..to be upset that DP shares custody of his teddy bear with his ex?

[BearProblems]

DP and I have been together 2 and a half years. We live together and have a DC. A few months before we got together, DP had split with his ex, who he'd been with for over a decade. Their split was amicable but they've hardly had any contact since. She seems to be a perfectly nice person. They have no DCs.

When DP moved in, over a year ago, his ex came to my house to collect Bear who was going "on holiday" with her. DP hadn't warned me this was happening, and I was just expecting her to drop some of DP's stuff off. DP did the handing over but it was all unbearably awkward. DP hadn't told her that he was moving in with me (we have known each other vaguely for years) so she couldn't have been expecting the new girlfriend to be a witness to this nonsense. He didn't tell her because he was hardly in touch with her and was (like a total coward) hoping someone else would tell her so he wouldn't have to. Anyway, I thought that was the end of it and she would be too embarrassed to ask for Bear again.

Today DP and I went out for a nice lunch together and, over the pudding, he mentioned, very awkwardly, that he was going out this evening... taking Bear, who is off on his Christmas holidays. He will drop Bear off with ex before meeting friends to play darts. He'll be gone a couple of hours in all.

I am 100% certain there is nothing going on with DP and his ex (or anyone else for that matter) but this has made me feel incredibly weird and uncomfortable and actually a bit insecure.

He made this arrangement with his ex and didn't tell me until a few hours before the arranged drop off. I know full well the reason he didn't tell me was because he was embarrassed about it (and rightly so!) but still, it seems disloyal to arrange things with an ex and not tell me.

And then there's the fact that it's so fucking weird! I can see, when she asked if she could have Bear for Christmas, he felt he couldn't object without seeming mean and petty or making me out to be some suspicious psycho (he knows I wasn't totally happy about the last time). He's a bit of a coward who hates conflict but also a kind man who doesn't want to hurt anyone unnecessarily.

I don't know what bothers me about it so much. I had been planning to get Bear a Christmas stocking - lucky I'm not sufficiently organised to have done anything about it yet. (I think this sort of stupid infantilism about DP's bear is fine within the confines of a romantic relationship but outside of one, it's just a bit creepy).

Sorry this is so long. It's so bloody ludicrous it was hardly worth writing let alone reading!

PFBear, this is the funniest thing I've ever read...Seriously, my 6 year old son knitted a scarf for his cuddly bunny and I thought that was somewhat unnecessary! A stocking for a teddy???

I don't understand but this is the best thing I've read in ages

Does anyone remember the thread started by the MNer whose DH spent ages in the bathroom and it transpired that he dried all his body hair with a hairdryer because when he was a child his dad dried him with a dryer and he liked it? Similarly weird.

I could (possibly) understand keeping a childhood bear, but not a teenage one.

Stop knitting for the bear, OP, you're perpetuating the weird.

I don't know. Now I have thought about this a bit more. It's not that different from elf on the shelf . . .

The most troubling bit for me, is the fact it has "regular bear clothes". The fuck?

Fucking hell you all need help.

But especially ex gf - does she have ZERO dignity ??

Who picks up a toy bear from an ex's house for a holiday?? The woman is barking and seriously needs help

This is very weird but also very sad. I can't imagine anyone I know finding themselves in this situation.

You take the bear to the football...?

A 40 yo man takes his bear to the football?

And you found this attractive enough to have a child with him?

Gosh

I don't understand this at all. A bear? What are you talking about?

Wonder what the response to a thread would be that said "I had a teddy 20 off years and DP thought it was weird so he burnt it and told me its because I'm ridiculous and he can't love me any other way"

Deadsouls brown furry thing, filled with stuffing, sporting clean pj's

My boyfriend bought me a teddy bear when I was 18, but when we split up it sat in my room for a bit and then I gave it to a five-year-old relative, because, you know, I'm an adult who doesn't use a naff gift from a relationship I had when I was a teenager into a weird comfort blanket

Nailed it. An ex bought me a teddy gift when I was 23. It went to a young relative not long after the relationship ended.

Heck, I bought myself a cuddly toy from the Harry Potter shop and ended up giving it to a child who asked for it, because I felt like to refuse a child a cuddly I wanted for myself when I was over 30 was madness.

Why is he so invested in this not just as a keepsake but has attributed human feeling to it.

At least the pj's are clean

I was on my way for an early night and then I clicked on this thread... over an hour later and worth every yawn tomorrow!

I am agog that a thread it batshit enough that even TWC doesn't derail it.
This is a level of fuckwhatery ne'er witnessed on mn for years!

What the actual fuck? OP, if I were you I would have been using the time it took to draft that post and all the updates to pack my stuff. Your OH sounds like a nut.

• Although calling the toy 'Bear' so readily and planning on making it a stocking suggests you may not be far off the same.

I am embarrassed by this thread

Is this his pfb no seriously , what the actual fucking fuck?!! Not only is he an adult that dresses and thinks up imaginary scenarios for fluff wrapped in faux fur he managed to find 2, 2!!! Grown women who have bought into the whole bizarre thing too. I don't use this phrase ever but "I just can't even"

I feel,disproportionate levels of anger towards all three of you for being such massive douchetrucks.

I'd love to know what ex ex girlfriend - the one who created the madness - would make of it all, if she knew that 20 years down the line, her successor and her successor's successor were taking the object on holidays, knitting it scarves - and feeling genuinely threatened by bear's personal relationships.

I can just about believe this, I know of a woman who booted her teenager out so she could turn her bedroom into a nursery for her reborn dolls.

OP, stick it in the wash and while it's still wet go at it with the kitchen scissors and tell your DP you just wanted to give DBear a bath but he came apart in the machine. Honestly, it never ceases to amaze me the weird dysfunction people put up with in their partners.

Look, if he's 20, it's time your step bear left home anyway.
Give him back to the ex, buy a new one for your DH and you two can still have your beary shizz without Glenn Close knocking for visitation.

"Yes, I have been sucked into the Bear nonsense, but I think that's relatively normal within a relationship."
Normal? Well that's a redefinition of the word. No, it is not normal. He is FORTY YEARS OLD and the bear was a present from a girlfriend when he was EIGHTEEN not eight.

I had some toy dogs given to my by a boyfriend when I was sixteen, we split when I was eighteen. What happened to the toy dogs? I think I gave them to a younger cousin, but I'm not sure. I know they went pretty quickly after we split. I never loved the dogs. They were polyester which, correct me if I'm wrong, is not alive.

I am not laughing at your DP, I really am not. There is nothing funny about this to me. It is all sad and worrying and abnormal and I think your DP (and you) need to consider what the fuck this bear actually is to him (and you) and what it represents because there is some seriously emotionally stunted fucked up shit going round in the heads of the supposed adults involved.

I think it's pretty obvious that the original ex cursed the bear, so that it would ever be a source of conflict between the DP and any subsequent partners. That bear's not as innocent as it looks.

I also think you need to talk about Kevin.

I wonder..... if any of the twatty gifts that I gave to my teen boyfriends are still knocking about?? Perhaps the Beeny baby I gave to my first boyfriend is someone else's step-step-beeny baby? Ahhh a girl can dream!