How seriously should I take his exes advice to me?

[YoJesse]

Before I start, its not about either of us feeling threatened by each other or her wanting him back. She seems like a really nice, straightforward woman and in different circumstances we'd probably be friends.

I've been seeing a man properly for a few weeks although we've been friends for a while. Things are going well and there's been no game playing or anything stupid. Just us having a good time.

I met his ex at a kids Halloween thing (we both have children) yesterday and we got chatting. I mentioned how involved and good he was with his daughter and she gave me a bit of a look and told me not to rely on those attributes too much and to keep my eyes open . I don't doubt she meant it as good advice but I think their breakup has clouded her view of him. I'm not looking for a new dad for ds but I'd like to think anyone I'm seeing would be a good Dad. He does loads for his daughter and they share contact so I'm not really sure why she said it or what she meant.

Would you take this sort of 'advice' to heart?

ppl can & do change, though. Have to see how it goes.

I'd heed her warning and judge by what you see.

So often this kind of thing is put down to jealousy or being bitch but I'd warn my exs girlfriend if I could.

Sounds to me like you're missing the thrust of her advice. Could it be that she's not disputing that he's a "good dad" (as as PP noted, he doesn't deserve any gold stars for that, that's a baseline level of expectation for a decent human being), but warning you that this attribute doesn't prevent him from being a shit in other ways: cheating, tightness, critical etc...?

Yes, sounds like she means 'good dad doesn't equal good partner'. Whether she has a reason for saying that or not remains to be seen.

I shudder to think what my ex would say about me to a new partner. I'm sure he'd feel jealous and be massively unfair. I would hope any new partner wouldn't let it get to them. Obviously as a mother you need to put your "douchebag filter" on high alert and take time to get to know him before deciding whether it's for you.

I think that, given that she shares a child with your new bf, it's in her best interest to keep things amicable between herself and her ex.

So I think she has gone to some risk to tip you off that all may not be as it seems. At the very least, keep your eyes open.

I think it sounds like she's being very fair. "Keep your eyes open" means just that. She hasn't bad mouthed him or told you to leave him. I expect things were not great between them for reasons she wouldn't want you to experience too and that he had traits that were not acceptable for her. However she realises that he may possibly be different with you. So she's simply warning you not to dismiss anything that ever happens to concern you.

I'd be wary of him admitting that he'd dragged his heels and was a bit immature. Yes, people can change, but immaturity, while not necessarily an issue at the "dating" stage, can cause major problems down the line.

It doesn't have to be a deal-breaker, though. Just something to keep an eye on.

I'm willing to put a modest amount of money that she has lived the painful consequences as a mother and partner of all the things you currently find 'cute' in his disorganisation and admitted 'immaturity'. That kind of stuff can kill love stone dead, and tends to get a lot less 'cute' out of the honeymoon period.

She doesn't sound vindictive to me. She didn't bring it up until you mentioned it, and she advised you only to be careful and alert, which is always good advice when as a mother you date a new guy.

I'll keep my eyes open. She does seem nice and not vindictive so I'll be aware.

I just think me and her are quite different so stuff she found insufferable might be ok to me. Time will tell.

Thing is her comment could mean anything from his cute quirks got on her nerves after a while to he doesn't pull his weight with housework and childcare once you live together to if the relationship breaks down he'll let you down when he said he'd have the dc on your night out to once you're hooked he will be abusive. And you quite possibly won't find out until you've moved in together and so increased your dependence on him making it harder to disengage.

I think you can ask him why they split.

My stbxh new girlfriend would class him as dad of the year. And my DS has almost hero worship around him.

What they don't know is the backstory of how I had to force organised visitation, and go to court to arrange the dates, how he doesn't pay a penny in maintenance (but shows off with gifts at his place), how he owes me 20,000 in unpaid maintenance and legal fees, and how, when she's not there, he tries to cut weekends short.

But on the surface, yeah, he's aMAZEing

I'm seeing him tonight so I'll ask why they split.
I'm sure she would have been more obvious if there was any abuse issues.

What she considers to be positive or negative characteristics in a partner or father will be different to yours and vice versa. I'd ignore it but as we should all do in all areas of life, just keep your eyes open and don't dumb down any gut instincts or red flags.

We had a bit of a chat tonight about why they split up. Obviously I didn't tell him his ex had implied he wasn't the best dad in the world but I mentioned in a lighthearted way we'd been talking about him. He looked a bit worried about it tbh!

In his words, she got fed up with him being a bit lazy and relying on her too much but he also said he's grown up loads since they split and has embraced being a dad. So, it sounds like he's being completely honest which is good and that he's changed. Win win all round

If he has changed - it's because he has to do everything for himself - when previously he'd be happy to let his ex take the lions share -

If you live together no doubt he'll expect you to keep him and do all the housework and look after the kiddies - he'll forget to take you out and wash up once a week and put the bins out -

Only time will tell - good luck -

he's really easy going

This can be enough to have been the problem - not so much horizontal as asleep. Chilled to you, with him behaving himself, could have been truly lazy and CBA to her more jaded experience of him.

And, if he now recognises his problem, why didn't he work on it with her? Maybe because she'd sussed him out and he knew that there was no forever get out clause?

Hopefully he has changed but he was hardly going to say he hadn't.

Take not? Sure.

However, she is his ex. However "nice" she seems. The way she acted would have been perfect if she simply wanted you to doubt your bf... which is actually a real possibility.

take note

I'm way too tired for this, good night and good luck, op.

I'm with Astro and Couch

If you said exactly what you said you said, that you'd been talking about him, and his response was to tell you that he's changed and has "embraced being a dad" then that tells you what she meant and that she believes this is a temporary epiphany and he'll go back to useless (how she remembers him) pretty quickly