Issues with ex - should I be worried?
Hi,
I am having some trouble in my relationship relating to my boyfriends ex and would like some advice on whether I should be worried or whether I am just being irrational and insecure?
A bit of background - My boyfriend is 52, I am 34. He has 3 children, 17, 19 and 22 and split from their Mum 12 years ago. He has been married once since then. We have been together for 19 months with 2 short breaks (12 weeks and 9 weeks) During those breaks he has been with 3 other women who he initially lied about but has now told me. We live 300 miles apart but spend most weekends together.
I trust my boyfriend not to cheat but struggle with the fact that we are often surrounded by ex's or women that he has slept with. As he has slept with a number of his female friends and remains friends with all of his ex's, we often spend time with or go on holiday with these women, which I generally handle ok but sometimes it does bother me. I looked around the kitchen at a party on new years eve for example and of the 5 women in the room he had married one, had children with one, slept with two, I was the fifth.
The particular issues I have are with the mother of his children (she is single). For the first 6 months I had no problem at all with them being friends. 6 months in though was our first Christmas together and he had agreed to have dinner at her house with his children. He asked if I would like to go with him and so me and my son went to her house for Christmas. It was quite uncomfortable being with complete strangers and being away from my family, but she did try to make me feel welcome. At the end of the night my boyfriend fell asleep and his ex started to talk about their relationship, how he had always been unavailable emotionally. She then started to cry (she had been drinking) and said that she would always love him and if she ever needed anything he would be the first person she would ring as she knew he would always be there for her. It made for a pretty uncomfortable Christmas but I didnt say anything and we left soon after. When I mentioned it to my boyfriend and said it had made me uncomfortable he said I was over reacting.
6 months later we went away camping with a group of friends, and his ex decided to come. As she doesn't usually camp my boyfriend offered to lend her a tent. We ended up putting up a tent for her before she arrived, and providing beds/chairs etc. As soon as she arrived she held onto my boyfriends arm and told him she would be in our tent (which is actually my tent) first thing every morning to make herself a cup of tea because she hadn't brought a cooker with her. I explained that we had a spare cooker and that she was welcome to take that. Then later on when we went back to my tent, she was in it helping herself to lanterns because she hadn't brought a torch. She got upset when my boyfriend took the lanterns back and gave her a torch. My problem with this is that she is perfectly capable of putting up a tent, and providing her own camp equipment (like the other 20 or so people in the group) but she has an expectation that my boyfriend will do this for her and he feels a responsibility to do so. It didn't help that one of his friends then introduced her to a group of people as his partner.
This Christmas my boyfriend had to be with his parents as they are are unwell. He woke up with me, drove 300 miles, then planned to come back after dinner. Instead of having dinner with his parents he had decided to visit them, then again to go to his ex's for dinner although only one of his children were there. Unfortunately she served dinner 3 hours later than planned and he was unable to come back to me till the following day.
The following month we planned to take his daughter out for a meal for her birthday. She cancelled so he agreed to take her the following week when I couldnt be there. When he arrived to pick her up, his ex was ready to go for dinner with them (which she did)
Whenever I try to talk to him about any of this he defends his ex and says that they have a brilliant relationship and he is proud of that and I am just over reacting. He says that if I don't learn to accept their relationship the way it is its over. I'm confused as to whether what he is asking (going on holiday with ex's, going to parties with them, spending Christmas with them, accepting him still taking responsibility for someone he split with 12 years ago and her still expecting that) is unreasonable, or whether I am just being irrational and insecure.
Advice please???
