DP spending time at exes house

[AppleJacker]

DP and I have been together 2 years. He and his ex partner have a young daughter.

They have been separated for 3 years but I believe she is still in love with him.

His DD comes to our house every weekend.

DP spends around 45 minutes in the house picking her up, then the same again dropping her off.

I feel this is quite a long time to spend at an exes house twice a week.

Am I alone in thinking this?

Have you asked him about it?

I am going through the exact same thing, pretty much everything you said in your post is what I feel too.

BUT my ex does reassure me it's fine and deep down I know it is. I have no probs with my dp, her I do. I've posted about her quite abit lately for various reasons. He is gone about an hour when he picks up and drops off his ds. I'm sat there thinking 'what could they possibly be talking about that makes him so long' they meet in a car park so I know it can't be anything dodgy. Even when they speak through the week on the phone, dp is always very pleasant to her but tries to keep the conversation simply about their ds. The ex will keep him on the phone as long as she can. She will text him late at night about random stuff and pick ups/drop offs take forever. I know how you feel and it is most defiantly not a nice feeling. Sometimes me and my dd go with him to drop his ds off and we just sit in the car while he goes in. The ex absolutely hates that, she gives me the most dirtiest look ever and that's how I know she still feels something for him. She has to have her own time with him still. But then I think 'he's with me. I've come to the conclusion that his ex is not happy that he's moved on. Me and dp are very happy together, he's made commitments to me that he never did with his ex, his fb is covered with pictures of us and nice posts he's put about me which he never did with her. They would constantly argue, split up, get back together etc. We have none of that. If I turn it around and think how his ex must feel, I can totally see why she hates me.
I'm very lucky that my dp is very affectionate, will easily tell me how he feels about things and has no problem with me telling him how I'm feeling too, if I'm feeling insecure about something then I tell him and he does his very best to reassure me everything is fine. If dp was a bit distant or something then I would be worried.

I think you need to have a good chat with your dp about how it makes you feel. Just be honest and say 'it does make me feel a little bit uncomfortable with how long it takes you to drop xxxxx off' see what he says. If you don't say something you will drive yourself crazy, trust me. Your dp and his ex are going to be doing these handovers for at least another 15 years most likely so you need to figure out how to deal with it. You have to accept her, as much as you don't like it, if you want to be with your dp you have no choice. At the end of the day, they have a child together, she is always going to think she has some sort of hold over your dp for that reason. However if this is really bothering you, tell your dp. I do know how you feel op x

Excellent post fi775

I don't think it's that weird really I spend a lot of time with my DDs dad and stay for a cuppa when I drop her off/pick her up. I go round for dinner and bbqs sometimes with my partner but often on my own. He had mh issues and I have taken him to the GP and helped him out as best I can.
He can be a complete asshole and sometimes I truly hate him but it's important for us to get on and be friends for the sake our our dd.
My partner is perfectly fine with this and we are engaged and I'm currently pg with our 2nd child together. But if he wasn't okay with it I'd tell him where to go, my DDs deserves her parents to get along

I just hope op doesn't get a lot of back lash for this post. I posted something similar a few weeks ago and got nothing but unsupportive messages from people.

Something like this might seem daft to some people but we all have our insecurities and they cannot be helped. This is something op feels anxious about (as do I) and I think she genuinely is just trying to protect herself from the possibility of getting hurt which is completely normal.

Chat with him op, don't make a big deal about it. Fingers crossed it will put your mind at ease x

If I could get my dcs ready and out within an hour it would be a bloody miracle, so no it's not excessive, but your insecurity is. His childs needs do come above you, this will always be the way and correctly so. I really wish my parents had spent time discussing my care when I was a child instead of passing me to a step parent or grandparent, it would have made a massive difference to the awful atmosphere I tolerated from the age of five until my teens when I cottoned on to the fact that my father couldn't be bothered and wasn't interested in me. So you should celebrate that you are with someone mature and caring enough to put his child before his own desires.

If your relationship is so insecure you think his ex can simply lure him back just because they're in the same house, then I think there's a lot more going on between you that you need to address.

Perhaps she feels awkward discussing their child at your house because your insecurity makes her feel uncomfortable. Take time to see from her point of view and realise how difficult it must be to see your very young DC stay away at the weekend playing happy families without you (and possibly feeling like you're taking her place as mum too).

Sorry to be harsh, but you should have realized the situation would have some difficulties to iron out when you started seeing someone with children. I assume you don't have any yourself?

What a great post with lots of positive, supportive messages. I am in the same position totally !!
These responses have all helped me .... A pity my original thread was not greeted with the same sort of helpful ideas....

She's not saying she has a problem with the child coming above anything else, obviously that's how it should be. She's worried there is still a connection between the child's parents. If both parents are totally over each other then staying for however long at each other's house, having a coffee, going out for tea etc isn't a problem at all....and that's brilliant if you can do that too.

However when one or both parents still feel something for the other one, that's when it can become difficult. That's when it's very hard for the partner involved because we know the children come first and that's the way it is. And rightly so. It's just not easy when you know your partner is dropping his child off knowing full well the mother is still in love with the father and wants him back.

Kateshair - totally. All I got was abuse on mine too, glad this has made you feel better, it has helped me too x

She may be saying that she doesn't have a problem with the child, but she will affect the child's relationship with her parents if, through paranoia, he stops communicating with her mother. If their relationship is strong then no matter what the ex's feelings are towards her dp, he won't be getting it on with her again. The parents of a child will always continue to have a close relationship about their shared commitment, this does not mean intimacy that you have when you're a couple. She needs to discuss her feelings with her dp, but be careful not to affect the contact he has with his child.

He doesn't know I know he spends that much time there, he tells me he just drops her off, has a brief chat and goes.

The last time I food been there for so long I asked him and he said it's because we'd been having a rough patch and he hadn't wanted to come home....

We're fine now and have a baby on the way. I just don't feel comfortable with him confiding in and spending time with an ex who's still in love with him and hates me.

Well you don't know what they talk about as you aren't there, they could be discussing their daughter, making small talk on wider issues, getting the girl ready to go or settled, listening to her excited chatter. If he wanted to be with her he would. The fact she doesn't like uou or still loves him is irrelevant, he's choosing to be with uou and it's much better for the child that her parents are amicable and seen to be amicable in front of her, and that she sees her parents together being chatty and interested in her.

I'd say the fact that you don't feel confident bringing up how uncomfortable you feel is more the issue here. If something is bothering you to the point where it's making you anxious in a relationship then it needs to be brought up with the partner. Otherwise it will just get worse and worse. Are you worried about what he might say to you? Or how he might react?

No, the fact he'll know I snooped... Otherwise I have no issue bringing stuff up.

I snooped as he'd told me he'd spent a lot longer somewhere on his way back from her house than he actually had and I wondered why he'd lied.

How did you snoop?

I think he lied because he knew what your reaction would be at telling you he had went into his ex's home and had a cuppa or something similar.

You will at some point need to accept that your partner and his ex are going to always be in each others lives. There will always be things to talk about, from funny stories to school reports, bad behaviour, trips, pe lessons ect.
If a couple have split up because the love is no longer there then it doesn't automatically follow that there will no longer be a friendship or feelings of shared history / mutual respect.

The point here is not if the ex still has feelings or not, it is the sole responsibility of your current partner to be faithful and honest with you. I think the main problem here is your insecurity in your own relationship

You check on him on find my iPhone I am guessing

OP you have a problem and it's insecurity and a relationship where you can't tell someone how you feel.

You are not being insecure. He is spending too long with ex and it would bug me. surely they should be ready for handover and it should take about 15 mins. I wouldn't like it either so don't listen to the clever comments from other posters.

Whether she is in love with him is irrelevant here, if he isn't still in love with her then what she feels surely is a non issue?

The issue here is trust which needs to be resolved. My ex rarely comes to my house, the last time he did was a couple of weeks ago and I invited him in and he even had his other child with his current DP with him. It was freezing outside and DS was faffing about doing something. He didn't come in but I would have thought it bizarre if anyone had thought it inappropriate.

Ex's are generally ex's for a reason. But it's entirely unreasonable to expect bitterness and resentment and bad feeling to persist for the duration of the children's lives, and to be suspicious if they have an amicable relationship.

Amicable is by far more preferable than bad feeling on all sides.

If you're insecure about your own relationship then you need to speak to your DP. But remember your relationship is with him not with his ex. If there are issues there then he is the one accountable not her.

There's lack of trust, and dishonesty on both sides here. You've only been together 2 yrs and as an emerging issue, with him depressed, hit a rough patch already and a baby on the way I'd say it's time for a cards-on-table discussion about expectations, feelings, what will it all look like once the demands of a new baby are mixed in..

45min handover, chat and cuppa is fine if all the adults get on and respect each other (my BF does it with his ex all the time, I'm totally fine with it and respect that they are able to do that for the benefit of their dc). But that's not the case here, since the ex behaves nevatively towards OP. So I can understand the insecurity in this instance. If your relationship were rock solid, OP, you would be able to address it and not be stalking his movements online.

I wouldn't like it either so don't listen to the clever comments from other posters

The clever comments from the other posters are aimed at helping the OP to understand the most likely explanation of her behaviour. You arbitrarily believe that a maximum fifteen minutes discussion between the parents of a child at hand-over is sufficient. Even if there was some rule that 15 minutes is all that is needed, how exactly is the OP supposed to enforce it?

'bugslife "if he didn't like it I'd tell him where to go" jeez... your poor DP having no say about things which could upset him.

OP - 2 things which would annoy me if I were you... (1) pretending they don't get on. Why does he need to do this? (2) spending 45 mins there if it bothers you.

He can be amicable in 10 without negatively affecting his kids. If he's there 45mins it's cause he wants to be.

Or if he doesn't want to be he doesn't have the strength to tell DCs to hurry up or ask ex to have bag ready when he arrives etc.

If he says he wants to spend 45 mins then you have to choose whether you can handle it, but if he doesn't want to then there's no reason he has to.

When things were amicable with my ExH he could easily spend an hour at mine at pick up or drop off. The kids wanted to show him stuff (new bedroom, artwork from school, etc). We'd have to discuss the kids clubs; who was picking up/dropping off for what club as they had 6 or 7 between them. Often the kids weren't ready to go....couldn't find shoes, etc. I can absolutely guarantee there was nothing going on and I was not in the slightest bit interested.