Are you comfortable with your partner being very close with an ex?

Frostynight

I find myself in this situation and it's new to me. Just wondering what everyone else thinks, have you been through it, do you mind? How did you cope?

AllForIt

I've never been in this situation, but personally I wouldn't be comfortable with it, but maybe that's just me. It all depends though.

If my current partner was with someone else for 10 years say then maybe I could live with it. Only if I was completely confident that there was just affection left and not love. But I'd have to be sure.

I'm an all or nothing type. If I suspected my partner didn't have eyes for me and me only then I'd call the whole thing off.

Liberty_Bear

The matter here is how much do you trust your partner? My ex was pals with his ex and had to sort out house stuff etc. I trusted him to go do it. While there are issues on it and it can be suspicious the question you have to ask yourself is if you are being unreasonable? I dont particularly see an issue in it but thats not a judgement from me on you. Every dynamic is different. Find a balance that works for you and raise it. You are not being unreasonable worrying about it.

Salo13

Although I'd agree trust has something to do with this situation, I also think it has a lot to do with something not a lot of people talk about in this context: Exclusivity.

If you're in a relationship with someone who still waxes nostalgic or fondly about an ex, the sense of exclusivity in your relationship is being breached in some way. I don't think this has anything to do with jealousy or mistrust; it's about having the right to feel you are in an exclusive relationship, if that's what you agree you are in. You do have the right to be in a relationship without the Ghost of Christmas Past intruding upon it.

I am married to someone who had a child out of wedlock with a previous attachment. Everything is fine now, but it did take some work to get through it after we were married. One weekend my wife went to visit old friends from the state we used to live in, and among the group was her ex. These were all mutual friends from the time they were together. When she returned she remarked at dinner that she had "the greatest night of my life" hanging out in a bar with her old friends, which included her ex. And I wasn't there.

I told her maybe she should consider how she would feel if I went away for a weekend and came back to tell her I had the greatest night of my life hanging out in a bar with a group that included an ex I was once in a live-in relationship and had a child with. Suddenly something clicked in her. I told her when she says things like this, I didn't feel like her husband - I felt like her ex's replacement. I felt the same whenever she'd casually bring up anything involving him - like if we were in some town and she'd just out of nowhere say she was once there with "him." She changed after that and no longer brings him up. I never thought for a second she was cheating or anything at all. But it's not at all OK to be off somewhere having the "greatest night of your life" in a bar with a group that includes a serious former partner while your significant other is home cleaning the house.

I don't believe in being friends with exes. That doesn't mean being enemies with them. It means letting go and moving on. Feelings don't always go away entirely. And if you are going to be in a serious relationship with anyone, you have a right to be so without hearing about exes all the time. Remember, it's not about jealousy -- the ex doesn't have anything you want, and I assume you wouldn't trade places with them for anything. It's about exclusivity. Exclusivity.