So my ex (29m) and I (28f) broke up for almost a year, last 5 months have been no contact. We were together for 3 years.
One of the issues of our relationship is his emotional connections with other women. I didn’t like that one of his exes basically used him as her support system after a death in her family. Granted, they were together 5 months 5 years ago but it still made me uncomfortable. I felt she should go to a friend or her family instead of her ex who she hasn’t even seen in person since they broke up. Turns out he offered to be there for her which made her comfortable going to him. We broke up for other reasons (I was moving) and this issue never really got solved.
Flash forward to now, he and another friend (24f) have been having weekly facetimes since we cut contact. The break up was really hard on him and she had gone through a break up as well so they leaned on each other. Basically they just talk about their feelings and vent to each other about it for an hour. That’s fine, we were broken up.
We’ve been talking for a week now and agreed to work on things. Taking things really slow. He told me today that he was gonna have another facetime with her. I didn’t say anything but I don’t like the idea now that we’re talking again. I feel like he should be processing his emotions with me since we’ll be the two people in this relationship. He also has a therapist he sees weekly so it’s not like he doesn’t have anyone to talk to either.
Am I being too insecure in asking him to stop these weekly facetimes? I’m okay with them being friends but not okay with the level of emotional intimacy with another woman especially if they’re talking about our relationship. I don’t expect him to immediately cut it off since I know that’d be shitty of him to ditch his friend as soon as we start talking so I’m open to other solutions. I can’t think of a compromise for me to feel comfortable and him not to look like a bad friend so any ideas are welcome.
Tl;Dr ex and a friend have weekly facetimes where they processed their break ups. Now that we’re working on things, I don’t feel comfortable with this anymore.
4 comments
You seem very insecure and controlling. You were upset he was emotionally supportive of a grieving friend? That sounds so horrible of you. It really sounds like you aren’t okay with him having friends. If you two do get back together, then yes, he should process emotions with you, but also with friends. It’s normal and healthy to have a social support system, and using only one person for that is extremely toxic in almost all situations.
Do you trust him? Do you think he will or has cheated? If not, then what is the actual issue here?
yes you are being insecure and this is coming from someone who also struggles with this problem. It’s normal to discuss problems with friends especially since they have been involved in helping with the issue earlier. If you trust that he isn’t cheating on you or doing anything inappropriate, you should not be feeling this way. It’s ok for him to have other women with whom he feels comfortable discussing his problems and feelings (to an extent), that doesn’t mean they can replace you in his life.
“One of the issues of our relationship is his emotional connections with other women.” And what has he done to fix this issue? Do you trust him?
Is it really worth it trying again wiht someone you don’t trust? Leave him to his other girls, and find someone that you can trust
Women are people, not just an extension of your insecurities. Unless he’s cheating on you, or commiserating about you with these people, you are being unnecessarily cruel. Imagine being the friend who’s been there for someone for months and the second their back together w the girl who causes all that heartache, he stops being an actual friend anymore. You don’t FaceTime your friends or talk once a week? And you’re his girlfriend, he’s still allowed to have other female friends. You can’t be his entire support system as a person.
I have lots of friends I haven’t seen in years, some I just maintain online friendships with, and depending on the issues they/me face, if they happen to be something that is related to our time spent in real life, they might talk to me a bit more during that time period. My friends lost a good friend last year, I wasn’t close with him but found people reaching out to me from the time period we all went to school together. And your bf offered to be helpful.
Again if he’s not cheating, flirting or being inappropriate and crossing boundaries, there’s nothing to be done here.