(Throwaway account because my partner uses Reddit and I’m not sure whether he knows my actual account.)
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My boyfriend and I have been together for almost six months, and I’m really happy with him. We love each other very much, and we both want to do our best to make our relationship work. Every time I see him, I feel myself falling harder and harder for him, and I’m starting to feel like he’s the one I want to spend the rest of my life with (which is a big deal for me because I never really got to this point in my previous long-term relationship). I even thought of bringing up the topic of moving in with him, but now I’m starting to have doubts because of something he shared with me recently.
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The thing is, my boyfriend still regularly talks to his high school sweetheart, with whom he was together for about three years. They broke up shortly after they went to university, but they kept in touch and my boyfriend says he kept running after her for a long time. He didn’t have any serious relationships after her before he met me.
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He says the reason he still talks to her is that he can tell her anything without having to worry about her reaction because if he says something to which her response is that she never wants to talk to him again, then he can live with that, while if this happened with me, he would obviously be heartbroken. I understand his reasoning, and I appreciate that he’s honest with me, but I can’t really accept this whole thing, no matter how hard I try. I’ve never really been the jealous type, but I have to admit, I got to the point now where every time my boyfriend gets a message, I get anxious and start to wonder whether it’s his ex.
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If she was just a female friend, I could accept that, I have a close guy friend, too, but we explicitly agreed at the beginning of our friendship never to date (we think of each other as cousins) and if my boyfriend asked me to show him our conversation, I would do it in a heartbeat. Also, for a while, I still talked to my ex-boyfriend, but it was never about anything personal, we just sent each other some memes and cat pictures every few weeks, and that was it (and it’s over now anyway – I blocked him and we will most likely never speak again). I feel like what my boyfriend is doing is completely different because he’s sharing personal and intimate stuff with his ex, stuff that he is hesitant to share with me. This really bothers me because I think a relationship should be about sharing both our best and worst with the other person and being there for them when they need it. I understand that he’s hesitant to open up after being hurt by this girl so badly, but this just confuses me even more because why the hell does he still want to talk to someone who rejected him and gave him trust issues…? It’s not like he doesn’t have any other friends that he can trust and talk to.
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Anyway, the point is, this whole thing just doesn’t sit right with me. With most conflicts and disagreements, my first reaction is to talk things through, try to understand each other’s perspective, and find a compromise, and there are very few things that could outright make me leave my partner, but I’m starting to think that this is one of them. Maybe it’s petty or immature, but I just have this gut feeling that I will never be able to accept this.
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So, what should I do? I know I will have to talk to him, and I will do it this weekend when we see each other in person again, but I want to think things through and gather my thoughts before I sit him down, so I wanted to hear some advice from people who aren’t as emotionally caught up in this situation as I am. Once I sit my boyfriend down to talk, I will ask him how often he talks to his ex, about what exact topics, and whether they see each other in person as well, but I honestly can’t see an outcome that would leave me feeling better about this. If anything, I think it will just make me even more anxious and angry. Honestly, I would feel like an asshole if I asked him to cut ties with his ex, but I truly can’t see any other way I could stay in this relationship.
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TL;DR: My boyfriend still regularly talks to his ex and shares intimate stuff with her, and it makes me incredibly uncomfortable. What should I do?