What could be the best solution for both of us?

[Kim_2704]

Hi,
I've been in a long distance relationship for one year and four months, and most of it has been happy and fulfilling. We have gone through some ups and downs, but always have been able to solve them at its core and get past them. Until recently. My boyfriend and me have been very open and honest about ourselves since the early stages of our relationship, and he told me from the start that he and his ex girlfriend ended things on good terms, had close mutual friends and therefore, didn't quite lost contact with each other. I didn't give much thought to it back then, though I did tell my boyfriend that I wasn't fully comfortable with that relationship. He assured me that it wasn't as if they were best friends whatsoever, that they didn't hung out unless it was with the mutual friends, and that they didn't talk on a regular basis. I felt secure with those statements and we were even going to attend her birthday party, so I could meet his friends. We couldn't make it, so I didn't meet her and that was about it, I hadn't thought about her until some stuff that has happened recently. First, the girl added me on Facebook and Instagram, and I thought it was somewhat weird, but kept it to myself. Then, my boyfriend told me a few weeks ago that his ex had facebook messaged him, and addressed a problem one mutual friend was facing (my boyfriend's best friend was having relationship troubles), she was pretty much reaching out for his help, and requested him to take a trip to Melbourne (he lives in the Gold Coast, his ex and mutual friends live in Melbourne). My boyfriend told me all this because he knows the discomfort I feel about his ex, and asked me if I was okay with him going to Melbourne. All this just rang an alarm that I never felt before. I told him, that I wasn't comfortable with him going, but that if he considered his friend really needed him to take a plane down there, he was free to go. It was a no-brainer for him, and he told me he wouldn't go. I thought that was going to be the end of this issue, but the alarm kept ringing, and I just felt something off. I made connections with the social media adds from his ex, and decided to tell him that I thought it was weird for her to add me when she doesn't even know me yet. He told me I shouldn't think the worse, and brushed it off by saying she was probably just bored and a bit nosy, and that when he talked to his friends about me before he came to visit me, she showed a lot of curiosity about meeting me, and was really happy about our relationship. This discussion went wrong, and we ended up saying hurtful things to each other, which we soon regretted, and he told me he was willing to do anything to make me feel comfortable. Here comes the trick: while I don't like his relationship with his ex, I don't want to fully tell him "DON'T TALK TO HER EVER AGAIN", because that's the kind of thing I promised myself I'd never do as a girlfriend, but at the same time, I don't feel good about this and its draining my energy. To complicate things more, I have a full planned visit to Australia by the end of this year, and I'm going to meet all my boyfriends' family and stay at his mom's house (I already met her, she's lovely and very supportive of us). This has brought us a lot of excitement and great times to look forward to, but it seems like, eventually, I'll have to meet his ex anyway, as we plan to visit his other Melbourne friends, and he says it would be awkward for his friend group to purposedly isolate her and her boyfriend (she's in a relationship too). I feel trapped between what I feel comfortable with and what is more adjusting to my boyfriend's life. I am overwhelmed about this putting a straing between us, as it is really the only and biggest issue with have had in our time together. Right now, and after all the previous discussions we have had about the topic, we decided to just leave it, and move on towards planning our time together, but the uneasy feeling is constantly lingering in me. What could we do about this? Is this only about me?

[Jacob]

Hi Kim!

I'm thinking it might be useful to ask a few more questions here about why you feel uncomfortable that he has contact with his ex. From the sounds of it she hasn't (to your knowledge) done anything bad to either of you... but you're having these feelings of discomfort emerge anyway. So it can't be nothing.

When you look around the situation is there anything else which you could be stressed about which she represents to you?

Do you think distance plays a factor in how you feel about her?

[Ashleah]

I'd like to add some questions:

Do you feel that you can trust your boyfriend? If the answer is yes (kinda going off of Jacobs' questions) what do you feel will happen if they continue their relationship?

[Kim_2704]

I can't really root where does this discomfort come from, but I've been doing a lot of self reflection and have some possible reasons: The first of all is really just the fact that she is an ex, and personally, I don't keep in touch with people I've dated before, nor do I believe it'd add anything to my life than they did while we dated. It is also a cultural matter here in Ecuador, that I might have picked up unconsciously, that one doesn't keep in touch with exes, that the past must be left behind, and that whenever an ex comes into play, it most likely will be a problem. In an ideal scenario, I wouldn't have to hear a thing from my partner's ex, but I know this situation involves mutual friends (whom I met and are awesome), and I shouldn't interfer with that. Another point that makes me itch is that my current relationship is my first serious, committed one, he's been my first everything. He claims that though I'm not his first sexual partner, I am truly the first person he's been inlove with. We talked about why he and the ex broke up, and he told me that they just knew they were never fully committed and meant for each other and decided to end it. In some efforts to minimize his previous relationships, he's even given me more details, and said it was mostly a physical relationship, where they were both younger and sexually curious, he's even described it as something that wasn't quite official and much more casual, though it lasted a year. So here it comes: I'm very sexually unexperienced, as I've learned what I know from him, and I also tend to panic about pregnancy in ways that make me feel like I'm not ready to maintain a sexual relationship that involves intercourse, he's been with me through it all, very patiently. I don't feel hurt that I haven't been his first, in fact, I can't even recall the name of the girl he told me he lost his virginity with. I don't feel hurt from that, because he is completely unrelated to them now, I don't hear a thing from them, so I accept things as they are and were. But from what he's told me about his previous relationship, they were definitely more adventurous in the sexual aspect, and the fact that I have to meet, hang out and probably hear about this girl in future events, makes me really uncomfortable, because that's exactly the aspect of our relationship in which I have set lots of boundaries. I feel like this is more of an issue that I have to deal with myself, though, since talking about this with my boyfriend is painful for him, as he starts regretting lots of decisions he made when he was younger, and just overall feels bad about himself. About trusting him, I do, and he's never done anything to threaten it. Trust plays a major role in our relationship, as distance would make it unbearable without it. I do not feel like he wants her ex back, but with the girl being nosy and adding me on social media out of the blue, I can't tell what her intentions are.

[Sam W]

Hi Kim,

That self-reflection is really helpful (for both you, and for us to see what you're thinking). I would say that people being friends with their exes is not a red flag, although there are different cultural norms around it. Some people never want to see their ex again, some re-establish a bond after some time has passed, and some find they're able to settle into a friendship pretty quickly. So your boyfriend and his ex may be just that: friends.

You're not the first person to have worries about not being as sexually experienced as a partner or a partner's ex. Something that might help keep that in perspective is that even if your boyfriend has been in relationships (sexual or not) before, he's never been in one with you until now. So you two are each getting the chance to explore a new person, rather than him going "been there, done that." Does that make sense?

As far as trusting him goes, if you trust him, you trust him. If he misuses that trust, that will suck, but it's better than building a relationship where there is no trust. And if his ex does have interest in getting back with him romantically, you'll need to trust him to go "nope, sorry, not on the market due to cool girlfriend."

[Kim_2704]

One way I use to manage these uneasy feelings (as they pretty much just linger randomly) is to think that, in the end, I will never have full control over this situation, and that relationships imply some uncertainty that I have to learn to be comfortable with. All I can really do is love with all my heart, trust until there's an obvious reason not to, and put my best efforts into building a healthy relationship. Though all of the despair this has brought me, I know from everyday actions and forms of kindness and committment, that my boyfriend is into this full time as well, so I guess this issue came as a test and we'll go through it. I'd like to know if it's okay if, when he asks me how can he help to make me feel more comfortable, I mention some boundaries he should make clear whenever he gets in contact with his ex. I also am in the process of preparing myself for that trip at the end of the year, and the unavoidable meet-up with her. I want to make clear to my boyfriend, that though I'm willing to keep things polite and civil with her, I definitely don't want any extra involvement/consider a friendship with her. Does this sound reasonable?

[Heather]

Do you mean that YOU don't want a friendship with her, or that you don't want him to have one? (Feeling unclear about that, so just wanting to be sure I'm using the right information in answering you. )

[Kim_2704]

I don't want to develop any relationship with her, as far as "mandatory" events when I get to see her, and I also am not comfortable with him having a relationship with her, that goes outside of their friend group. Another issue arised over the course of these past couple days, and I just found out that the ex and her boyfriend live in the same apartment complex where my boyfriend's best friend lives (thus, where We'll be staying) I don't feel comfortable with this and would like to stay somewhere else, taking into account that we'll still come and hang around with them. It seems like this is more complicated than it sounds, because his best friend would take this as rudeness, so I'm finding myself trapped again.

[Sam W]

Hi Kim,

Well, you certainly don't have to be friends with her. All you need to do, when you run in to her, is be polite and avoid being cold or rude. But as far as her and your boyfriend being friends, that's not something you can control. If he wants to be friends with her and meet with her, then he gets to do that, and you just have to trust that when he says they're just friends, he's telling the truth. And, if she has a partner as well, it's not as though she's actively looking for someone to date (especially if she and said partner live together, which is what it sounds like. That usually indicates a serious relationship).

Could you explain a little more what you're concerned about in terms of staying in the same complex as them?