DP messaging his ex

[Yesicandothis]

Hi, please be gentle, i am really confused as to what to do.

I am 46, met someone 2 years ago online. We don’t live together, have no plans to in the short / medium term, but have a stable and fulfilling relationship. I love him, and i really value his presence in my life. He is committed, i know he is not cheating on me or interested in other women (not why I love him, but it is relevant!)

BUT I am really bothered about one of his relationships, and I can’t work out if IABU…

He is friends with one of his ex. I would have no massive issue with it, but the way he is managing this relationship is ringing alarm bells for me.

The first time he mentionned her, he spoke about very specific sex toys she likes to use. I said I was extremely uncomfortable with him having this kind of conversation with another woman.

A few months later, i saw a message popping on his phone, a reply from her to a message where he was saying he had a wild morning of sex planned (with me). I got very upset, wanted to end things at the time. I felt betrayed and was really bothered by what felt like quite an inscestuous relationship. He promised me he would not talk about anything to do with sex with her again.

I then realised they were communicating very frequently (often several times a day) and felt really insecure about it. I told him so, said I would like to meet her.

He agreed. Nothing happened. That was in January

He had a really difficult few months, lost his job so wasn’t doing great financially. I knew organising dinner out was problematic for this reason, so I left it. Because he hasn’t been mentioning her, I assumed their message exchange was not quite as frequent.

Turns out I was very wrong. They are still in touch, several times a day from what I can gather. He made a comment about her last week (he never usually mentions her) and I asked questions, this is how i found out.

I told him this morning I was at the end of my patience. That i feel his way of dealing with this situation is to wait for the storm to pass and not change anything, and I don’t want to carry on this way.

As much as I think the intensity of this relationship is inappropriate, I also know he loves me and would never do anything to hurt me.

He is the best partner I have had, we have a great level of intimacy and I am completely lost as to what to do.

Thabks for reading, any advice would be much much appreciated…

It doesn't matter what he thinks. You can't control or change his behaviour.

All you can do is decide what yu think amd act on that.

I know it's hard and I'm sure many of us have been in the position of thinking, "The proble is that everything else is great. If it weren't for X, Y, Z, everything would be perfect... is it really worth splitting up over..?"

There are things my partner does - bad habits etc - that I wouldn't include on my list of 'must haves' in a relationship but they don't really bother me. I know they would bother other women but they're really not things I would consider to be an issue for me. That because no one is perfect. But thees a difference between being imperfect and being disrespectful.

You keep saying it's not cheating but what is cheating? A betrayal? Crossing your sexual boundaries? Sleeping with someone? Your boundaries can be whatever and wherever you want them to be.

And as for you genuinely believing he doesn't believe there's anything wrong with it, do you really think he'd be OK with you having these conversations with an ex of yours? Because I'm pretty confident he would be.

Of course he knows it's wrong. He just doesn't care.

He's not going to stop this because you want him too. If he were going to, he already would have. So your choice is to live with his mental/verbal sexual incontinence or you end it.

He is hugely overstepping the boundaries of most conventional relationships and given you have expressed concern and not approval, he is pushing the boundaries of your relationship.

In my experience men do not stay in touch with Exs at this frequency unless there are still feelings there. Having feelings for an ex is not so much the issue, it is natural that a lot of people have feeling for an ex. The relationship is separate to yours and does not Undermine feelings within your own relationship but, your partner has effectively carried on a relationship within your relationship and knowingly doing so against your wishes effectively. Most people in a new relationship would limit contact to dampen feelings and focus on new ones so to speak.

Your partner is showing a huge amount of disrespect not just to you, but your relationship. He clearly does not respect your boundaries, he discusses intimate details that are supposed to be kept between a couple (presumably to make ex jealous) and has shown that he will not end the very inappropriate relationship he is having with his ex.

You say it's the best relationship you have had and that he treats you very well, so do a lot of men having affairs. There are many men who will treat their partners better whilst engaging with another person for myriad reasons but does not take away the fact they are having an affair.

You need to speak with him about how it makes you feel and not what you think you should feel, this is nobody else's relationship and it cannot be the right one for you if you cannot set your own boundaries.

I'm quite an over sharer but even I wouldn't text a friend (let alone an ex) to let them know what sex toy I was going to use or about planning a morning of wild sex, that's just odd. You know this isn't right op.

It sounds like he is not over her and is trying to make her jealous very odd messaging that many times a day. He is disrespecting you and does not care that you are hurt. Chances are he would be back with her like a shot but maybe she won't have him.

Same with me!

I'm sorry, those situations you mentioned are all very odd.
I think your dp still wants to shag his ex, and would do so if the opportunity arose.

You can do better.

Unfortunately, you should have ended it when he betrayed you the first time - that sort of talk about your sex life was inappropriate.

I have an old, close male friend (not an ex but we did have a few very low key fumbles back in the day - never had sex or anything close). When we were younger and dumber, we probably did have these sort of inappropriate conversations. But then we both got into serious relationships and it just does not come up. It would be so inappropriate to discuss either of our sex lives. The closest we've come in the last 20 years is after he got divorced, and was online dating, we were having dinner one night and he said something like, "it's so weird having sex with someone for the first time again! But fun" and we both laughed and the conversation moved on. Knowing us, we were probably discussing mortgage rates or work promotions!

@Yesicandothis sounds a complete tosser if he really can't empathiseas to why this would upset you. And yes tossers aren't always nasty-sometimes they can seem quite reasonable- until they aren't

Hopefully you have been given enough validation now to know that it is not your own insecurities that are the issue here. People with a healthy attitude and who back themselves would not put up with this either. The daily contact and oversharing is way too much, it's using his headspace for someone else.
This has been going on a fair time if just over the phone, usually things like that fizzle out, especially when someone new comes along. Is she long distance, or is there a chance they could be meeting? Something is perpetuating this. If so emeshed still, why did they break up?