Yes, I am female and I meant girlfriend as in female friend.
Those who are still friends with their exes, do you have anything binding you (kids etc)?
Men, you’d be ok with your new girlfriend still being friends and hanging out with a handful of guys who had been inside her, then?
I don’t like the assumption that those who aren’t friends with their exes is a “red flag”. Both my previous partners don’t enrich my life in any way, so why?
How so? What kind of problem?
I stayed in touch with most of my exes. I lost touch with the majority of them over the years for the same reasons you usually lost contact with friends : you grow apart, are busy with your life, you move, you don’t share anymore the same interests, etc… But I never deliberatly tried to cut contact with them. In fact, it’s difficult for me to understand why people do that, unless the break up was difficult or something : if they were your lovers, presumably, they’re people you appreciate, whose company you enjoy, etc… So, unless again seeing them is painful, why wouldn’t you want to?
I know that it’s pretty common for people to completely cut off contact with their exes, and to resent the presence of his/her ex in their partner’s life. Luckily, I only once faced the latter issue. And I didn’t think that this woman (with whom by the way, I’ve also been in touch for many years since we splited up) demands were acceptable. I saw them as unreasonably controling and a pure expression of jealousy, which might be a common feeling, but still is generally considered as neither positive nor healthy.
Simply put, exes I’m still in contact with are non-negotiable. I’m not going to stop seeing them any more than other friends or than my family. That’s something I clearly made my mind about, precisely following this relationship during with my partner had an issue with me still seeing an ex (and she indeed proved to be jealous and controling in many other ways).
From my point of view, there’s only a difference in degree, not in nature, betwen “you won’t see your exes”, “you won’t have any friend of the opposite sex”, “you won’t contact/talk to any female/male” and “you won’t see anybody outside my presence”. That might not be the most usual behaviour wrt exes (even though only one of my exes wanted to cut all contacts after we splited up and I’ve known many of my exes new boyfriens so maybe again I was lucky, but maybe also it isn’t that rare or deemed that much unacceptable) but for that like for anything else, people are different. Not putting people you like in “ex capsules” isn’t in itself “a sign of a problem” just because you, or most people you know (and people you know typically have behaviours and values similar to yours, so it doesn’t say much), or even the majority of people in general behave in a different way.
And that statement isn’t having a sad outlook on things?
It says a lot about you, most certainly, but not much about people who stay in friendly terms with their exes.
That’s good advice, IMO.
As opposed to : I can’t stand it but I can go over it at the moment and when our relationship will be more firmly established, surely he will show the light/ I’ll be able to convince him/ to blackmail him into not seeing his ex anymore. In fact, it’s sometimes possible to change your partner, but you certainly never should count on it.
Either she trusts him and can stand him still being in touch with his ex, or she should move on.
No, I don’t have any kid.
Yes. I know peole have been “inside her” as you put it (and have kissed her, and had romantic dinners with her, and have heard her professing her love to them, and have washed the dishes with her, and so on…). Even if it bothered me that I hadn’t been the only man in her life, her not seeing them anymore wouldn’t change this past, so what difference would it make?
And my presence has also been accepted by the new boyfriends of my exes, so, once again, it’s not something that uncommon.
In fact I had only one instance each of the following :
-ex who didn’t want us to stay in touch.
-gf who didn’t want me to stay in touch with exes.
-ex whose new bf didn’t want her to stay in touch with me.
I really have an issue with the idea that your partner is somehow “tainted” because someone has been “inside her” or he has been “inside” someone else, so let’s not even touch this.
The only reason that makes sense to want your partner stay away from an ex is jealousy, which means insecurity and/or lack of trust (the assumption being that you’re more likely to sleep with an ex than with any random female friend, which isn’t even obviously true : after all, if you wanted to keep sleeping with her you could have stayed with her). I know that I’m not above jealousy, since I’ve been jealous (and insecure) once. But I’m no typically so, and I’ve been lucky enough to trust all but one of my partners.
This is the part I have difficulties understanding, as I said above. Presumably, you cared a lot for your exes at some point and you considered them good people, pleasant to be around. Unless you came to hate them for whatever reason or it’s too painful for you to meet them, how did you come to not care the slighest bit about them, apparently as if they never existed or were complete strangers?
As I said, I lost contact over the years with almost all of my exes (except one who, in fact, just left after staying at my place for a dozen days). Nevertheless, I sometimes wonder what became of them, if only out of curiosity (and when I think of it, some weeks ago I did a google search about one of them I didn’t hear about for something like 20 years) and if for some reason one of them was knocking at my door right now, I’d be happy to see her and to get news.
So, how do you become totally indifferent to your previously beloved ex right off the bat (as opposed to become indifferent over time because both of you became different people who don’t have much in common anymore)?
And on the opposite end of the spectrum, there may not be a huge difference in degree between “I am friendly with my exes”, “I still hang out regularly with my exes”, and “I date multiple people at the same time”.
Different people are comfortable on different points of that spectrum.
I’m with you, in the “happy to see them, grown apart, doesn’t come up much” category. Of course, I’ve also been married for decades, so I don’t have any recent exes. Both my husband and I have opposite-sex friends, though. And if I were to be on the dating market, I would consider “on good terms with exes” a positive feature.
But other people are comfortable in other places.
So I think the question is whether this woman and the guy with friendly exes are compatible. I agree that going into a relationship planning to blackmail him into dropping his existing friends is a bad strategy. She should decide if this is a deal breaker upfront.
I have friends who are ex’s…so does my husband. What binds us to our ex’s is friendship - not kids or shared pets. Now, we aren’t friends with all of our ex’s - if there was a betrayal, we generally leave them behind.
Since many of our ex’s enriched our lives while we were dating with humor, conversation, company, help in moving, advice on how to do a vlookup in Excel - in addition to sex - keeping them around has continued to enrich our lives with their company and personalities - and occasionally a pick up truck when one is required.
(I’ve been married to my husband for twenty years - while these people are exes, I’ve almost started to lose track of which friends he dated).
I have a dog with my ex-wife but we’ll still be friends when the dog dies.
Oh. Now that you put it that way… of course I’m ok with it but to be fair I don’t have an unhealthy view of sex.
I don’t like that assumption either and that’s good because no one made it. What we all said was that having a bad relationship with all of your exes is a red flag. Having no relationship with any of them is fine.
Friendship and genuine concern for the other person’s well-being. No kids, pets, or anything like that, though.
Yes. Why should it bother me if she hangs out with her old male friends from time to time? Now, if she’s hanging out with them more than me, then I’d be a little concerned, but simply being friends with her exes? No.
Seriously? that’s a pretty idiotic thing to get hung up about. I am sure plenty of guys want to pretend their dick is the only one that has ever been inside their SO, and having had other dicks inside her make her tainted and dirty. I have no idea why a woman would want a man like that though. I was friends with most of my exes before i dated them, i see absolutely no reason to stop being friends with them simply because a relationship didn’t work out. Other than cheating i guess, fuck those bitches.
What does that mean? What do you consider an unhealthy view of sex?
I only have 2 exes. One is a pothead with depression and violent mood swings and the other is an extreme narcissist. So, yeah… not the kind of people I want to continue friendships with.
Perhaps because I have never had an ex I’d want to remain friends with I have a negative opinion about it? I’ve never really thought about it. I have never been with anyone who wanted to remain friends with their ex so I’m not sure how I’d feel personally. Probably concerned if I am being honest. I am very insecure and jealous. But I don’t want to give her the wrong advice.
It seems to me there’s friends with an ex and friends with an ex. Daily phone calls? That could be a bit much. Seeing an ex at a get together of the gang? Sure. Saying “Hi” and getting a cuppa coffee if you happen to meet when you’re both at the mall? Okay. Making plans for just the 2 of you to meet for coffee when you’re out shopping? I don’t think so.
I recall it getting a little complicated when my ex was also a guitar-playing buddy. I made sure there was always at least a 3rd GPB there, there’s always room for a significant other at a practice, jam, or performance, and I never picked her up or drove her home unless there was someone else in car. It’s easier to avoid situations than to explain them.
And as I recall, your current relationship isn’t the best either. I believe an older white knight, that you don’t have much in common with anymore.
What’s the common thread with all these bad relationships? You chose them. Maybe you’re not the best judge of character. That’s the example of red flags others are talking about.
ETA: Sounds like your girlfriend has trust issues. Either she trusts her new guy or she doesn’t. Lot’s of people have healthy relationships with their exes, and lots of people don’t. That doesn’t mean one is right and one is wrong. If she doesn’t trust him that’s a whole other problem.
No, I just needed someone else to help me move or give me a ride to the airport on occasion.:rolleyes:
I was always “friendly” with my exes, but I just don’t see the point of being “friends” in such a way that a current girlfriend would have any reason to be jealous or concerned. What do you get out of a relationship like that unless one of you is secretly longing for that friendship to rekindle into something more?
I don’t think so. I think at best her friend who “just started dating this guy” might believe their relationship has a higher level of exclusivity than it really does.
Really whenever someone brings the word “trust” into the discussion, that’s a red flag for me. If you like someone, you don’t act in a way that gives them cause to question whether they should trust you.
I agree, if she’s really uncomfortable, they just might be incompatible.
If I was in her place, it would depend on how close of friends he was with his exes. If they were all casual friends, where they would chat when they ran into each other, and see each other at parties, and occasionally chat on text or Facebook or whatever, and maybe occasionally meet up for movies or whatever, then I’d be okay. But if he was super close to one (or more of them), and hung out all the time, and constantly texted, and often went on date type activities just the two of them, then I would probably be uncomfortable with it. I wouldn’t forbid him from doing it, but I’d discuss how it made me feel, and see if we could work it out or if we were incompatible and we should break up.
It rather depends on why they’re an ex in the first place.
If someone is an ex of mine because, for example, they lied to me, cheated on me, stole from me, were physically and/or mentally abusive? Those people I will have nothing further to do with in any capacity. I have a salted-earth policy in that kind of situation in most situations.
If someone is an ex of mine because one or the other of us found someone they wanted to date more and was upfront about it? Or because one of us moved out of town for school/work/joined the military/whatever and we both moved on to other romantic partners? Or we just realized that we were great friends but not really great romantic partners for whatever reason? I see no problem with still being friends at the end of the day.
There are a million reasons why someone might be an inappropriate long-term romantic partner but still be a great friend. A lot of them you don’t really find out about until you date someone. I’m FB friends with a number of people I used to date back in the day - we don’t hang out in person anymore, but that is mostly because we no longer live anywhere near each other. If we were in the same spot, we’d probably hang out at least sometimes.
As a random example, one of my exes is an ex primarily because he drank like a freaking fish at the time we were dating - and I’m not much of a drinker. A heavy drinker and a teetotaler is an awkward fit for dating - especially since I don’t smoke either and don’t like the smell and at the time every bar in the world was full of people sucking down a cigarette. He kept wanting to go hang out at bars and play pool or quiz or video games - and I hated the freaking smell of bars (although I was fine with the pool, quizzing and video games).
Or there was the guy I dated who did not read for pleasure and failed to understand why reading was entertaining so every goddamn time I cracked a book (and I read literally hundreds of books a year) he would interrupt me every freaking 15 seconds and talk to me. Seriously. Endless questions “What’re you reading? What’s it about? Is it good? Who are the characters? Is that a dragon on the cover? Is it about pirates?” He felt ignored when I read, and I wanted to fill his mouth with a sock and duct tape it shut when he started in with the questions every time I cracked a book in his presence. He’s a perfectly fine human being and I’m sure his wife loves him dearly, but there is no way in Hell we would have managed to be together for any serious amount of time without a fatality. We have interests other than literature in common, but he just doesn’t read at all.
I’m still in contact with at least 3 ex-gfs and 1 ex wife. One of these proceeds my two marriages. I can’t imagine a relationship continuing with anyone insisting that these people are now persona non grata. I kind of get that some people think that way, but I would consider them too possessive for a relationship with me. YMMV. I will probably die alone 
I don’t see anything wrong with it. I have remained friends with my exwife and most of my ex girlfriends. Not close friends but we talk, occassional phone calls usually related to something other than personnal. If I see an ex socially I like to feel free to greet and chat briefly. If I am in the company of my present girlfriend I keep it very brief. My ex wife and I are still pretty close just because we were also business partners and joint parents of our kids but never any hint of hanky panky. I still feel partially responsible for screwing up my ex wifes life so I have remained available to her when she needs help on things.
A couple of things come to mind:
The first of which is why does your current SO feel threatened by your friendships with your exes? Is he/she really being too possessive or are you are doing activities with your exes that would normally be the sort of thing one would do with their supposed current girl/boyfriend?
Do you really want to be in a serious relationship with this person? Or maybe a better way to put it is do you want to be in a serious relationship at times other than when it is convenient for you? I mean if this guy is hanging out with at least 4 exes and assorted booty calls, he’s not interested in getting serious with this girl, he’s just looking for someone else to add into the rotation.
As I mentioned, in my observation guys who complain that a woman has “trust issues” seem to be the sort of guys who are perpetually single because they act in a self-centered way that causes their SO to not trust them.