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Original poster

Going for lunch with ex... but secret?!

99 replies

bellsandwhistles333 · 17/07/2023 11:46

Hear me out, I'm not massively ok with this and nothing has been agreed but I could do with opinions.

Current situation I have been with DP 10 years married for 1 and a 5 year old son.

Ex has been with his partner for 5 years married for 1 and has a 2 year old daughter.

Now my ex and I were together for about 14months.... 12 years ago. One of those situations were I was obsessed with him but he wasn't really there.... I got over it and he got interested but I wasn't really there then finally we were both in the same page for just over a year but we were very incompatible and decided we were better friends! We remained friends happily with zero lines crossed for 1.5 years before I met my now husband, I was clear we were friends and although he wasn't keen we stayed in touch but ex moved 4/5 hours away so we just kept in touch online.

It fizzled out as things do but when I had my son he sent a lovely message and was in the area with his new girlfriend and wanted to pop in with a gift I happily agreed and they came over for an hour or so. After they left he got in touch and said although she thought I was nice she wasn't massively happily with the idea of exs being friends to this level and he felt bad etc.

We barely spoke again in 5 years, I saw on social media he had a little girl and I sent a message asking for his address to send a gift which I did ( gift for baby and a candle and chocs for mum)

Now to present day.... he got in touch last week to say he is in my city for a work event for 2 days and wants to know if I'll go for dinner and drinks, Without thinking I happily agreed and told my husband again he wasn't thrilled but understands and we have a good relationship. However he's now mentioned he won't he telling his wife as she wouldn't be happy....

Do I go in secret or do I decline on the basis she has to know? I

OP posts:
Tresto · 17/07/2023 14:15

You have barely spoken to him for five years. You dated for a short time. You were incompatible because at one point he wasn’t ready (commitment issue maybe?).

You can’t know him that well and what you do know about him isn’t making him sound great. He is prepared to sneak around behind his wife’s back. He knows she wouldn’t be happy and presumably thinks he has the right to deny her agency and not allow her to impose her boundaries. He’s a wrong un.

Not a friend that I would want in my life when I’m married with kids. Sneaking round like a teenager hiding from the parents (his wife). Okay as a teen/20 year old but fuck that shit as a grown up. I wouldn’t be involved in the drama for an ex you barely know!

Whataretheodds · 17/07/2023 14:19

If his wife would be uncomfortable with you meeting up, the correct response from him would be to cancel the plan, not hide it from her.

Don't collude in his deception. You don't know where it will end.

Jongleterre · 17/07/2023 14:22

Say you go and it's all perfectly platonic but you get home and your husband now has a seed of doubt planted in his mind.

Why try and fuck up your relationship just to stroke your ego that the ex still likes you?

ISpyNoPlumPie · 17/07/2023 14:24

Forgetting that you are married, I wouldn't be friends with someone who treated me or the person they love like this. I'm not a dirty secret or an illicit bit of fun for someone. Any why would he lie and go behind his wife's back like that? He's trash, move on. This is why most people don't remain friends with their exes. It's in the past, you're not friends.

Considering that you actually are married, I find it strange that you want to go even though your husband is not keen. You clearly enjoy the excitement and drama. Sure, I get it! We all like to feel young and attractive, but doesn't your husband mean more to you than that?

DramatisPersonae · 17/07/2023 14:27

Jongleterre · 17/07/2023 14:22

Say you go and it's all perfectly platonic but you get home and your husband now has a seed of doubt planted in his mind.

Why try and fuck up your relationship just to stroke your ego that the ex still likes you?

Or alternatively, why allow your husband to dictate which friends you see? I couldn't be married to someone who felt he got some kind of casting vote in my friendships. Fortunately, DH feels similarly, and we've been not falling into bed with other people for the best part of 30 years.

ChiPawPrint · 17/07/2023 14:28

DramatisPersonae · 17/07/2023 14:09

I'd go without thinking twice. I certainly wouldn't have been asking permission from my husband, either. A couple of close friends are (from the distant past) exes, and although we live in different countries these days, we'll always see one another for dinner or a drink if we're visiting, and keep in text/occasional phone contact. Anyone in my life needs to deal with the fact that I slept with these men about a million years ago, and that, if anything, it now feels mildly comic.

Your ex is responsible for how he deals with honesty and disclosures in his own relationship.

It's not about permission, it about having respect for your partner and their feelings. Meeting up with an ex for essentially what is a date, is wholly inappropriate for someone who's married.

Blossomtoes · 17/07/2023 14:29

DramatisPersonae · 17/07/2023 14:27

Or alternatively, why allow your husband to dictate which friends you see? I couldn't be married to someone who felt he got some kind of casting vote in my friendships. Fortunately, DH feels similarly, and we've been not falling into bed with other people for the best part of 30 years.

Show quote history

This.

MardiMoo · 17/07/2023 14:30

@bellsandwhistles333 - ‘without thinking, I agreed to meet him’ (an ex who who used to have sex with and who you were ‘obsessed with’.

total zero f’s given attitude by you. If I were your husband that is what I would be upset about (for now). Until your ex invariably ends up inside you again in the next few months. And then of course, game over if your husband finds out.

WildUnchartedWaters · 17/07/2023 14:30

I think its bizarre you sent a gift to him after 14 years, in fact.tje whole thing is odd.

I'd leave it be.

aSofaNearYou · 17/07/2023 14:33

@DramatisPersonae it's nothing to do with permission or casting votes, I just care more about my DP not feeling uncomfortable than I do about rekindling a friendship that was never all that close and has been dead for years with an ex. I would feel differently if said ex and I had been in an established, platonic friendship that predated my relationship.

ThirtyPercentRecycled · 17/07/2023 14:38

Your husband isn’t thrilled, he isn’t telling his wife. Why on earth would you go?

GoodChat · 17/07/2023 14:38

Jongleterre · 17/07/2023 14:22

Say you go and it's all perfectly platonic but you get home and your husband now has a seed of doubt planted in his mind.

Why try and fuck up your relationship just to stroke your ego that the ex still likes you?

To be fair, if her husband manifests anything in his head, that's entirely on him.

ModestMoon · 17/07/2023 14:39

I think dinner with ex is fine, but only if his wife knows about it.

The people saying why be friends with an ex - this doesn't make sense to me. People don't exist to fulfil neat little roles in our lives. If you like someone enough to date, then it makes sense that you would like them enough to be friends also. Surely it's weirder to wash your hands of someone the second you're not dating, unless things end badly. It seems to me that the real reason is that people are worried they'll like their ex too much. But again, if one dinner is enough to make you want to leave your husband for your ex, I think that you should not be with your husband. The same for a partner - I don't want to be in a committed, life long relationship with someone who is one dinner away from falling in love with an ex. If that is what would happen, I'd rather him just go to the dinner and find out.

Obimumkinobi · 17/07/2023 14:41

I've had more significant relationships with hairdressers! You're not Ross and Rachel and whatever it is you think you've got with this man, it's not enough to upset/undermine both your partners. Why can't you just say "no thanks" and move on? It will make zero difference to your real life (although your daydreams may be less thrilling for a while).

ChocChipHandbag · 17/07/2023 14:50

I agree with you that he should not have told you she didn’t know, or that she wasn’t happy about the first meeting. That is their business. To me that breach of his wife’s confidence and trying to make you complicit in some drama is a red flag, not because it suggests he wants anything romantic or sexual with you, just because it makes him less of an appealing person to hang out with.

MardiMoo · 17/07/2023 14:54

@Obimumkinobi - why, did you shag your hairdresser and then obsess about him for over a year?

If so, well done you (and I guess you get a treatment anytime you want for free). If not, I don’t take the point.

aSofaNearYou · 17/07/2023 14:56

ModestMoon · 17/07/2023 14:39

I think dinner with ex is fine, but only if his wife knows about it.

The people saying why be friends with an ex - this doesn't make sense to me. People don't exist to fulfil neat little roles in our lives. If you like someone enough to date, then it makes sense that you would like them enough to be friends also. Surely it's weirder to wash your hands of someone the second you're not dating, unless things end badly. It seems to me that the real reason is that people are worried they'll like their ex too much. But again, if one dinner is enough to make you want to leave your husband for your ex, I think that you should not be with your husband. The same for a partner - I don't want to be in a committed, life long relationship with someone who is one dinner away from falling in love with an ex. If that is what would happen, I'd rather him just go to the dinner and find out.

As I mentioned upthread, I wouldn't be worried my DP would leave me for an ex if they met up. I just would really not enjoy the thought of them meeting up and reminiscing about when they dated. That's it. I wouldn't want my DP to feel that way, I would consider it worth it for a long standing friendship - and one where they had genuinely moved on from this being what they would be doing when meeting up - but not for this.

ISpyNoPlumPie · 17/07/2023 15:01

ModestMoon · 17/07/2023 14:39

I think dinner with ex is fine, but only if his wife knows about it.

The people saying why be friends with an ex - this doesn't make sense to me. People don't exist to fulfil neat little roles in our lives. If you like someone enough to date, then it makes sense that you would like them enough to be friends also. Surely it's weirder to wash your hands of someone the second you're not dating, unless things end badly. It seems to me that the real reason is that people are worried they'll like their ex too much. But again, if one dinner is enough to make you want to leave your husband for your ex, I think that you should not be with your husband. The same for a partner - I don't want to be in a committed, life long relationship with someone who is one dinner away from falling in love with an ex. If that is what would happen, I'd rather him just go to the dinner and find out.

I think we can all agree that the feelings between romantic/sexual partners and platonic friends are completely different. They are not comparable to one another. Most relationships end with some degree of heartache on one or both sides. There is an intimacy that you share in a romantic relationship that then ceases to exist when the relationship ends. If you weren't friends before, then your entire connection is based on that deep intimacy that you then cannot share with one another. The only circumstances in which it works is if you were friends before and it ended completely amicable. Which is probably why in my many different groups of friends, I don't know anyone who is close friends (would go to dinner 1:1) with an ex. I do however, know lots of people who have fallen out with friends because they starting dating their ex.

Ohmygiddyauntie · 17/07/2023 15:04

If everyone was on board dinner or lunch would be fine.
They're not so I think it's a no.
All seems very clandestine for what actually is in fact a false friendship.

5128gap · 17/07/2023 15:09

I couldn't be bothered with all this cloak and dagger over some bloke I saw once in a blue moon. It wouldn't matter enough to me to collude in his lies. And if it did matter enough gor me to overlook it..well all the more reason to give it a swerve.

Mutinyonthecrunchie · 17/07/2023 15:17

Keeping it a secret? Hell no way, this comes across as potentially testing the waters on his part.
Let it go and move on with your lives with your respective partners, and most of all don't keep secrets. Your dh probably isn't okay with this deep down and it may come back to bite you if it changes your marriage in in anyway.

frumpalertt · 17/07/2023 15:18

I don't think there's anything wrong with you seeing him. As long as you are 100% honest that it is purely platonic, and that nothing will happen and there's no spark there, just a friendship. Where the wrong lies is between him and his wife, and honestly that is for him to manage, not you. It's not your circus or your monkeys.

There's nothing wrong with breaking up and being friends with your ex. It definitely doesn't mean there are still feelings there. I am good friends with my partner's ex, and we go on holiday together, stay at one another's houses etc. It was a little strange at first as I was working out what was going on and insecure because the relationship was new, but she's a really cool person and nowadays I am way closer to her than DH is.

Another friend in a totally different friendship group stopped speaking to me because it made his wife uncomfortable that we were friends. There is absolutely no attraction there on either side, and nothing will ever happen between us other than stupid conversations about various movies and songs we both like. To be honest, I felt a bit of pity for him that she was so insecure and a bit sad that I was losing a friend, but I respected his boundaries completely when he said that we couldn't really speak any more. They broke up badly a while ago, had a horrendous divorce, and we are now friends again. Her insecurities and SUPER controlling behaviour turned out to be quite a big deal in that whole situation.

I'm not friends with my most recent ex, but that's because he's a total dick.😀

5128gap · 17/07/2023 15:26

I'd also add....you and your DH have a 'good' relationship? So, he's not possessive or controlling or unreasonably jealous?
Because when good partners without these traits feel uncomfortable with a specific situation its usually because they're picking up signs that there's something amiss.

Superpinkflowerpower · 17/07/2023 15:40

I think OP is not being honest with herself or any one else about her feelings for the EX.

If the exes wife is being kept in the dark and the OPs husband is not keen, and the OP feels they need to post on MN to validate their thoughts about going on a date (which it is) behind the ex`s wife's back and upsetting her own husband there is more to this than she is saying.

OP you are after something more than a meal just be honest with yourself.

catsnhats11 · 17/07/2023 15:47

Obimumkinobi · 17/07/2023 14:41

I've had more significant relationships with hairdressers! You're not Ross and Rachel and whatever it is you think you've got with this man, it's not enough to upset/undermine both your partners. Why can't you just say "no thanks" and move on? It will make zero difference to your real life (although your daydreams may be less thrilling for a while).

Made me laugh! I agree though.