General Relationship DiscussionAlthough anyone can post anywhere on Talk About Marriage, this section is for people interested in general relationship and marriage advice.
If you discovered your H/W is in touch with their ex?.........
Just recently (within past few days) discovered my OH has been in occasional (he says) touch with his ex.... about every few months by text to make sure each other ok, he says. Talking about stuff this evening and he pretty much blanked my mention of it, saying well he'd known her half his life and ........ (no further conversation, taken as read it was reasonable to remain in touch). Ok on one level that sounds vaguely ok but she was the woman he ended up back with for a short while fairly early in our relationship and WHEN i was pregnant with our son. Big deal and very sore point. To keep from me that they've been in touch I find quite a big deal too. I knew about a slightly drunken phone call she made to him about 8 years back, but he's mentioned nothing since.
What would you make of the most recent stuff?
Re: If you discovered your H/W is in touch with their ex?.........
How did you learn about it? Did he tell you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by madimoff
Ok on one level that sounds vaguely ok but she was the woman he ended up back with for a short while fairly early in our relationship and WHEN i was pregnant with our son.
Re: If you discovered your H/W is in touch with their ex?.........
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jellybeans
How did you learn about it? Did he tell you?
Did he leave her initially to be with you?
Mentioned it in an alcohol-fuelled argument.
Left her yes to be with me but mostly as a (long term) result of her infidelity. We didn't get together til years after that but he maintains he would ultimately have split with her. When we got together we knew he wanted kids..... he was very upset about some stuff between us and left one weekend, I discovered about 24 hours later that he'd gone to their ex-house and she'd gone to meet him & they ended up together again for about 10 days. During which time I discovered (on my own) that I was pregnant.
Re: If you discovered your H/W is in touch with their ex?.........
First, how did you find out about this communication?
Did your husband tell you, or did you find out on your own by other means?
From what you are describing, it is not seeming healthy.
The best barometer in such situations, is whether there is secrecy or not.
For example, on my father's side of family, there is occasional contact between some of my uncles and their own ex wives, but this is because there are children between them and ex's, and a relatively cordial and mature relationship between their ex's and their family. There is no secrecy in this example, so in such situations I would view as acceptable.
YOur situation however is not seeming as this. Your man has decided to hide his communication, you hinted at a previous EA or PA with this woman, and there is strong resentment (of course) welling up inside you concerning his communication with this woman.
Re: If you discovered your H/W is in touch with their ex?.........
In that situation I wouldn't be happy about it at all. Lots of people stay in touch with exes and that's fine for them if it works and their oh knows about it, but that wasn't the case in your situation.
I think it's bang out of order, especially if he was with her again for a short time when you were pregnant, no wonder it's a sore point!
I think his behaviour is shocking and disrespectful, and no matter what he says, I believe he knows it's wrong.
Good luck, hope he sees sense soon.
Re: If you discovered your H/W is in touch with their ex?.........
I found out during an argument and although yes he told me, there's no way of knowing if he would have if the argument hadn't taken place.
I can vaguely understand his back-to-front logic which he followed up with: namely she's always been a bogeyman in my head (yip, not without reason) and he knows that so he's saying that telling me he was in touch and she's married and in a different country should put my mind at rest that she's no longer in the same town where he used to be a lot of the time. So telling me was being reassuring!
No, they've not got kids. She prevented him from having them. Literally. Kept taking the pill without telling him when he thought they were trying for a baby. For years. When we got together we were both 'rather mature' and if he was/we were going to have a child it had to be quick!
He says they're in touch as one-time best friends (that too is an issue because I don't think he really sees me that way at the moment) and that their texts are jokey (also an issue because he doesn't do jokey very much, so maybe he accepts it more from her than me........ insecurities pouring out of every phrase here ) As to how/if I'll raise it again I don't know. He knows I check out people's views on stuff in our relationship via TAM and sometimes give him feedback so maybe I'm just blunt and tell him. Don't know.
Re: If you discovered your H/W is in touch with their ex?.........
Hiding something like that is lying by omission. I believe he knows that.
He has been deceptive because he knows it was wrong.
He needs to cut ties with her, send her a NC email or make a non contact phone call. He should do it in front of you and then block her number.
You should be more important than any other person and certainly more important then some old flame who he obviously broke up with at the time for good reason, but id forgetting that at the moment, because I'm sure it's flattering and fun for him. However it's awful for you and you deserve better.
Re: If you discovered your H/W is in touch with their ex?.........
Quote:
Originally Posted by Syrum
Hiding something like that is lying by omission. I believe he knows that.
He has been deceptive because he knows it was wrong.
He needs to cut ties with her, send her a NC email or make a non contact phone call. He should do it in front of you and then block her number.
You should be more important than any other person and certainly more important then some old flame who he obviously broke up with at the time for good reason, but id forgetting that at the moment, because I'm sure it's flattering and fun for him. However it's awful for you and you deserve better.
Not attempting to justify his behaviour for him, but she is an ex-wife, not just an ex somebody. All the rest remains the same - no kids, bad back-story. She had affair etc.
I think what it boils down to is all the while we've been together - 10 years - we've had friction and he's found me a challenge. They on the other hand, apparently got on swimmingly day to day. It was on the lacking an emotional connection, poor sex, no intellectual depth/stimulus, front that she fell short (apart from the affair, making fun of him sexually and lying about taking the pill!) and it's only VERY recently that I've wised up to MY part in our problems so I'm thinking that right now he's a bit unlikely to believe my changes are going to be so sudden they'll change our relationship drastically and quickly etc. All that having been said the lying by omission I agree with. The 'he knows how much stuff has hurt me so he simply shouldn't still be in touch' I agree with. Just struggling to figure how to broach this given I'm the one who's taken a long time to realise how my behaviour (no affairs or anything, I've tended to sweat the small stuff, over analyse, question virtually every call he makes, tarred him with the same brush as a selfish ex, etc etc.... ) could have been so much nicer.
If you discovered your H/W is in touch with their ex?......... 
) As to how/if I'll raise it again I don't know. He knows I check out people's views on stuff in our relationship via TAM and sometimes give him feedback so maybe I'm just blunt and tell him. Don't know.
