He said, she said... An opinion poll.

In My Humble Opinion
21

(Bolding mine.)

This made me almost LOL.

I meant to add earlier that he tries to put alot of the blame/responsibility on her. For instance, she’s the one who wants to have alone time. He’ll have to check with *her * to see what the itinerary is, etc…

I guess what else I should clarify is that she’s sometimes nearly out of sight out of mind. He really hasn’t been talking to her that much lately. As a matter of fact, until he mentioned that she was coming to town, things have been going pretty well between us. But when he does talk to her, it’s like here we go again and time stops, she’s in charge and the sun rises and sets by her decree.

22

<Whispers>What does DTMFA stand for?</shh>

23

Dump the Mother Fucker Already.

24

Dump The MotherFucker Already. Popularized by Dan Savage, the sex/relationship advice columnist - don’t search for his columns while on a work computer, just fyi. He uses this in responses to letters full of “my partner is really inconsiderate of my needs/feelings and won’t budge, and this just isn’t something I can deal with, but what should I do?” commentary. In other words, if there’s no good compromise in sight, you gotta end it.

25

psst. Dump the Motherfucker Already

Never mind
/Emily

26

Wow. Just wow.
No freakin’ way I’d go for a deal like that with my hubby! Of course, my hubby wouldn’t suggest it, because he has certain guidelines he’s set for himself just so temptation doesn’t rear it’s ugly head. For instance, while he would go out to lunch with a female co-worker (with no other co-workers present), he would not go out to dinner with one. If he goes out for drinks with some co-workers after work, he’ll leave before it ends up being just him and a female co-worker left. All these guidelines are designed, by him, to keep him from being in a situation where he may accidentally go too far.

IOW, even if your SO’s intentions are totally innocent, a lot of people cheat on their partners “accidentally”, and it sounds like he’s subjecting himself to just too many opportunities to do that.

Add to that the fact that he seems more concerned with her feelings than yours, and it’s an all-around bad situation.

You need to decide where the line has to be drawn in his relationship with this woman, and tell him where the line is, and if he can’t respect that, get the hell out and find someone who will treat you with respect!

27

I think you need to make it clear with him that the relationship with her is Over with a capital O. As long as he’s willing to drop everything with you and rush off to obey her whims, then he’s still emotionally committed to her. That needs to stop. She’s leading him around on a string, and he needs to recognize that.

You know, something else about this bothers me a great deal. “She doesn’t believe in divorce” has been mentioned quite a lot, but … how did that subject happen to come up between them? That doesn’t sound like mere coincidence. Why would she be talking about the non-possibility of divorce unless she was unhappy with her husband? Why would she discuss it with Charming Boyfriend? “She doesn’t believe in divorce” is a non-answer anyway, because the real question is “does she believe in cheating?” How are her feelings on adultery?

It sounds more and more as if Ms. Ex is the problem. She’s unhappy and dissatisfied and she’s looking for emotional validation, and she’s leading Charming Boyfriend around by the … well, I’ll charitably say by the nose. She’s going to continue to seek emotional wholeness as long as her relationship with Mr. Ex is in the crapper, and she’s gonna try to get it from your boyfriend as long as he’s willing to do it.

I’d sit down with Charming Boyfriend and explain this all to him. Or have him read this thread.

28

Ordinarily I would say that friends are “grandfathered in” from the time you started dating—you don’t get to pick who his friends already were.

In this case, that whole “sharing a hotel room to save money” is ridiculous, however. There’s no way I’d allow my spouse to share a hotel room with a former lover. I wouldn’t be surprised if her husband said no.

IMO you need to get out of this relationship. He’s picking her over you.

29

That’s what it looks like to me, too.

Incidentally, I was recently chatting with a friend who has been divorced for most of two decades. Her ex-husband did not speak to her from the time of the divorce until six months ago at the funeral of wife #2. (Wife #2 and Wife #1–my friend–were friends. I think they started to talk for the sake of the children, but really bonded to each other).

Ex-husband has now expressed interest in getting back together with wife #1–who isn’t interested, exactly, and certainly hasn’t been out looking for a man lately, but is definitely flattered by the attention–especially since they’ve both changed in the years since they were together.

Now, probably that situation has nothing to do with yours, but while I think it’s great in theory of people can be friends or at least friendly with their ex’s, in this situation, the intensification of his involvement with her since seeing her for the first time in years is making me think infatuation, and even if that isn’t true, he seems to be emotionally involved in a way that I would not approve of, if he were my Significant Other.

30

That’s what I was thinking when writing my commentary above. “She doesn’t believe in divorce” sounds like a "I’m not lying to you, but only if you don’t count ‘Sins of Omission’ " justification. Like what would sound like a “I’m trying to sound innocent and reassuring” comment to a guy who had deep-down thoughts of “well if it ‘just happens’ then that’s fate but I’m not planning for it so it’s all OK.”

31

I’m thinking that Charming Boyfriend is simply regurgitating the line fed to him by Ms. Ex. In that respect, I think Ms. Ex gave him a non-answer.

Call me cynical about my own sex, but I’m going to come down on the side of “guys are generally clueless” until I have a reason to suspect evil intent. Charming Boyfriend probably doesn’t get why that’s a non-answer, probably is bamboozled by the explanation that “well, if we share a motel room, it’ll save money.”

These sound like flimsy justifications that he’s unwilling or unable to properly analyze.

That’s why I’m alarmed by all of these statements of “dump him immediately.” That should not, in my view, be the first step taken, but the last.

32

I wonder if her husband knows anything about this situation. And I wonder if your boyfriend has thought about this; she’s married and from all appearances is cheating on her husband. What if somehow she ended up sans husband and with him? I know “once a cheater always a cheater” isn’t always true, but I’d think that would be a HUGE RED FLAG. What happens if she starts cheating on him?

I’d never accept this. Being friends with an ex? Okay, sure. But sharing hotel rooms? Hell no.

33

I think I would have broken up with him the first time he made it clear I wasn’t welcome in company with the two of them. Taking her to a weekend trip to an amusement park with a shared hotel room where you’re expressly unwelcome?
Come on, now.

On the other hand, this is coming from someone who’s husband went to a weekend research conference on the other side of the country, then, after the fact, told me that he’d shared a hotel room with his female lab co-worker, and was genuinely, honestly surprised that I found that particular detail of the trip to be noteworthy.

My husband is a hard-core, computer-gaming, yeast-genetics PhD nerd. He hasn’t one ounce of playa in his entire being. He has a few female co-workers which he’s become pretty good friends with, but I think he’d break out into hives and a cold sweat if one of them tried to hug him or something. I think if he he wasn’t exactly the person he is, and Claire wasn’t who she is, I would have practically divorced him on the spot. As it was, I was taken aback, but I really had to laugh about it. He was totally puzzled about why they should have wasted money on separate hotel rooms or been uncomfortable bunking with strangers, both of which were options. After all, there were separate beds and he slept in his clothes…? I suggested, as a guideline, that any time he slept in a room with a vagina that didn’t belong to me or a relative, it’s probably noteworthy. He thought that was fair enough, and I got to go around telling all my chick friends that my husband secretly spent the weekend at a work conference, sharing a hotel room with another woman… just to see their reactions. It was pretty funny. :smiley:

So, I suppose I should say, that it sounds completely sketchy to me. It’s not that he wants to hang out with her that bothers me, but that he doesn’t want you along. I should make it clear that I’m perfectly okay with NajaHusband hanging out with his female friends alone, but if I’m free, he’s always perfectly happy to invite me along, too. Your story sounds to me as though your guy is treating you with great disrespect and disregard. He clearly still has feelings for her, and wants their interactions to be just like the interactions they were twenty years ago. The problem with you being there is that it would mean they’d have to act like it is now, today, where they are both committed to partners.

Aaaaaaaaaaand… On preview, I see the thread has exploded. I’ll just go ahead and sum up my post with “DTMFA”. :wink:

34

I think you’re right. It sounds to me like Ms. Ex keeps him off-balance with her demands - and with spoon-fed responses to possible complaints from Always Brings Pie. I think Ms. Ex has him snowed. He’s flattered by her attentions and he doesn’t realize he’s sliding down that slippery slope.

DianaG has it summed up (post #3). Isn’t this the crux of all relationships, whether matters of the heart or other relationships? You decide what you can put up with and what you can’t. You make that plain to the other person. If they won’t negotiate, walk.

35

Yup. And that’s a good explanation behind his “well I have to be fair to both of you” reasoning; he just thinks that sounds reasonable without really analyzing it. He’s not paying close attention to anything going on with the Ex, and that could get ugly fast.

36

One fairly weak argument in his favor on this point (and I readily grant that it is a weak argument) is that he told her about it. If he had something untoward in mind, there’s no reason he would have shared an incriminating piece of information that she never would have found out about on her own. That’s marginal support for innocent intent on his part.

On the other hand, “she doesn’t believe in divorce” pretty much cuts the legs out from under it, so never mind, I guess.

In general, I buy the later drift of the thread: he’s most likely clueless (but hugely insensitive), and the other woman has an agenda of some kind. Speaking as somebody who has stayed good friends with some but not all of his exes, I think it’s generally manipulative and controlling to try to interfere with the platonic continuance of these relationships, presuming they are, in fact, platonic, and entirely above board.

That said, would there be any merit to this possible approach: "Honey, I am choosing to believe you when you say there’s nothing going on here. However, I’m hurt by how you seem to be prioritizing this longstanding friend over the woman who loves you. If it’s important to you to maintain the friendship, as long as that’s all it is, that’s fine. I trust you. But I don’t trust her. I need you to promise me: If you get even the slightest hint that her interest in you goes even an inch beyond conventional friendship, you will turn and walk away and never look back. Promise me that.

“Either way, as soon as you get back from Cedar Point, you’re taking me to Hawaii for a week, motherfucker.” :wink:

37

Perhaps you should sit him down and say to him something like this: “I am very anxious about this weekend that you plan to spend with your ex-girlfriend. You tell me there’s nothing going on, that you’re going to be spending the weekend together sharing a room, and I’m not invited. Now I trust you* … but I don’t trust her. I think she has her eye on you. I have a really bad feeling that she’s going to try to come on to you, and I want you to promise me if that happens, that you’ll come home to me right away.”

*This is important. If he feels as if you don’t trust him, he’ll probably get defensive.

Ask him to look at it from your point of view, and see if he understands why an objective person might wonder if Charming Boyfriend has his eye on Ms. Ex … or if she has her eye on him. Just make sure he knows that it isn’t about him, that you love him and trust him, but that it’s she who makes you nervous (that, and being excluded from her).

38

I like what MsWhatsit said. Stop pussyfooting around. Stop trying to be reasonable, to see his side, to give him the benefit of the doubt. You’ve been too nice about this. He doesn’t get it.

39

So how serious are you two as boyfriend-girlfriend? If you were married or engaged, I’d totally agree with making this an or-else statement. But if you’re not, if you have one of those relationships that is more “I’m together with you because it’s enjoyable for now,” well, maybe she *is * a permanent part of his life and maybe you *are * a temporary part.

I’m not trying to be mean here. But there are two kinds of relationships, those that aspire to last until death and those that don’t. Of course it’s fine to put some bounds of monogamy and respect around a temporary relationship. But they can be be different than for a permanent relationship.

Although I was one of the people in the other thread who came down on the side of married people being cautious about opposite-sex friends, I know that when I was single and dating my belief was very different. With boyfriends, my attitude was “trust my judgment about my male friends, or see ya.” With dating, my official position was “still making up my mind, fine to stay informed of what all is out there.” With marriage, we made a commitment and need to stop looking/making ourselves visible.

Best wishes to you however it works out.

40

I’m with whiterabbit on the husband thing. I wonder if he knows she’s planning this. I don’t believe in divorce but I can go hang out with my exboyfriend and it’s ok to be alone with him in a hotel room because I won’t get divorced so it’s not wrong. :rolleyes:

Pie sweetie, if he buys that, can I make him an offer on a nice piece of swampland down here in South GA? I haven’t said anything in the MMP cause well, we’re nice in there dammit , but you’re floatin’ down a river in Egypt if you accept this as an innocent friendship.

There ain’t nuttin’ innocent about any of this plottin’ and plannin’ to be alone to “catch up on old times”.