldn't be a problem. Maybe now she has seen them together she has changed her mind. Maybe he has said something and she thinks he wants to shag his ex again. Whatever the situation the husband and the ex are causing pain and upset to another person and it isn't fair.

really animation? noone has been unfaithful. the dh has rights too, the right to have whatever friends he wants without worrying about his wife sulking.

Ok Lady - and does your pattner do the same - see his ex, on a regular basis at various locations, for nice cosy chats?

What on earth?
What 'rights' are being compromised?
Certainly not the right to fidelity, the OP has explained this is really not an issue.

I will repeat. If the DW was not prepared to agree to the friendship when its importance was highlighted by the ex then she shouldn't have married him.

no, because the only ex he's stayed friends with lives a way, away. but he emails her etc. i dont have any sort of problem with it. he married me, not her!

Glitter: "A ring on your finger and a baby do not give you the right to change the goalposts on boundaries agreed to at the start of the relationship."

Talk about twisted priorities. I cannot for the life of me see how an implicit understanding on a friendship pre-marriage is so fundamental that the wife is now not allowed to change her mind. Maybe the scales fell from the wife's eyes and she finally saw the OP for what she was - shameless.

I just can't understand why he is insisting on seeing his ex when it is upsetting his wife so much.

How is the OP shameless? She's stated she doesn't desire the ex.

I have BEEN in this situation. An ex of mine had a strong friendship with his ex and made it explicit to me that it was non negotiable. Initially I agreed but as soon as I realised I couldn't continue to agree it ended, and you can't expect any other course of action. It makes you completely incompatible.

Getting a ring on your finger and having kids does not make your feelings more important than your husband's. Kids come first and then the married couple, as EQUALS.

Glitter the OPs ex is married now with a kid, a hell of a lot different from your situation.

i geunuinely dont see what she has done wrong. she went out with a bloke, it ended they stayed friends. his dw isnt happy about the friendship. boo hoo. its not her choice!

They weren't married with a child from the off. It's always been made clear that the OP is a consideration.

"But insecurity is just a feeling. It doesn't have to dictate what you do, or what you try to force your partner to do. IMO."

Explorer- this quote basically shows that you are dismissing his wife's feelings as "just a feeling".

To be honest, if my DH was off seeing his ex alone every 5 or 6 weeks despite the fact it upset me, I'd be looking at our future together. He is putting his ex before his wife's feelings. Back off and let it go. I'd bloody hate it if my DH's ex was so much in his life. You are being selfish, you're not just a female friend- he loved you and shagged you longer than he has been with his wife. If you were an ex wife and not an ex partner, would you still expect to visit him and see him despite his wife's upset?

Not the point they are married now, so he has a choice really dosen't he, he either comes to a compromise with his wife, or the family breaks up and all the legal kerfuffle tht goes with it, not to mention blowing a whole childs world apart.

I don't see any equality here, I see a husband slagging of his MRS to his ex, they collude behind her back like she is the side issue in the marriage, and he is probably doing exactly the same with regards to the op.

So it's totally different. Plus I think if op was honest she enjoys it.

the dw isn't happy about the friendship,boo hoo. it's not her choice!

Oh yes - she has a choice alright unless she's a door mat!! In fact if she set some boundaries of her own - she'd probably get more respect from him. No man respects a door mat.

No what she should do is tell him to fuck off and carry on with his ex if her feelings are more important.

Let them have their friendship, that's exactly what I'd do, they sound well matched, manipulative and controlling.

What fridgemonkey,TheLadyOfTheGreenKirtle and Glitterknickaz said.

To those of you who have taken this chance to embark on a classically MN hysterical witchhunt, making all sorts of uninformed, judgmental extrapolations, based only on your own insecurities and prejudices; you're fucking ridiculous.

OP, if you're still reading (which I doubt); you're somewhere in the middle of YABU and YANBU, but I reckon you got that message from the more sensible posts (hen's teeth come to mind). The pathetic flaming, and rude assumptions when you've been nothing but polite and reasonable, were unwarranted and immature, IMO. They just indicate the closed mindedness and insecurities of the posters.

They sound well matched manipulative and controlling because they want to continue a friendship after one of them has married?
How very dare they?!!!!

You know.... in the DW's shoes I might be of the same mind and really not like this friendship.

There would be one difference though, I'd not be a DW and I'd not have a child with this man.

I'd acknowledge that it is MY issue, and that a lack of trust combined with my feelings about this friendship means we're essentially incompatible.

It's not fair to anyone the way the DW is behaving, and I'm wondering how long the ex will take this, resentment can kill a marriage too and the DW is storing up a shedload in her H...

i'm still team wife. i v much doubt when she first met her dh and he explained about the op that he followed it up with 'yeh and in the future if you change your mind about being 'cool' about it then what i''ll do is completely ignore your feelings, despite having announced in public that i love and chreish you and forsake all other etc etc, then i'll whinge about you to my oh so special ''ex'' friend and gratuitously sit around whinging a bit more about the angst you are causing just because the op isnt getting her own way and for some reason cant move on with her life/get one'

Exactly *Glitterknackaz" - I didn't feel comfortable with my DP's friendship with his ex, mainly because she was prettier, cleverer and more successful than me.. But I wouldn't have dreamt of saying anything, because it's up to him who he's friends with, and their friendship pre-dated our relationship. Nor would I expect him to dictate whether I could be friends with my exes - I keep in touch with all my exes, to varying degrees of closeness, and DP has never raised an objection.

Your insecurities are your own issue - being married (I have been) doesn't give you licence to dump them on your spouse.

Does that still follow if the spouse still has feelings for the ex they want to see and vise versa?