Girlfriend's Ex
 

Hey everyone, I've only posted a few times but the advice on this forum is incredible. My girlfriend and I read it all the time and think it's really great. Pay no attention to my username, it doesn't exactly reflect who I am anymore :D . I figured I would post this just to get some opinions or maybe hear some similar experiences.

I've been going out with my girlfriend for about 3 1/2 months. I love her more than anything. We get along so well, we laugh at the same things, we're always thinking the same, she is absolutely beautiful. She's the perfect girl for me. There's just one problem - her ex boyfriend.

They were still doing stuff, not exactly going out, but still having sex when her and I started to have feelings for each other. They broke things off (or I thought they did anyway) and things continued between her and I. It was really quite the sketched out scene at this point. After they broke things off he saw her a few times and I thought it was just to talk but I found out later they had sex. And that's not the biggest deal because it wasn't like her and I had a commitment then, we were fooling around but I had really strong feelings for her even that early. Anyway, what bugged was she wasn't honest about it to me until I bascially found out about it myself. They stopped doing anything at that point and her and I moved into a relationship over the course of a few months - now we're boyfriend and girlfriend. We live together now and things are great between us.

BUT here's my problem - for the past three months he has emailed her just about everyday. He says things like "Want to hang out? (or make out?)" to her. She emails him back and is nice to him which is fine but she doesn't tell him that she doesn't want to have sex with him. He's called her and asked if he could come over and 'hang out'. When she told him no, but they could go grab a coffee and talk he more or less flipped out and sent her a super nasty email. He called her stupid, he told her she was basically a slut, he called me a weezly fag - and none of this is true. He constantly bad mouths me to her. It's all just another way for him to get under her skin and try to make our relationship as hard as possible. She's still nice to him in her emails to him even through all of this.

I know she feels really bad for him about what happened. I feel for him too, less now than before but I still do. But he is the only problem with our relationship. We could be having the perfect night and the subject of him would come up and get us both is terrible moods. It's absolutely killing me. I have no idea what to do. I want to tell him to just butt out, I want her to tell him she doesn't have intentions to do anything with him... but I know how bad she feels for him and I can't see it happening. I feel like I'm stuck in this never ending battle between the 3 of us. I trust in her that she's not going to do anything with him, it's just that this is a constant stress and pressure in our relationship and it's making this much more difficult than it should be. It's not remotely healthy for our relationship for him to still be in the picture like this. WTF do I do :confused:

Wow, I probably could have condensed this so thank you so so much if you made it through the whole thing. Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

A third person can't cause trouble in the relationship, if trouble's not there to begin with.

Living together after 3 1/2 months?

I see a huge warning flag that she wasnt honest with you in the beginning of your relationship, and probably wouldn't have fessed up if you hadn't found out. Is she being honest with you now?

Your girlfriend doesn't sound like she wants to let go of the ex. She might love you and not him any more, but there's still an attraction to him that she likes. The attention maybe?

Why does she still communicate with him? Why does she answer his email, why does she take his calls, why doesn't she tell him that she's no longer with him and is with you. Being polite is one thing, but she has to think about you too.

I concur with Mal on this one.

Quick opinion : she might feel bad for her ex, and so might you - but...if the two of you are in a relationship and have made that known, and the ex isn't willing to let it go, then I think your girlfriend has to make a choice. It's not easy, but sometimes that's what it comes down to. If she's isn't willing to make that choice on her own, and hasn't been willing to, then you should pay attention to that.

You can't make her make that choice, and this situation sounds like a recipe for tough times. You can't force things to be how you want them to be, so in my opinion I think all you can do is be aware that something is amiss and be prepared for things to get dicey, or else cut and run. If she's aware that her ex's attention is causing you problems, and she isn't taking steps to make it clear that she's not interested in receiving that attention, then you've got a problem.

Thanks for the replies male and pigglet. She's definitely aware of how I feel. I don't like to bring the subject up very often, because like I said before we both get into a bad mood because of it. I'm completely 100% honest and open with her about everything and how I feel about it. I fully intend to show her what I posted here, she likes tilted as much as me anyway.

You know, the I realised something while reading over my post. When she is nice to him and isnt blunt with him, he's nice to her too. But as soon as she is truthful, or even stands up for her herself, or disagrees with something he says - he treats her like garbage. They went through seme tough times in their relationship and he blames it all on her. So I think part of it is - if she's nice to him then he won't be nasty and tell her how he really feels about it. And she doesn't want to hear the nasty stuff and I don't blame her for that.

I would do absolutely anything for her, I adore her so much. Our relationship is great aside for this. She is happier than she has been in years and the same goes for me. She means the world to me and I just hate to see us both stressed over this because it really shouldn't be an issue - but unfortunately it is.

Can she honestly say that she wants him out of her life? Or do the good times make up for the bad?

Relationships shouldn't dictate who a person is friends with, however, unless it's mutually agreed upon, friends don't call up friends to get laid. I am friends with a few ex's, but it's frienship nothing more. He wants more than just friendship with her, and she doesn't seem to want to say no.

The ex sounds a bit manipulative, which is a dangerous type of person, he wants what he wants, and doesn't care who or what he hurts. If I were her, I'd cut him lose, now, and see how it goes for a while.

Good Luck.

Holy shit dude, I could swear that I made this post because it's so accurate to what I went through. Minus the girlfriend having sex with the ex, but the rest is freakishly similiar.

Your girlfriend won't tell this guy to fuck off because she wants the attention. She might not straight up tell you this, but deep down she really enjoys the attention. I don't know what to tell you about this aspect.

What I do know is that if you don't do something about this situation now, you will deal with it for the rest of your relationship. I was dealing with this shit from day one up until my ex-girlfriend dumped me at the 4.5 year mark. That's a long time to have some limp dick causing trouble.

You need to find out exactly how she feels about this dude, and if she truly wants him gone, you need to grow some big ole testicles and tell this guy to fuck off. But this won't work if she still likes the idea of him being in her life.

Sorry I can't be more helpful. Truthfully, I never found the solution myself.

I can honestly sum my response up in: "Dump that bitch".


Why make you read any more?

Well thats a little drastic...

But I think she's got to make a decision...

him or you

Perhaps when she reads this, she'll question herself and hopefully have an answer as to why she still is in touch with him, where does she expect that to go?

here's what i don't understand... why does you and she feel bad for him?

is it because she's not fucking him anymore?

is it because they broke up?

i don't get it... it doesn't seem to me like there's anything to feel bad for, unless you both think her choosing you over him is something to feel sorry for, in which case just give the relationship up, that's probably too steep a hill to climb.

Well, we were doing stuff for almost a month before she told him anything was up between us. They weren't going out then, they were broken up for months but they were still having sex, which is atleast some sort of commitment in my opinion. Anyway, thats what the feelings stem from.

Oh this is giving me a headache... Let me see if I get this...

She was going out with him.
She broke up with him .
She kept having sex with him.
She started seeing you.
She kept having sex with him.
She started having sex with you.
Somewhere in here she LIED to you.
She kept having sex with him????
She moved in with you after a very short time.
She won't tell him to take a hike.
She knows that it gets you upset.
She gets annoyed that you get upset and it causes friction between the two of you.



If she broke up with him, why did she have to tell him there was anything between the two of you, they broke up yet they continued to have sex.

What are your ages, if I may ask....

so let me get this straight

she and this guy went from relationship to fuck buddies
she meets you and continues to keep fuck buddy status until things between you get a little more serious
she continues to communicate with him and it is causing friction between you two

and she's still talking to him why? IMO thats not showing any respect for you and the relationship you two have at all

Shanifaye basically has the idea. It's not so much that she still communicates with him, it's the way he acts and her attitude towards it. I'm not the type of person to get jealous because my girlfriend is talking to another guy, that's not my reasoning at all. It's the fact that he acts like a complete ass unless he's getting his way. He hates my guts, he would do anything do have me fall off the face of the earth. And he doesn't just bad mouth me, he's an idiot to her too - but then takes back what he says or apologizes. There's absolutely no way he's ever going to be the person she used to know - that she loved - while i'm still in the picture. He's never going to be reasonable about it.

To clarify things even further: we all lived in the same house last fall. They weren't going out at the time but lived together (with me and 2 other guys). They didnt act like boyfriend and girlfriend, and got in constant arguments. But there was a certain comfort level they had because they were together for 4 years and knew each other so well (which is a bad thing at times, because he knows exactly how to push her buttons). Anyway, we started to have feelings for each other, starting doing stuff, she told him, he moved out. We fell in love with each other over the course of all this. We made it through alot of stress together. So us getting an apartment together wasn't a huge step since we already had lived together before.

Maleficient - Early twenties. Did you expect younger? ;)

Uh. yah, but what do I know?

OK, let's try a different approach.

She's got a lot of history with this guy. What does she want to happen with him? What does she want to happen with you? Where do you see this relationship going? If you could have your way, what would you like to see happen?

What's stopping that from happening?

There are times you need to let things go and times you need to take action. This might be one of those times you need to take action.

For some reason or other, your girlfriend isn't capable of standing up to this guy. If you love her so much, then you need to take a more proactive role here. If the guy won't take a hint, then you should "convince" him a little more forcefully. Bring friends, if necessary.

The most important thing here is to communicate openly with your girlfriend. Find out from her what she really wants in this situation. If she wants to maintain her "friendship" with her ex, then you've got some serious thinking to do. There may be some pretty deep issues you need to deal with here.

If she has you, why does she still need him??
I think she is only thinking about herself.
maybe you two need to go one a vacation some where together like stay in a hotel for a few days or something.

i completely agree. HookedOnChronic, you say that you've been 100% open and honest about how you feel towards this situation, yet you still get into arguments and cranky moods when you talk about it... obviously something isn't right. you don't know how she truly feels about it or else you wouldn't be so confused about how to fix the problem.

you need to approach her with the same frame of mind that you'd want her to have when you're explaining your side of things. reassure her that you want to truly understand what she's thinking and how she feels and that you won't judge her no matter what she says and then follow through with those promises. listen with an open mind and try to think of things from her point of view... i'm sure you'll find some good solutions if you do get her to open up.

.

Please don't have kids.

Sorry I posted that blank message by mistake under my girlfriends screen name, cookies still had her logged in.


That's a good idea. We drive back home together pretty often and we always have a good time. She's not at the computer checking for emails from him and I'm not stressing about it.

Sounds like a bad scene. If you are going to have a relationship with her it must be just you two. Right now you have a relationship of three, you, her, and the nutter that won't go away. I feel if she was really uncomfortable with his behavior and really commited to you, she would tell him to go away, for good. If she completely rebuked him he would eventually tire of making an ass of himself and fade away. As long as she continues to have ANY relationship with him she is feeding his hopes and just dragging out everyone's misery. I wouldn't stand for one minute some ex interfering with my relationship and neither should you. This guy has to be given the boot and she is the one that has to do it. I'm sorry to be blunt but maintaining friendships so soon after a break-up rarely work out and usually just cause everyone pain. You two need time to find out where your relationship is headed without the shadow of the past constantly intruding into your lives. If after sufficient time has passed she desired and could continue a friendship with him, fine. For right now though if you two are going to have a fighting chance he as to go, otherwise your just treading water waiting to go down.

Have her post her side of the story here :-D

That's a good way to avoid the problem, to keep her away from the computer. She's got to WANT to stay away from him. She doesn't -- and therein lie your problem.

Her side would be really curious to hear...

This sounds like so many situations I have been in. Exactly. In fact, I was the other guy for a while....just a nice one, not an asshat. She broke up with me, decided she wanted to still fuck me when she had time because I was a convenience, but was also on the prowl for another good lay. She ended up finding that lay pretty quick but was still fucking me at the same time. It was all about her. Not me. Not the other guy.

You, my friend, need to make sure she knows what she wants out of being YOUR girlfriend. I get so tired of hearing about relationships that are one sided. They want to have male friends, even male friends that they have had sex with in the past because they want and love the attention. Realtionships need to have a strong foundation of trust. Having her continue to keep in touch with this moron, who is also trying to ruin your chances with her, is not healthy. You can be the most non-jealous, secure guy in the world, but there will always be guys like this out there that try to undermine what you have with her. Male friends are one thing....male friends who know someone is spoken for and they still try to get in their pants and not good. If she really loves you, I hope she will think for the two of you as opposed to just thinking about herself.

/end rant