Am I unreasonable about her lunch alone with a former lover?

[RickA]

Have been seeing a woman for 9 months. She was widowed 10 years ago, and 8 years ago had a sexual relationship with someone who had been a friend for 30+ years (he was friends with her and her late husband). She ended that and said it was a mistake (the sexual side lasted less than a year) but they remained friends. Next month she is travelling to the city where he lives, and she is planning a one-on-one lunch at a nice restaurant with him. I do trust her - she assures me that are just friends now - but she hasn't told him about me.

1. That bothers me - she told, and I have met, most all her other friends and family. She says she will tell him when she sees him in person. If it's not an issue and he is not interested in a relationship with her anymore, either, why does it have to be in person?
2. I am not comfortable with her having one-on-one intimate time with a former lover. That probably sounds immature on my part but it is what it is.

She can't see my point at all, and logically I can see I am being silly...but feelings aren't all about logic, are they?

I would not have a one-on-one dinner with an ex even if we remained friends. I do have female friends with whom I have not slept - tennis friends, for example, and sometimes we will eat dinner alone - but to me a line is crossed once sex happens.

I don't think either of us is right / wrong - i think we have mis-matched boundaries.

What thinks everyone else?

Urgh. You give me the ick.

It’s so overbearing such a short time in. I don’t foresee this being a long term thing to be honest.

If I were her, I would be starting to rethink this relationship.

My view is that you either trust the person you are in a relationship with, or you don't. When one person feels the need to lay down rules about whether you can share a meal with an ex-partner in the daytime but not in the evening, that just says to me that there is no fundamental trust.

It also wonder if you expect to control your partner's behaviour in other ways. Is there anything else you feel you have a right to negotiate on, such as her socialising with friends or family, or what she wears?

I am widowed, in a relationship, and on friendly terms with the ex-partner who came after my DH and before my current DP, and have other male friends. My DP is on friendly terms with several of his ex-partners, and has other female friends. He does not try to control who I see or when or on what terms, and neither do I.

You seem confused about what boundaries are.

Wanting your partner to agree to not have dinner with an ex is not “setting a boundary”. It’s attempting to make a rule for your partner to live by, and that’s unhealthy and controlling (no matter whether you are prepared to also live by the rule).

A boundary is for yourself only. So “I will not have dinner with any exes” is perfectly fine as a boundary, though some might wonder why you feel the need to gatekeep yourself in that manner (do you not trust yourself or your exes to remain platonic?).

Another perfectly fine boundary would be “I am not prepared to be in a relationship with anyone who has an ex close enough to want to have dinner with them”. Again, this boundary might speak to a very low level of trust in your partners to maintain a platonic relationship with an ex, but it’s your boundary to set.

A boundary that you express, but then do not follow through on when it is not met is not an actual boundary, but at best a preference and at worst a tool of manipulation.

Precision in thinking and language is important in order to have genuinely shared agreements.

That's very interesting. You imply boundaries are a personal thing. That seems correct. I have my boundaries, she has hers, and they are different. So in that situation what do you do? If it's over something like I don't eat meat, you do, who cares? But when the boundaries are with regards to past relationships, and what monogamy means, I think a shared agreement is what is important. Maybe it's beyond a boundary and more an agreement of what is acceptable to each other. I don't feel like I have given up my boundary because I am not trying to convince her that her boundary should be the same as mine. I told her how our boundaries being different in that area is concerning to me. The former VP of the US - Mike Pence - would not have dinner alone with any female whether he has slept with her or not. People have different boundaries. When your boundaries don't align, what next? You can decide that there is such a gulf between you that the relationship is untenable. Or you can agree that you can understand someone else's boundary, even if they are not the same as yours, and it the relationship is important enough, you try and find a middle ground and I feel that is what we have done..

To me the important is once you have an agreement like this you don't continually revisit it - you trust the other person.

Some of the comments I have read suggest that those respondents would not accept any sort of restriction on their behaviour, but it depends on the area you are discussing, doesn't it? Unless you are in an open relationship, I would suggest that having sex with someone who is not your partner would be unacceptable. Would going away for s ski weekend be acceptable? We all have our lines, and part of establishing a new relationship is determining where these lines are whether they work for both parties.

How many of you on here would agree to have your DP spend the night, alone, at the house of a former DP? I suspect not many. If your DP had had a fling and hot and heavy sex with someone your DP knew before you, maybe the year before, would you feel OK with them having a one-on-one dinner with that person in a foreign city?

FGS you say you trust her, but you don't, really.

Poor woman.

All this angst from you over a simple lunch.

Admit it. You're just jealous.

I have an old friend like this. I’ll call him Jack.

We were mates at uni, 30 odd years ago, not that close - we just shared several nerdy interests so were forever at the same events. We would have lost touch pretty much straight after graduation, I imagine, except one of his closest friends married one of mine - so we (& then with our respective spouses) used to run into each other a couple of times a year at our mutual friends’ parties.

Come mutual friends’ joint 40th, a villa holiday abroad for a dozen of us, I was recently widowed, he was recently divorced.

By this time I’d had years to notice that the quiet, hard to get to know, spotty anoraky lad I’d known at university is actually incredibly clever, seriously funny & an all round good egg.

We had what we fondly imagined was a terribly discreet holiday fling. Our mutual friends were absolutely delighted, having clocked us within days. I was up for seeing how things developed; Jack was more ‘well I had a huge crush on you back then & I think you’re great & I’m having a lovely holiday, but…long distance…kids…too complicated…we’re friends having a fling’

Absolutely fair. We did end up FWBing for a year or so because work coincidences meant we were unexpectedly in the same neck of the woods every few months. Then I moved further away & called time. Completely amicable on both sides.

We’re still mates, & nearly 40 years of friendship is much much more important than the fact that we spent a few months having occasional sex at a time in our lives when we were both having a tough, lonely time of things.

If I were your girlfriend, I’d tell you you were being ridiculous. Absolutely I’d go for lunch with Jack if I was visiting his city.

If I found myself in a relationship with someone who was mistrusting my ability to go to lunch with an old friend without shagging them, it wouldn’t be the friendship of several decades I’d be querying, it’d be CBA with the new boyfriend & his insecurities.

As for the ‘telling him in person’ thing, I get that from her POV. For me it would be in order not to make a big deal of this news. A ‘btw, let me tell you about my new fella’ message could come across as ‘…because I’m making it crystal clear that I AM SEEING SOMEONE & not offering you a bunk up for old times’ sake thank you very much’

I’d be much more likely to let that come up naturally in conversation over lunch, than make it an ANNOUNCEMENT.

I mean, Mike Pence’s boundary, although insane (can he really not trust himself around women? Or does he find himself so devastating that he believes women cannot be trusted around him! The mind boggles) is still perfectly fine boundary. It is about his own behaviour, and what he, personally, will or won’t do.

However you try to paint it, you are not talking about boundaries. You are talking about agreed rules for behaviour in a relationship, which is another thing entirely. The rules seem to be quite restrictive compared to most people who have answered this thread, and to ask you a question, why is that? What are you afraid might happen at this lunch (or a dinner for that matter)? What makes it feel so risky to you?

Bringing up Mike Pence and referring to a woman as "a female" tells me everything I need to know really. Most sensible women wouldn't want to have dinner with that horrible misogynist prick anyway.

This isn't about negotiating boundaries, you have rules for relationships that you want her to abide by, which basically involves no opposite sex friends.

A lot of issues seem to arise within relationships when partners develop new opposite sex friendships while in a long term relationship and those situations do need more careful negotiation. But if your partner enters the relationship and already has well established opposite sex friendships before you came along, it's going to come across controlling after only 9 months for you to demand she either massively reduces her contact with these friends or gives them up.

You're not compatible. You need to find a more traditionally minded prospective partner who shares your values about monogamy meaning almost total non-engagement with the opposite sex and is willing to orientate her life around a relationship. An independent widow who has lived her own life, made her own choices for many years before you showed up and isn't about to give that up to become a tradwife is not for you.

It is natural for you to not be overly keen on the lunch but you sound like you are trying to control her under the guise of 'boundaries'.

Do you genuinely think she won't be able to control her sexual urges if she has lunch with an ex or do you just feel jealous that she is spending time with a man who she once found attractive? If it is the first the you probably need to break up with her. If it is the second the you need to accept that you are just feeling a bit jealous and trust her.

I am not sure you are awfully compatible. You find her a bit too free spirited and I think she will probably start to find you a bit suffocating.

Christ, how suffocating, controlling and utterly repulsive.

As for this: I asked her, and she agreed, to send him a short text before they meet saying something like "Looking forward to seeing you and telling you about a new guy I am dating" - or something like that, why didn’t you just piss on her, it’s an easier and more traditional way of marking your territory.

I hope the poor woman sees sense soon.

Yeah, you don't trust her, so stop saying you do.
I've always been a jealous person too, I know it's mostly wrong, but I can't help it.
If a new partner sat me down and laid out "boundaries" that would be it, I'm pretty sure.

A boyfriend of nine months thinking he can dictate about a decades-long friendship? I hope the woman in question sees sense here.

Agreed. I wouldn't be entertaining the OP's qualms here. Jog on, mate.

If a man proposed any of these boundaries I would laugh in his face, reject them entirely and dump him. It's a sign he's sexually possessive, irrationally jealous, territorial and doesn't trust me. If your poor girlfriend was asking for advice I would tell her to run a mile.

I've had many, many 1o1 dinners, drinks, late nights out on the town with male friends, some of whom I've had flings with before. It's perfectly possible to keep those things platonic. There's nothing inherently sexual or romantic about dinner or a cocktail or a club. I do the same with female friends and anyone in my life who also enjoys good food, interesting drinks and the same music as me.

FYI DP has no issue with any of the above and I have no issue when he does the same. I can't actually imagine why I would.

The purse-clutching at her ex sleeping in a completely different room while she's nAkEd is hilarious. Have you never got changed and had a shower with someone else in the house? If she slept in pyjamas would that make all the difference between cheating and not cheating? Never heard of pyjamas as chastity devices before.

Ask yourself this, do you want to be in a relationship with someone you have to issue ultimatums and dictates to, to stop her getting too intimate with other men?

Personally, I want to be in a relationship with someone who wants me more than others. Someone who chooses me over others. If had to tell him not to, I wouldn’t want him.

So leave her be. Either she wants you, and will choose you, regardless of who she eats with when she’s away from home, or she won’t.
Your instructions are irrelevant to whether she wants you.

You're very pushy OP. I think you're controlling. Has this been an issue in your previous relationships? It sounds like you don't see your girlfriend as her own person, making her own decisions, but as someone to barter with so that you get things your way. If your girlfriend is a flirty person with generally quite poor boundaries, I get it. She's not for you. But that's not the impression I'm getting. She sounds like a grown up with clear boundaries and you sound insecure and immature.

Invoking Mike Pence isn’t the flex you think it is.

Your boundaries are your boundaries. If you want to hold them and you are with someone who has different boundaries, you find another relationship. You don’t decide someone else is wrong for not agreeing with you or try to control them to be what you want them to be.

If your DP had had a fling and hot and heavy sex with someone your DP knew before you, maybe the year before, would you feel OK with them having a one-on-one dinner with that person in a foreign city?

Your use of language here speaks volumes @RickA

"Hot and heavy sex" I mean WTF.
Did she tell you that? No. You've extrapolated it yourself.

BTW I did trust my husband. I really did. And I wouldn't have batted an eyelid over his having lunch or dinner with a former girlfriend.

What you regard as a boundary is actually a command.

You're controlling and insecure and if I knew your unfortunate girlfriend I'd advise her to get rid of you.

Oh, and as for invoking the behaviour of the former VP Mike Pence - words fail me.
Did Karen Pence set this "boundary" upon him?
I doubt it.

In any case, Pence was perfectly willing to be Trump's VP, and that kind of lowers his moral standing in normal women's eyes.

Yes, Donald Trump, that complete cunt, who is currently POTUS again, and who boasted about "grabbing women by the pussy".

I expect you support Trump, too.

Gosh I lived as flatmates with an ex and it was not an issue! Dinner? No problem with that.

The Mike Pence thing made me want to vom. It just showed how much he sees women not as human beings but as these siren, sexually tempting creatures who are "other". If he saw women as regular human beings first and foremost, instead of sexual objects, he wouldn't be so averse to having dinner with one alone. Let's say I was working on a project with him. And let's say that the project involved a business trip. If we had a meeting the next day, I guess we couldn't plan or strategise the evening before, since I definitely wouldn't want to go to his hotel room (that's my boundary). I guess he would go and meet a friend or associate, being Mike Pence, and I would have dinner alone, just because of my sex. I would find that highly insulting, knowing that he would have dinner with a male colleague but not me. I felt like his stupid boundary is saying "I can't have dinner alone with anyone who has a vAgiNa!" His attitude is almost Islamic. Refusing to have dinner alone with a woman even if there's a legitimate need, just because of what you have between your legs - it's the epitome of sexism. 😡

"The former VP of the US - Mike Pence - would not have dinner alone with any female whether he has slept with her or not."

Quite apart from how pathetic this is as a boundary and what it says about him as a man, this is unfair discrimination in the workplace and should be called out as such. How many men got promotions and were asked to head up projects as a result of dinners and off-duty shmoozing during trips away or at conferences? Whereas the women on his team were denied that opportunity as a result of his inability to control himself around women and his wife's belief that he would be bound to fall straight into bed with them after the smoked salmon starters?

Mike Pence, ‘female’ and spending hours browbeating his poor girlfriend into submission. She needs rescued, bless her.

I hope she runs fast and far.

This. Plus, bluntly, you’re the new kid on the block here, and this is an old and valued friend. Only an idiot would sideline a good friendship for a new relationship that might not last, especially if you’re usually this insecure and paranoid.

I haven’t read the whole thread, but I have read all the OP’s replies.
It seems to me that either you trust your partner or you don’t. If you trust her, then you have no need to worry about dinners with exes or ex DH sleeping in the next room. If you feel you need boundaries in these scenarios then you clearly don’t trust her.
If your roles were reversed, are you saying that you couldn’t trust yourself with former partners?
If I were your partner I’d be insulted by these ‘boundaries’ and I’d end the relationship.

She told you

she’s having lunch in public

doubtful they will be tearing each others clothes off over the table

but she could and should have mentioned you. Even briefly. To him

they are friends and probably got together due to both losing a friend /hubby so a joint /mutual loss

and then reliesed it wasn’t for them