Dealing with GF's Ex-Husband...
I'll give my thanks in advance as I dive straight into this; grab your coffee, it's a big one...
I'm male/25yrs, she's 38yrs. However that's not the issue, I've a standard history of comfortably dating women 30 and over. It just happened that way.
However the issue is the remnants of her ex-husband. When she and I met 2 yrs ago, she was separated from him "working on" signing the papers. We met through a mutual friend and all started hanging out 3 musketeer-style. We both advised her on how to move on from her ex-husband, first thing being to sign the papers and lose the ring and really move on. All of which happened.
As we all continued hanging out she and I started dating (I know, I know...) and eventually ended up together. Time flies, we now live together. Now the issue is that sometimes here and there the ex-husband's mail shows up in my mailbox, the box that has hers and my individual last names on it, not his. When I see it I tend to get irked but I've never said anything about it since I understand it's a causality and not in the best interest of the relationship to get worked up over. But it brings me a memory I don't particularly like. Well two.
About a year ago, her ex's father died, heart attack I believe, rather young too. Her ex sister-in-law was flying through town to head to their home-country to deal with the situation. My GF felt she should pay her respects to her ex sister-in-law since they were still close since she was family for like a year and a half. GF asks for me to come with for support. (Now I decided not to be a dick and refuse since well, if I refused it would seem like I didn't give a damn about the situation.) I reluctantly agreed since anyone could put two and two together knowing that if the ex sister is flying through, then it's a high possibility that the ex-husband is as well. Which means there's gonna be a meet-up.
Under normal circumstances that's a bad idea, but of course his dad just died, now it's a stupid idea. But alas, I decided to go. (For the sake of our relationship.) We're at the airport, I'm feeling uneasy. We meet with the ex sister-in-law. No problemo. Then we're going to walk to her connecting flight, she says it's OK since her brother is here to help (ex-husband). Problemo. When we get to the connecting flight, my GF politely asks me to wait behind while she speaks to her ex-husband. (I'm like, say what?) She says she doesn't want drama, so I should wait behind. (Now I'm ticked, WTF am I here for now?) So I got a newspaper and hung back. Afterwards we met-up with her ex sister-in-law again and then my GF is all unicorns and rainbows talking about me and showing off pictures of my family. But she wouldn't even introduce me to her ex-husband.
No I know at that time, it wasn't about me, the guys father just died. So I said nothing then, and I never opened my mouth about it. Ever.
A few months after that we were doing couple stuff, washing the dishes, drying the dishes, whoopie! We're making small talk about other couples we know, relations, etc. She proceeds to blurt out, "As you know, I don't believe in marriage, yada yada yada...". Now to a 25yr-old who has never been married and is looking forward to it (believe it or not), this is pretty damaging. I don't come up to the 30yr-old plus that I'm dating and say, "Well as you know, your biological clock is ticking, let's make a kid already before you dry up." Get my drift?
I did open my mouth about this and she never really gave a good answer, something that would have settled it. Which irked me again. A lot. (Like, why am I here again, then?)
So I know this is long and all but what it culminated to is that, when I see the ex-husband's mail in my mailbox and she doesn't seem to blink about it, is it time for me to explode or not?
