Rarely. I dated very little before I met my wife. My primary ex and I departed on friendly terms and remained friends for a long time afterward, but we haven’t had any contact in several years. The other ex and I remained much closer friends, but she rather tragically passed away a few years ago.
My wife is decent friends with one of her ex-bf’s currently (they chat online and such), so I do hear a bit of what is going on with him currently, and I may get to meet him in the near future.
From both of our perspectives, we will talk about an ex if it fits with the conversation, but it usually isn’t to reminisce about the intimate aspects of our previous relationships. In fact, in the 11 years or so that we’ve been together, I can think of maybe two times that we’ve discussed (briefly) what our relationship with an ex was like in that manner. It’s usually more along the lines of, “Oh, yeah I’d been here once before.” “Oh, with who?” “Oh, I think it was with the ex.”
I’ve never gotten the impression that my wife has any issues with my exes, and I certainly have none with hers. Our past relationships just haven’t been much fodder for discussion.
I’m a bit more ex-minded then the others in this thread, it seems.
I am genuinely curious about his exes, and encourage him to talk about them. His exes are either No Good, and then they can be a source of instructing, or amusing tales.
Or they are Good Folk, and then I regard them as people he already selected to be worth his while, so they’re likely worth my while as well. In the case of Good Folk, I like to meet them, and if I can, and he is still friends with them, to also become friends with them. And I like to talk with my husband about our friend’s lives and characters, so that includes the exes.
My ex is one of my best friends, and after consulting both with him and my husband we bought an apartment in the same building. He’s the best neighbour one can think of, and my husband thinks so too.
It came up a lot at the beginning of our relationship when we were getting to know each other. I’m not sure I would have felt comfortable dating someone who absolutely would not talk about his ex at all, and/or didn’t want to know anything about mine.
But while I was certainly curious about his ex, I admit that I could only stand so much info before it was like, “LA LA LA I can’t hear you anymore!”
Almost four years together and the topic rarely comes up anymore. But it helps that neither of us keeps in contact with them either.
My boyfriend and I both (occasionally) trash our exes. We both have crazy, gross ex-girlfriends and say some pretty catty things about them, but they were both really bad SOs. I feel so immature doing it, but it’s fun and I hope someday to be overheard by the wrong people
We dont bring up the ex’s much in conversations, but there are times we are curious about something so we will ask.
We both have kids from our ex spouses and it doesnt bother me as long as what is said is matter-of-fact & preferrably not derogatory and the butt of jokes, no matter how nuts they are.
One of my exes comes up frequently, because he’s still one of my best friends. I don’t think it’s awkward for my SO… I think she’s sort of just come to terms with it, because with the fact that he and I have shared an entire circle of friends for 10+ years, it’s really unavoidable. She’s accepted that he’s always going to be a friend of mine, and has never let on that it bothers her.
Other than him, collectively we only have like four exes, and none of them come up regularly. We… kind of share one ex, and though she isn’t friends with him, I am, so I may mention something he said or did in passing every once in a while, but that’s about it… we don’t ever really talk ABOUT our exes; more like they just happened to be there at X event, or I think it was Ex #2 who said this funny thing… stuff like that.
My wife is good friends with her only significant ex, and we see him pretty often. I don’t mind. He’s a good guy–and he’s in a stable relationship.
I have two and a half exes. One was a terrible mistake, and I only talk about her to badmouth her. (Bitch). One was a good education for me, although she was pretty freakin neurotic; I don’t think about her much at all, and when I do, it’s without much strong emotion, except a bit of regret that I was unkind to her in our breakup. The third is an officially awesome person; she and I exchange a few emails every couple of years, and once in a long while we see each other, with spouses in tow.
I don’t have any exes, and I was around, as a friend, when my SO dated most of his. As a result, I’m oddly unthreatened by them, since I heard all of the stories when I wasn’t romantically interested in him. (There was one ex who gave us issues, but that was more related to her at-the-time-current relationship with him rather than her past one.) Earlier in our relationship, I guess it was a fairly frequent topic of conversation, especially since many of them were (and are) part of the same large social group we belong to. Now, after 8 years, they come up less since we see most of them less, but I still don’t really care much at all.
ETA: We went to the wedding of the woman I was seeing before The Lovely and Talented Mrs. Shodan. My ex married the guy she running around behind my back with.
She gained a lot of weight, and her wedding outfit was rather bizarre. TLaTMS takes a disturbing amount of satisfaction at these two facts.
(I call her the “half” because, as I said, it was a terrible mistake. Beyond her being an awful duplicitous person, she also didn’t really want to be dating me, and it was never a relationship in her mind. Icky all round).
bbs2k– Our exes both had bad personal hygiene and were, well, skanks. Mine started a coke habit, which was part of why I dumped her, and had an abortion about a week after I broke up with her. His was just a psychotic, lying and foul-smelling girl who made up a bunch of
“I-got-raped-and-molested” stories, which I totally resent (having had that happen to me for real). So there is much bad-mouthing.
