# When does an ex stop being an ex? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 4, 2010, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-an-ex-stop-being-an-ex/534885 "2010-04-04T03:45:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-an-ex-stop-being-an-ex/534885/141 "2010-04-06T20:22:41Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Because you’re talking to **Dio** , and he has VIEWS on non-monogamy. No, I have views on pressuring people to have sex with people they don’t want to have sex with? You don’t? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-an-ex-stop-being-an-ex/534885/142 "2010-04-06T20:25:03Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > In exactly the same way as pressuring a SO to drop long-established friends who happen to have the wrong gender or history is ALSO an infliction of hurt and pain. No it isn’t, but that’s not what we’re talking about anyway. And you need to make up your mind whether you’re for pressuring people to swing or against it. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-an-ex-stop-being-an-ex/534885/143 "2010-04-07T01:28:43Z")
> [@lezlers](#): > > Have you been in many LTRs? You don’t seem very willing to compromise much in relationships, and that’s what successful LTRs tend to require. Three 3-6 year’ers. The shortest relationship I’ve been in was 6 months. They end because I’m still young and flighty. Anyway, these relationships are where I have developed these views. In my experience, guys appreciate girl who is honest, straightforward, and knows who she is and what’s important to her. I’m perfectly able to compromise on any number of things, just not things that are fundamental to the person that I am today- like my friends of many years. ---
**Author:** ![lezlers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@lezlers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lezlers)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-an-ex-stop-being-an-ex/534885/144 "2010-04-07T01:55:52Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > In my experience, guys appreciate girl who is honest, straightforward, and knows who she is and what’s important to her. Like being uncomforatable with her SO being bff’s with his ex wife? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-an-ex-stop-being-an-ex/534885/145 "2010-04-07T02:01:23Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > As for the OP, it sounds like the wife made it clear from the very beginning that she was uncomfortable with the friendship If that is indeed true, the rest of your post follows logically from that, but I’m not getting that at all from the original post. If the wife did already (in the past, long since discussed & agreed to) indeed make it clear that it was important to her that her significant other cleave to her and forsake all others (friends, former lovers, any combo of the two), then the husband is in NO position to say Hey Wait a Minute… I don’t mean he isn’t allowed to speak, but it’s not like he wasn’t warned going in. But I’m just not seeing that in the post. I read it more as “right now IS still the beginning, and she is IN THE PROCESS of saying all this”. Good for her for doing so, but if keeping friends is important to him, HE should say so, and he is as entitled to his priorities as she is. The OP is of course neither of those people, and if the husband says “OK”, then the OP kind of has to live with that. Sucks to be her. Me, I’d never agree to cutting my ex’s (or any other friends) out of my life, but people ARE different and DO want (and value) different things. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-an-ex-stop-being-an-ex/534885/146 "2010-04-07T03:04:01Z")
**AHunter3** , I think you missed this post. > [@Gomi5](#): > > If it matters, and I genuinely don’t know if it does or doesn’t, she made it clear to him that she was uncomfortable with me from early in their relationship, but it didn’t come to a head (as I understand it, anyway) until after their wedding… Except that she read it and apparently didn’t realize that he and I communicated at all anymore, so it was a terrible shock to her. That was the point at which I was told that the friendship had to end. So yeah, he knew going in. Not that he didn’t have the right to tell her to get bent if he wasn’t okay with dropping the OP, but unless he was painfully stupid, he knew. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-an-ex-stop-being-an-ex/534885/147 "2010-04-07T03:58:43Z")
I _did_ miss that. OK consider me to be in agreement with you. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-an-ex-stop-being-an-ex/534885/148 "2010-04-07T12:59:29Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > No it isn’t, but that’s not what we’re talking about anyway. Sure it is, in both cases you have a partner pushing their partner to make a change in their interpersonal relationship style that most people would think is unusual to try to pressure someone to do. If you don’t think pressuring someone to drop their friends is as emotionally damaging as pressuring someone to swing, you haven’t known many people in abusive relationships. > [@](#): > > And you need to make up your mind whether you’re for pressuring people to swing or against it. I am “pressuring people to swing” in exactly the same way as you’re pressuring people to be prudes–that is, not at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-does-an-ex-stop-being-an-ex/534885.md?page=7)