Husband Friends with Ex

[snoochface]

The OP says that the invitation was to US - which includes her. Yes, it was issued to the husband because the OP is not in contact with her, but she WAS included in the invitation.

The step-son's mother is not very involved in his life. The ex was a big part of his life and they have a close relationship. She is not just his Godmother, she was his mother figure during their relationship.

I understand your concerns, but it certainly seems unwarranted in this situation. The husband is being open and honest with her. He conveyed the invitation that was extended to all of them. The ex's husband will be present at his baby's birthday party. The OP will be present. It seems highly unlikely that anything untoward is going to happen. And she may see this relationship with her own eyes and come to a completely different conclusion, but right now there seems little danger of that, and no reason for her not to attend and see for herself. She still has time to listen to any alarms that may sound after the birthday party.

 

[Almost there]

Ok, I searched online for a christian chat site because i really want Christian/Biblical advice only. I am recently married and my husband and I have a great relationship. I truly feel blessed to have him. We both have had previous relationships but are only 28 and have never been married before. we talk about everything and have a good foundation. Ok, so things would be PERFECT ( i know this doesn't exist) if we/I didn't have this one issue.

( gonna make this as short a possible) His ex of six years who he was very in love with are still friends-well they were when we met. He has a 10 year old son and the sons mother is not very involved in the child's life and the ex was there for the son a lot. Now that he and the ex are not together ( broke up about three years ago) she is still involved with the son and is the Godmother. The ex is also married now and has a 1 year old. My husband says he is no longer in love with the ex and has no feelings for her but wants to remain friends. We have had discussions about this b/c in my life experiences i don't see the point since they are no longer together. However, before we got married we both decided/compromised that he would still be in contact with her as she is an important person in my step sons life and I would not want to interfere with that. We agreed that he would only communicate with her in reference to her and my step son. This was very difficult for me at first but i felt it was fair and right to do.

Let me say this briefly. She has never been disrespectful towards me or said anything out of line. I thought we had settled everything with this issues however he tells me yesterday that she has invited us to her sons 1st bday party. I was very confused why my husband would even ask/tell me this when he knows how I feel about this. I understand the son going but theres no need for us/him to go. He became upset when I told him no I was not going and I didn't want him to go either. Later we discussed more and this morning he apologized for how he reacted and stated he just wont go to any of her events.

My issues: I do know that he loves me and I mean a lot to him. However, im torn over this issues and don't want him to later become regretful, resentful, or upset. He knows how I feel and I know how he feels just don't know how to compromise even more without me feeling like im going against my feelings/beliefs and him feeling the same. Any suggestions?
THANKS!

Watch "When Harry Met Sally". My wife's and my favorite line is "You pretty much want to nail them, too." The whole lesson of the movie is that men and women can't be friends. Sorry, but that is just the way we're made. Us guys, anyway.

"Fortunately", my divorce was a knock down drag out, so we don't have the stress of my ex being "nice". She had to turn me into a monster to justify it and bade herself a "monster" in the process. My ex is the equivalent of an ex-girlfriend in my mind and my wife's. And it's been 20 years, though we still see each other at college graduations and marriages (three daughters). But we try to avoid eye contact as much as possible and always be "polite". It works.

If my ex was still my friend, it would be an insult to my wife. Same with ex-girlfriends. No need for those relationships.

I'd politely decline the invitation to the birthday party.

But everything above is only my opinion. The only thing that ever resulted in a fight between my wife and me was when we had to get involved with my ex due to some activity with the kids. Seriously, we simply don't fight, and are VERY close. She is my best friend, and the only female friend I want or need.

 

[WindHund]

A godmother is not as essential for the son as is the intact marriage/home the boy is living in, and it is ridiculous to assert she belongs in the marriage due to her being a godmother to one of the children.

She would not exactly be "in the marriage." The boy has a relationship with her and it should not be so casually dismissed. I find it amazing how easily people will diss the feelings and relationships of children.

If someone is going to get upset about the situation, it should have been done before the marriage. I haven't seen here where this was a surprise situation.

 

[Jane_Doe]

Watch "When Harry Met Sally". My wife's and my favorite line is "You pretty much want to nail them, too." The whole lesson of the movie is that men and women can't be friends. Sorry, but that is just the way we're made. Us guys, anyway.

Again, I totally disagree. I have plenty of guy friends, including ones that have asked me out.

 

[Endeavourer]

I have agreed to allow them to communicate for the sake of the son. I don't want to go back on this agreement. But I am not ok with him or us attending events. I dont feel comfortbale with this. and yes I am on alarm and this is what makes me uneasy and concerns me....

An agreement in a marriage is only valid so long as it continues to work for both parties.

Once it doesn't work for both parties, it needs to be renegotiated or else if one party continues to coerce the unwilling party to honor it, the situation will hurt the coerced party's love for the other party.

It's better to ensure that everything within the marriage has the enthusiastic, mutual agreement of the parties.

You wouldn't want to force him to keep doing something at your expense, and he shouldn't want to coerce you do to something at your expense.

What do you think of these articles?
The Giver & Taker
The Policy of Joint Agreement

 

[Almost there]

Again, I totally disagree. I have plenty of guy friends, including ones that have asked me out.

OK.

It might have to do with the couple. I consider my wife having single male friends, or married male friends who she "pals around with" without their wife to be an affront to our relationship, and she feels exactly the same way about me.

An affair need not be physical.
affair without sex - Google Search

Also, we have a rule, just like the VP. I don't have lunches or dinners with another female. There must be others present or I'll decline the invitation. It works out really well.

 

[Jane_Doe]

OK.

It might have to do with the couple. I consider my wife having single male friends, or married male friends who she "pals around with" without their wife to be an affront to our relationship, and she feels exactly the same way about me.

An affair need not be physical.
affair without sex - Google Search

Also, we have a rule, just like the VP. I don't have lunches or dinners with another female. There must be others present or I'll decline the invitation. It works out really well.

I respect that, though my marriage works differently.

In regards to the OP, this invitation was for the family, not a him-and-her thing.

 

[snoochface]

In this case, the OP's husband isn't hanging out with her. They communicate on behalf of his son, and she invited the whole family to her son's birthday party. So they aren't hanging out alone, the OP was invited.

 

[Almost there]

I respect that, though my marriage works differently.

In regards to the OP, this invitation was for the family, not a him-and-her thing.

Yeah, the family thing really complicates things. Our one rule was always to NEVER bad mouth the ex.

BTW, my wife and I went to a birthday party for a woman I worked with and there was one husband, two ex husbands and an ex boyfriend there. She drug ex's around like nothing I have ever seen. What was weird was she looked like the "woman disguise" Arnold used to get through customs on Mars in Total Recall, and she was not really a nice person. Both of us were perplexed and struggled to keep our minds from wandering on what kept these men "in reach"...

 

[Endeavourer]

If my ex was still my friend, it would be an insult to my wife. Same with ex-girlfriends. No need for those relationships.

It might have to do with the couple. I consider my wife having single male friends, or married male friends who she "pals around with" without their wife to be an affront to our relationship, and she feels exactly the same way about me.

But everything above is only my opinion. The only thing that ever resulted in a fight between my wife and me was when we had to get involved with my ex due to some activity with the kids. Seriously, we simply don't fight, and are VERY close. She is my best friend, and the only female friend I want or need.

MarieMarie, if this is the type of marriage you want, and you want to save yourself the pain of an affair in your marriage, ^^THIS^^ is great advice.

One of the top infidelity experts in the country agrees with this as well. He has helped 10,000's of couples with affairs and has very wide and deep experience to how they start. He has found that with people who have no intention to have affairs, the affairs ALL start the same way => as opposite sex friends, which he has found is even more likely if at one time the opposite sex friends were lovers.

There are people who do intend to have affairs and don't intend to stop. They are in a diffrent category altogether, are the minority of affairs and include serial one night hookups, signing up for dating sites, etc.




[QUOTE="Almost there, post: 71969281, member: 403354"
An affair need not be physical.
affair without sex - Google Search
[/QUOTE]

Correct. Most of these do eventually progress to physical affairs unless they are disrupted.

 

[Endeavourer]

. Both of us were perplexed and struggled to keep our minds from wandering on what kept these men "in reach"...

Great way to put this. Marie, your husband is staying in reach of his ex lover. This is already causing you distress and will only grow to cause you more.

Trust your instincts.

When you tell your husband that your original agreement is not working out for you as you hoped it would, his reaction will be very telling, particularly if he is willing to engage in a fight or argument with you over her.

If he insists on staying in contact with her over your objections, then as @Almost there posted above, you should feel very insulted and prepare to escalate your demand for no contact.

 

[Endeavourer]

In this case, the OP's husband isn't hanging out with her. They communicate on behalf of his son, and she invited the whole family to her son's birthday party. So they aren't hanging out alone, the OP was invited.

The birthday party was for the ex's son, not Marie's son. This is far in excess of communicating on behalf of Marie's son/step son. It is also over-including Marie's husband in the ex's life. They are ex's but are not acting like it. Marie's husband is staying in her reach.

Further, the communications between the two were private and did not include Marie. The husband relayed the invitation he had received from his private conversation with the ex.

There is no need for Marie's husband to stay in his ex's reach this way. It is not appropriate or respectful to the marriage. The reason it is not appropriate is because it distresses Marie. If she weren't distressed she wouldn't have posted. She is distressed because her instincts are serving her well. This is a growing danger zone for her marriage.

 

[MarieMarie89]

She would not exactly be "in the marriage." The boy has a relationship with her and it should not be so casually dismissed. I find it amazing how easily people will diss the feelings and relationships of children.

If someone is going to get upset about the situation, it should have been done before the marriage. I haven't seen here where this was a surprise situation.

This was a surprise to me that he would even ask that because he knows i want no dealings with her. I only agreed to let them communicate due to the child. So i would not want to be invited to a bday party. thats a social gathering that we dont need to be involved in.

 

[MarieMarie89]

An agreement in a marriage is only valid so long as it continues to work for both parties.

Once it doesn't work for both parties, it needs to be renegotiated or else if one party continues to coerce the unwilling party to honor it, the situation will hurt the coerced party's love for the other party.

It's better to ensure that everything within the marriage has the enthusiastic, mutual agreement of the parties.

You wouldn't want to force him to keep doing something at your expense, and he shouldn't want to coerce you do to something at your expense.

What do you think of these articles?
The Giver & Taker
The Policy of Joint Agreement

i read the first which was very helpful. I will read these as well. I am not sure who posted earlier but the bottom line is im uncomfortable with it so SOME reason. My spirit is not settled about this relationship/friendship. I've really tried to be OK with it but i keeping coming back to this space. Something is not sitting right with me and i know myself. something that keeps pressing in me has to be resolved or i will continue to feel this way. I know it b/c i have felt this way since day 1.

 

[Endeavourer]

This was a surprise to me that he would even ask that because he knows i want no dealings with her. I only agreed to let them communicate due to the child. So i would not want to be invited to a bday party. thats a social gathering that we dont need to be involved in.

The communication about this birthday party for the ex's baby is far outside of your agreement. It also indicates your husband is meeting some emotional needs of hers since she wants him to share a very personal event.

Why would an adult want to go to a 1 year old's party? I **love** children but could not imagine taking time to go to an unrelated 1 year old's party just for fun, likely with a bunch of people I didn't know.

That your husband wanted to go to such an event enough to ask you to come too indicates some level of cake eating going on.

I'm glad you are seeing that this is well into the danger zone.

 

[snoochface]

My Godmother came to my birthday parties my whole life. She even came to my sister's birthday parties, even though she had her own Godmother.

The bottom line is you don't feel comfortable with it. You're going to make the decision you're going to make. But since you came here for advice, I'd like to advise you to consider these things before making your choice:

1) Your stepson is going to be in her life because she was a mother figure to him. That's just life. It would be the same if she were his birth-mother, who also had a prior relationship with your husband. She's going to be in his life. And your stepson is in your life. So, she's going to be in your life. There's not a lot of getting around that without taking away yet another mother-figure to your stepston, which hardly seems fair to him.

2) You made a prior agreement with your husband, and yes, it is up for negotiation if something changes and it is no longer working for one or both of you. But the only thing in this situation that has changed is that she invited you to participate in an event with her family - her husband, and her child, and she invited you and your husband and her Godson. That's the only thing that has changed, but because of that invitation, you want to reneg on the deal with your husband. To me, that is sending him a clear signal: I don't trust you, I never really did trust you, I was white-knuckling this agreement to pretend that I trusted you, but this is a step too far, and now I'm just going to flat out say that I don't trust you and so your agreement with me is over and your son loses his Godmother. Is that the message you want to send?

3) You have nothing whatsoever to lose by just going to the party, meeting her, meeting her husband, participating for the benefit of your stepson, and assessing the situation. If you get a bad vibe after that, you can talk to your husband about it. But really, what do you have to lose here?

 

[Yoona86]

Ok, I searched online for a christian chat site because i really want Christian/Biblical advice only. I am recently married and my husband and I have a great relationship. I truly feel blessed to have him. We both have had previous relationships but are only 28 and have never been married before. we talk about everything and have a good foundation. Ok, so things would be PERFECT ( i know this doesn't exist) if we/I didn't have this one issue.

( gonna make this as short a possible) His ex of six years who he was very in love with are still friends-well they were when we met. He has a 10 year old son and the sons mother is not very involved in the child's life and the ex was there for the son a lot. Now that he and the ex are not together ( broke up about three years ago) she is still involved with the son and is the Godmother. The ex is also married now and has a 1 year old. My husband says he is no longer in love with the ex and has no feelings for her but wants to remain friends. We have had discussions about this b/c in my life experiences i don't see the point since they are no longer together. However, before we got married we both decided/compromised that he would still be in contact with her as she is an important person in my step sons life and I would not want to interfere with that. We agreed that he would only communicate with her in reference to her and my step son. This was very difficult for me at first but i felt it was fair and right to do.

Let me say this briefly. She has never been disrespectful towards me or said anything out of line. I thought we had settled everything with this issues however he tells me yesterday that she has invited us to her sons 1st bday party. I was very confused why my husband would even ask/tell me this when he knows how I feel about this. I understand the son going but theres no need for us/him to go. He became upset when I told him no I was not going and I didn't want him to go either. Later we discussed more and this morning he apologized for how he reacted and stated he just wont go to any of her events.

My issues: I do know that he loves me and I mean a lot to him. However, im torn over this issues and don't want him to later become regretful, resentful, or upset. He knows how I feel and I know how he feels just don't know how to compromise even more without me feeling like im going against my feelings/beliefs and him feeling the same. Any suggestions?
THANKS!

i don't think you should invalidate your feelings.

i also don't think you have the obligations to be friends with her and her husband and hang out if that is making you feel uncomfortable

i also don't see why there should be a compromise here in terms of being hang out buddies?

she is the ex? you as the wife feel uncomfortable, that should be it.

i think you should try to communicate this to your husband in a non accusatory way, focus on how this make you feel and why.

that said, she is still your stepson's God mother and i can tell you know the importance of not interfere with that relationship and be supportive of it. And being supportive means you have to maintain a cordial relationship with her and see her in events that involves your stepson such as his birthdays and school events etc. Given you have already stated that she is respectful towards you when she does see you, it should be ok.

also she may want for her son to get to know your stepson and foster a relationship between them, again, that is reasonable and a positive thing for your stepson. So this means you will have to have interactions with her little boy now and in the years to come, it is part of doing what is best for your stepson.

i think after you communicated to your husband so he is on the same page with you, what you need to do next is to figure how to communicate your wish to her in a way that will not damage your relationship.

lastly, it is important for you to comm

 

[Yoona86]

I think "beyond acceptable" is a real stretch. It probably is unacceptable in some cases, and to some marriages. But I have been friends with exes and am completely transparent, open, and inclusive with my husband, and it has not negatively impacted us in the least. Contact is minimal, but friendly, and there is absolutely zero threat. Both parties have moved on. This won't work for some marriages, where people have not completely moved on, or where there is distrust (and/or valid reason for it), but that is certainly not an all-inclusive situation for all marriages.

everyone is different.

in a marriage, spouses come first.

if a person feel uncomfortable with their spouse maintaining relationship with an ex, it should be respected.

however, i think you may want to talk to someone (a right person of course, when you talk to a wrong person, it just makes it so much worse) to explore why you feel uncomfortable with the situation, if there is anything you may need to heal from or to be set free from

of course, the first thing you should do is to talk to God about it and ask Him to bring the right person into your life to help you deal with it.

 

[DZoolander]

I've only done a cursory reading of the replies, and it seems that my point of view has been been somewhat already said, but what the heck...I'll just add my vote in.

I know everyone's gut reaction to ex'es is that they ought go away. To a HUGE extent I agree with this. I'm not friends with any of my exes. Once a year or so my ex-wife will send what amounts to a virtual Christmas card letting me know what's up with her family/etc - and sometimes I reciprocate. I'm ok with that because I was close to her family for nearly 8 years - and it's nice to be appraised of basic facts about how they're doing. But that's the closest I come to any kind of involvement with anyone. Everyone else I've ever been involved with is long gone and haven't spoken to them in nearly 15 years.

BUT...my situation is different. I was just a single unencumbered guy going out and sewing my oats. It was easy for me to cut contact because it was just my contact to cut.

In your situation it sounds like he had a good long relationship with this woman, where she was involved with his child for a huge percent of that kid's formative years. At 10, he's not going to understand the dynamics of "why so and so ought go away". He just knows the relationship he has with that lady - and that if she disappears he'll miss it.

If I were in that type of scenario, I might be more likely to make allowances for the other person remaining in my life to a limited degree...so long as I was sure that the other individual wholly respected my current relationship.

It sounds like, from what you're saying, she does.

I don't buy into the "Women and men can't be friends" stuff. There are plenty of times in my life that I've just been platonic friends with a woman. Say she's really ugly (lol) - trust me - there's not going to be any sexual tension going on. 100% of the time I could hang out with her and at most drop her off with a friendly hug at the end of the evening. But even if she wasn't grotesque, most things in my life (at least) are contextual. If I'm involved, I don't think about other people in "that way". Everything in life has a set of "acceptable outcomes" - and if I'm involved - "sex with you" is not an acceptable outcome so I don't go there.

It sounds like he's over her, she's over him, she's married, she has her own kids, he's married, etc...and all he wants to do is allow his kid to keep someone who's meaningful to him to remain a fixture in his life for the time being. In that situation, if I were him, I'd also make an exception to my "no exes" rule, and I'd hope that my wife would understand it as well.

 

[Almost there]

In your situation it sounds like he had a good long relationship with this woman, where she was involved with his child for a huge percent of that kid's formative years. At 10, he's not going to understand the dynamics of "why so and so ought go away". He just knows the relationship he has with that lady - and that if she disappears he'll miss it.

I agree with you regarding the ten year old. However, the invitation to the one year old's birthday was where I would draw the line. It's a part of the ex's life that has no more bearing on this guy than what kind of car she drives. That sort of "friendship" stuff is really un-necessary and can have an impact on his current wife. At least, it would mine.

I remember after I was kicked out, but engaged to my current wife. My ex said that there was something wrong with her stereo and the kids used it to watch movies and could I fix it. I told her it was not my house and she needed to look for help elsewhere. I have an acquaintence that actually got into that trap, to the extent that he was cleaning out his ex's gutters. Time doing that is time not spent for my wife, to whom I've devoted my life. If my kids want to watch a movie, they can do it at my house. But this was almost 20 years ago. Not an issue now, of course...