Changed username for privacy.
Recently had a rough couple of days following 2 separate discussions with my partner around his ex. The mother of his 8 year old child has no boundaries and it appears neither does DP. This has gradually become more and more of an issue in our relationship and follows around 4 previous albeit more laid back conversations I brought up about how it was making me feel over the past few months. I’m not sure if I’m hormonal or just at the end of my tether as previous discussions haven’t amounted to much? I’ve had numerous calm conversations and bitten my tongue a lot but it came to a head end of last week when his ex rang again about something pointless. We didn’t shout or slam doors...not that type of person when it comes to communication but I was annoyed. We talked with no real ‘outcome’. As a result whilst things feel normal again to an extent it also feels there’s an elephant in the room and feel like my partner is pulling back from me.
I must stress I know his child is his priority and quite rightly so but this is more around how I feel he allows her to call the shots and panders to her unpredictable behaviours. To summarise things include-
*on a fortnightly basis asking him to have their child extra time (which is fine and I’m happy he gets extra time, but it’s often with hours or even minutes to spare) and due to her being ‘tired’, poorly or having college work to do.
*texting and calling every day without fail to discuss mostly trivial matters...calling at 7am about an item left at my Dp’s house (even although his son was coming to his later that day) the fact their son had a normal tantrum, the fact he was misbehaving in her house
*asking my partner to go round late at night to drop something non-essential off. He jumped and got dressed to do it, interrupting our evening after we’d had his child all that weekend
*asking DP to go round when son was upset, he dropped me to do it halfway through lunch and left within minutes
*asking partner to go round and pick son up as he was upset and didn’t want to go to school. Partner jumped out of bed and rushed straight over.
Partner sees where I’m coming from but doesn’t believe it’s as much or as bad as what I’m making it out to be despite being able to ring off multiple examples. I find it intrusive her texting at all hours of the day and night. I’d understand if there was an emergency but there never is.
Issue is this, partner offered to have a word with her. I was dubious as I’ll likely come off the bad guy but he said he’d think about it. He hasn’t mentioned anything since and I’m now scared to bring it up for fear of upsetting him. I don’t know if he has spoken to her or not? I hate conflict and I don’t think DP deals well with awkward conversations. I find communication easy normally and feel it’s essential to getting stuff resolved but as nothing has changed so far I’m unsure what to do. I love partner and want things to move forward positively. I now notice he’s starting hiding his phone and turning it screen down. I can only presume to avoid me seeing the ex’s calls or texts if they appear on the screen. How do I work through this?