Should married men talk to ANY ex-girlriends (especially if they were at one time intimate), even though there's NO chance of anything happening?

If all they want to do is talk to a friend from the past (nothing sexual), should this be a concern?

Would you find it insulting if your spouse even considered talking to an "ex" rather than just saying to them "thanks for calling, but I don't think it's right that we speak"?

<small>[ November 27, 2004, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: dayzed ]</small>

In a nutshell...NO. ITs all about sacrifice and if your not comfortable with his contact with ex girlfriends he should respect that period. I am not married, but i am in a committed relationship. I stayed in touch with several of my male friends..two of which the friendships had at one time been intimate in nature. My partner was uncomfortable with my friendship. (didnt matter that it was a phone call every blue moon which I attempted to justify.) Bottom line is that out of respect for him, I extricated myself from these friends...one who I miss dearly, but again...something that i had to do which is to make sacrifices. I knew that my man was more important and I put the shoe on the other foot. Your Husband needs to cut his friendships off. I attempted to justify that contact was maybe via email or a phone call a couple times a year...this was quite true, but it still didnt sit well with my man. I respected him, I respected my relationship. Bottom line: We make sacrifices to those that we love...we make the right decision regarding the feeling of the ones we love most.
ruby

Husbands and their ex-girlfriends. Whew! I feel like I could write a 12 volume set on it. My husband keeps in touch with 2 of his ex-girlfriends. One of them I have no problem with - I'm actually friends with her and really like her. I also know that she has no designs on my husband and he has no interest in anything other than friendship with her.

The other girlfriend is a different story. Before we got married he brought some emails to me from this woman and asked me what I thought of them. I told him that it sounded to me like she was passive-aggressively trying to come between us. He agreed, but it wasn't what he wanted to hear. I told him I was uncomfortable with it and that I felt it was inappropriate for him to continue contact with her. So - for a year he didn't contact her. Then one day, one of her emails got through to him and he decided she could be trusted again (don't ask me why!) and embarked on a surreptitious email/phone/IM "reconnection" with her. She lives in Florida - we're in Virginia. I realized he was doing this about 6 months later when I went into the office unexpectedly and saw him quickly minimize an IM. I asked him who it was and he told me it was ex-girlfriend #1. So I asked if I could say hi. He balked and I looked at him and said "It's not S_____is it? It's A_____." He admitted it and I then asked him why all the secrecy. He blew up and told me that he wasn't going to give up his 17 year friendship with this woman just because he was married to me. He wasn't going to give it up for anyone. So I told him that if he was going to continue with the contact that he was not allowed to do it in our house. It bothered me a great deal and hurt me deeply that he placed her ahead of me. He swore there was nothing between them. I believed that and still believe it because I've read some of their IMs, unbeknownst to him. They're harmless on his end, but she keeps trying. He keeps deflecting. Okay. Fine. But he still refuses to give her up. I let it go. In august he left me - blindsided me and my son - just walked out. Said he wanted a divorce and there was no reconciliation possible. I simply agreed with him and then went about the business of protecting myself. He has since discovered that he made a colossal blunder and although he has his own apartment, is constantly over at my house with me and my son. He's also feeling the financial pinch. Anyway - At the end of October I was online and got an IM from a name I didn't recognize asking if I was M______. I asked who wanted to know and this person embarked on a trashy, in-my-face diatribe laced with the most foul language about how my husband was going to divorce me and move in with her, etc. She indicated that I was welcome to show the IM to my husband because he'd never believe it - rather he'd believe that I'd made it up. She said she could manipulate him into anything. she was right. She has IM'd me twice since then - both times were ugly and I kept her going in hopes that she would reveal herself. She did. She was the ex who he refused to give up for me. I showed him these IMs, proved to him that it was her screen name, not an imposter, and told him I was not going to put up with this kind of harassment. He flatly denies it was her, refuses to believe it and won't even talk about it. He says he "can't" believe it is her. Sure he can't. If he does it means he has to face up to a lot of other ugly things she's done that he won't believe. Regardless, I told him I was sending the IMs, along with screenshots and some other info to the police in Tallahassee. He got extremely agitated and begged me not to. I did it anyway. I haven't heard anything, but I've noticed that his calling volume to this woman has dropped off considerably. In September he made 185 calls to her from his cell phone. In October he made 125 calls to her. This month, in 30 days, he's made 23 calls. She has returned 4 of them. So something's up.

Ladies - stand your ground. If your gut tells you something is inappropriate, it generally is. Don't get confrontational, and don't get angry. Don't go ballistic and don't threaten. Simply make it known very calmly that there will be consequences for your husband's behavior if he continues with it. Be prepared to back that up with action or don't say it. His choice should tell you where you stand and how truly important you are to him. A man who has to hang onto his past in this manner is simply not ready and not emotionally equipped to deal with the present or the future. If this is the case and he won't make the sacrifice for you (and it may be a tremendous sacrifice - but one that should be made)then you need to be certain in your own mind just how important it is to you, honestly assess the negative impact of his relationship on your marriage and then take action accordingly. In my case I gave him an ultimatum back in January. It was me or her. Obviously he chose her, since he left in August. Now he's seeing just what this choice has cost him and how stupid it was. I don't get angry with him, I don't cast recriminations at him, I don't verbally abuse him, I don't argue, criticize or complain. I simply do what I need to do to get on with my life. Right now, he's extremely uncomfortable that I'm apparently able to move on without him. I don't let him know the pain I go through daily and if I cry, I do it on my own time. When he sees me I'm always upbeat, cheerful and I agree with pretty much anything he says unless it's truly harmful to me or my son. He's lonely, bored, and too full of pride to ask if he can come back. I'm not advocating ultimatums, because they can backfire, big time. But if you issue one, be prepared to back it up with action. If you don't, your spouse will get the message he can continue with the same behavior because you'll do nothing about it.

Bottom line? Respect yourselves. Do not accept inappropriate behavior from your spouse or anyone else. Eventually those people will learn that they cannot treat you disrespectfully and get away with it. Ex-girlfriends are a real threat and have very little business being a part of a husband's life unless his wife is okay with it.

Stick a fork in me. I'm done.

Usk.

<small>[ December 03, 2004, 09:51 AM: Message edited by: Sunshine3 ]</small>

Laugh Out Loud - no way should any spouse keep ANY contact with an "ex" if the other spouse is even the slightest uncomfortable.

To be blunt, when you marry, you put your spouse above EVERYONE except yourself. If your spouse is jealous or uncomfortable, it's YOUR responsibility to make your spouse feel secure and loved. If you spouse asks you to break contact, you do it because that person DOES have a say in your relationships. Granted, there are few controlling people that can abuse these principles, but the principles are still solid.

People really get their priorities confused. Ultimately, we end up with the things we work the hardest in preserving. If someone is so set on preserving a "friendship" with an ex, then that just might be with the only thing they end up with. In my opinion, people that cling to their "ex" as friends don't understand what marriage is: all "ex" relations become NULL and VOID by spouse. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />