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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To have said I'm not happy with the ex

34 replies

Peppperpiggg · 22/10/2021 12:12

My boyfriend has remained friendly with an ex because she helped him through an incredibly difficult time after they split. They were not very compatible as a couple and he's said that. They eventually split up and it was clearly unhappy in the end. Arguments over money. Phones and insecurities. One was outgoing. One was more quiet and wanted to be less around friends all the time.

They text. He is forever on about her or the past and he goes up and down. Sometimes he is very much she's history I'm done. Then the next week he's explaining why she's a good friend as she was there when nobody else was.

I was respectful until recently she's been spying on his Facebook and questioning him on how he knows certain females. I was mentioned when we first started dating and she expressed that she didn't trust women.

I've spoken to him a few times to say it feels like they haven't quite got to where they need to be emotionally with eachother.

He told me 2 weeks he hadn't heard from her in ages and claimed she was the past. Buy suddenly last night he mentioned her as being a friend again for some random reason. Then he told me the last he heard from her she was asking him how he knew a woman called Anne on his Facebook and she knew of her too. He deleted this woman this week after his ex had asked him.

This morning I told him I was struggling to feel comfortable about his bond with her and I knew it was me who needed to walk away as he's made it clear she's his friend and always will be. He said she was just a friend and I was insecure. Now he's really grumpy and off with me.

I feel like I've had enough of it really. He even said this morning she was too worried what people people think of her if she ever got back with him. It's all abit ridiculous.

He has really bad depression and now its made him a wreck in his head and I'm in the dog house. I don't think I want this anymore. She's not going anywhere and he is choosing to have an ex asking him about his now relationships and claiming She's so important to him because she helped. Therefore isn't he saying to me that I will never come first? Or am I being unreasonable?

OP posts:

Getyourarseofffthequattro · 22/10/2021 12:14

Omg run for the hills. He is putting her before you, and everyone else by the sounds of it. It's weird and you deserve better than this shit.

Bluntness100 · 22/10/2021 12:22

Why did you tell him you needed to walk away instead of just doing it? It sounds like you were trying to blackmail him into dumping her

If you don’t like his friendship with her, end it. But don’t threaten and try to manipulate.

KatherineofGaunt · 22/10/2021 12:32

How long have you been together?

I would leave him. Fine to be friendly with an ex, but they cannot be a friend that is constantly talked about and/or agonised over.

It sounds like he's not ready to move on with a new flattish.

Original poster

Peppperpiggg · 22/10/2021 12:34

I don't want to blackmail him. I want boundaries In place if I'm important to him. He can be her friend. But she needs to understand he's with me now. It's none of her business which women he speaks to or if he's dating someone else. But he also needs to be honest with himself and how he expects to have a jelous ex still around and make it work.

I've been very reasonable. In the year we've been talking I've been understanding and open minded. But the last 3 months since we've got really close she's just still there. I can't tell what he really feels. He's so up and down about what she did and why they didn't work. It's like he has these highs and lows about her. But when he said she was worried what people thought and he thinks that why she didn't want to get back together I think he was almost admitting he had wanted them to sort it at some point and she wanted to but felt her family would be disappointed and so she hasn't been able to find a way to be with him and chose to say it can't work. But she has emotions around him still. With him I think he's never gotten over her but resents she ended it. He struggles with it because I think he knows they were not right but there are these parts of her he will always like and miss.

Think they both need therapy.

I am finding it hard to give up as we've been really close the last year. But I'm fed up of it all now. I thought he'd eventually shake her off but she is here to stay. She has no intention of putting effort in with me so it's clear what it really is. I'd have been perfectly nice to her if she had wanted to be respectful to us. But she doesn't want me to have him..

OP posts:

CagneyNYPD1 · 22/10/2021 12:35

I'm really sorry to say that he is still caught up in the drama of this relationship with her. It is not all finished business and it hasn't been fully dealt with. I would dump him and move on.

MatildaTheCat · 22/10/2021 12:37

They are still in a relationship even if it’s not currently sexual. Just walk it all sounds like hard work even without this.

KatherineofGaunt · 22/10/2021 12:38

Flattish?! Relationship, I meant.

AnneLovesGilbert · 22/10/2021 12:39

How exhausting. Dump him. He’ll probably go back to her.

Original poster

Peppperpiggg · 22/10/2021 12:40

I know. He's really tried to convince me and we've had many ups and downs about her. But my guts just screaming at me. They are not the first couple to split after 8 years and it's usually part of the split that you move on and leave eachothers lives. I get there are different scenarios. just seems a mess and he's doing the worst job of making out she's this fantastic loyal friend. I've sat there and listened to his stories of her with 3 phones and making him feel like shit. The men that she was messaging. The fact she was always of with friends. Left him to rot. But he soon goes back to we had a nice split we have no reason to not be mates. Aghh

I feel like I need to burst into tears. I dream about her alot now too. It's just playing on my mind.

OP posts:

Bluntness100 · 22/10/2021 12:40

So you know you’re second best. You know he’d rather be with her. You know he won’t end their relationship. You know you do need to walk away. You know that threatening him to do so isn’t going to make him dump her, you know it’s not going to make him want to be with you more than her,

So either take it or walk away.

SunsetStyle · 22/10/2021 12:40

Boundaries are something that you do.
You can't set the boundaries for other people. So a boundary for you is, if he continues to be so close to his ex, you will end the relationship.
What you can't do is try to control the way they behave.
It is hard to get your head round to begin with, and it's quite reasonable to express that boundary outlined to your partner (once) just so that he knows.
But if you have discussed this and he knows that you are unhappy about it, buy continues anyway, it is time to end it.

aSofaNearYou · 22/10/2021 12:41

He's gaslighting you if he's maki g you think this is something you should be fine with and you are insecure.

Run a mile.

cheeselover2021 · 22/10/2021 12:42

I'd definitely be thinking of walking away from this one.

Whatever emotional bond they still have is affecting your relationship. Mainly because it doesn't feel like just good mates supporting each other. There's an underlying agenda, from either one fothem or both of them, especially as you mentioned she has no interest in getting to know you, which if they were just good mates wouldn't be a second thought.

Coronado2 · 22/10/2021 12:43

Sorry, she's worried what people will think of she gets back with him? He has a girlfriend! The fact that she said that to him then he told you makes me think it's only a matter of time before you're out and she's back in.

HollowTalk · 22/10/2021 12:48

I'd end this, OP. You can't live your life with all this going on in the background.

galacticpixels · 22/10/2021 12:49

It's possible to be friends with exes but there have to be boundaries and they appear to have zero! They don't sound like they've moved on from each other at all.

I would definitely walk away, this sounds exhausting and stressful.

WellLarDeDar · 22/10/2021 12:50

I agree their relationship is still ongoing, even if there's nothing sexual there. You should walk away I think for your own sanity!

Branleuse · 22/10/2021 12:55

Theyre still way too entangled for my liking. No need for you to be part of their weird mess

DowntonCrabby · 22/10/2021 12:58

Fuck this OP, he’s either not over her or just really enjoying the mentionitis to keep you on your toes in the relationship. Massive red flags, move on, you deserve better.

Skeumorph · 22/10/2021 13:00

Run, and tell him with a smile that until he sorts this one out, any decent new partner in the future also won't hang around for long.

Original poster

Peppperpiggg · 22/10/2021 16:12

I think I just am putting off the sadness I'll feel when he's not in my life anymore. It's weird because he makes me happy in lots of ways. But this is a part of who he is. I don't think I'll ever understand or know the whole truth. I'm allover the place with doubts. Like she likes him still. or he is still not over her and she's just managing him. Then I'm thinking maybe they both can't let go but there's always one or the other pushing or pulling. I mean he's in a relationship with me. He has moved on. But I don't know how much he's even watered me down to her. She actually complained his cousin hardly speaks to her anymore now. That cousin has got to know me a little and told me she was all me me me and was wrapped up in her career and friends leaving my man to be alone and feeling pretty rubbish which turned him to drink.
Even that shows she's not moving on. His cousin lives 2 hours away from us and she met her one. So it was online conversation and ofcourse his cousin is going to try and support him and his new start.

It seems like everyone else can see it but them. Her family don't want her near him anymore. Her friends etc anymore don't like him. He resents how much she put friends first and left him alone. He hates how she as she's very much allover social media and has phones for this and phones for that. Thousands of friends on Facebook. She got addicted to social media and it was all she cared about.

I just don't understand how something something so negative wasn't stopped properly when it ended.

It's like he took a table from their old house. It's got her name scraped into the tablet and hearts with her initials. Her photos are still in frames on the floor now as I asked him to take them off the walls when we met if he wanted me in his bed. He has got all their photos on Facebook still. Even the garden he did for her that is no longer his. Their old animals and cars. The banter they shared is allover it still. Pictures she tagged him in with flowers he got her. Jewellery he got her. Then she's got all their old profile photos open still. Kissing him etc. It's just feeling like a massive wake up call.

I don't think he means to do it. I know he loves me. But he's being selfish really thinking I should just accept his ex still prodding him and being hurt by his choices. I think he's going to struggle to find anyone that doesn't mind her being in the room with them. I've never even met her and I know so much about her. Dreading the day we walk past eachother.

OP posts:

ChargingBuck · 22/10/2021 16:19

Your b/f sounds very tiresome OP, & you are already suffering from jealousy-by-proxy from his ex.

Also, he's hung up on a woman who dislikes & doesn't trust other women. All of 'em! I wouldn't want to be chums with a man who liked that trait in a woman, let alone sexually involved.

Do yourself a favour & ditch the pair of them - yup, the pair of them, as you seem to be inadvertently dating a couple, & neither of them sound much cop.

ChargingBuck · 22/10/2021 16:22

By blowing hot & cold like this, your b/f is playing you, & enjoying seeing you dance the Pick-Me Dance.
www.chumplady.com/2012/04/the-humiliating-dance-of-pick-me/

Stop dancing, & dump his entitled arse, this is all far too much hard work.

ChargingBuck · 22/10/2021 16:26

@Coronado2

Glad I'm not alone in spotting that deliberate goading Coronado. Nastily manipulative, innit?

OP - I can't see why you are wasting another minute on Mr Dog With Two Bones. He is relishing making you sweat - I hope you can see this now.

Anonymous48 · 22/10/2021 16:35

Sounds like he's not ready to be in another relationship, and unfortunately you have gotten caught in the middle. I think you need to end it. It will be hard now, but even harder later.

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