My fiancé, the love of my life and the man I marry next summer has a few exes from his previous life as a monogamous man.
One of them I adore – she’s a sweetheart; they were together for a long time in high school and her intentions are good. We’re on the path towards becoming good friends and I’m very happy about it.
I don’t know if she fancies my man in the romantic way and frankly I don’t care, but she is aware of us being poly.
But another one of his exes has popped up. Or rather, has gone from being a fleeting acquaintance that wishes him HB on facebook to being… Clingy. This is nothing close to a fresh breakup and years have passed since they were together. But now that she’s found out about him getting married, I feel like a red flag is slowly climbing a flagpole and she rubs me the wrong way.
She and I have no relationship towards each other and I can’t recall ever meeting her, not even at parties where we have a lot of friends in common. She works in another larger city and has afaik built a new life for herself there.
When she found out about him being engaged she was broken. Utterly destroyed. She called him crying; Talking about how she thought they were going to get married further down the road in life.
She got angry and scolded him for not telling her in person and how humiliating it was that she had to find out from someone else. (His reply here was “Come on, it’s been years. We never talk and I’m obligated to tell you shit. I’m very sorry that you’re sad, but YOU broke up with ME and I moved on”).
Now I know my fiancé and there’s not a shadow of doubt that he’s being honest with me.
He’s not the problem. She is.
She’s made calling him a thing. Calling to talk where she usually goes from happy to talk to him, to mad, to melancholic, to neutral and in the end simply hanging up on him when he doesn’t stroke her the way she wants.
She doesn’t seem to have any purpose with her calls other than just “to talk” or insisting they meet for coffee to catch up.
He’s agreed to meet with her but nothing ever seems to happen.
When I’ve asked my husband to describe her, the main feature has been that she switches easily between sad and happy – and when something is sad – it’s VERY sad. A less flattering side of her is that she’s always viewed him as being wrapped around her finger (He agrees to being so during their relationship, but that behaviour died with it) and that if she truly wanted to, she could get him back in the blink of an eye. So in a way she’s full of confidence but still she completely lacks it.
Now for my question… What the F do I do about this? How do I help my partner in this? How do I treat her when I meet her in person, which I'm bound to do at some point? If I had the possibility to talk to her I would – but I’m not in the position to suddenly call her up and talk as I don’t know her (And she doesn’t know I know all this).
When he asks her why she’s calling, she just says “I just want to talk, what’s wrong with that?” and gets incredibly defensive. Disappears for a few weeks and then it starts all over again. Queue intense eyerolling.
I hate to sign off a post with "help" or "thoughts?" but... Yeah. I wouldn't classify this as a specific poly-problem really, but it does scare my fiancé away from being himself and meeting new men/women. How do I support him?
One of them I adore – she’s a sweetheart; they were together for a long time in high school and her intentions are good. We’re on the path towards becoming good friends and I’m very happy about it.
I don’t know if she fancies my man in the romantic way and frankly I don’t care, but she is aware of us being poly.
But another one of his exes has popped up. Or rather, has gone from being a fleeting acquaintance that wishes him HB on facebook to being… Clingy. This is nothing close to a fresh breakup and years have passed since they were together. But now that she’s found out about him getting married, I feel like a red flag is slowly climbing a flagpole and she rubs me the wrong way.
She and I have no relationship towards each other and I can’t recall ever meeting her, not even at parties where we have a lot of friends in common. She works in another larger city and has afaik built a new life for herself there.
When she found out about him being engaged she was broken. Utterly destroyed. She called him crying; Talking about how she thought they were going to get married further down the road in life.
She got angry and scolded him for not telling her in person and how humiliating it was that she had to find out from someone else. (His reply here was “Come on, it’s been years. We never talk and I’m obligated to tell you shit. I’m very sorry that you’re sad, but YOU broke up with ME and I moved on”).
Now I know my fiancé and there’s not a shadow of doubt that he’s being honest with me.
He’s not the problem. She is.
She’s made calling him a thing. Calling to talk where she usually goes from happy to talk to him, to mad, to melancholic, to neutral and in the end simply hanging up on him when he doesn’t stroke her the way she wants.
She doesn’t seem to have any purpose with her calls other than just “to talk” or insisting they meet for coffee to catch up.
He’s agreed to meet with her but nothing ever seems to happen.
When I’ve asked my husband to describe her, the main feature has been that she switches easily between sad and happy – and when something is sad – it’s VERY sad. A less flattering side of her is that she’s always viewed him as being wrapped around her finger (He agrees to being so during their relationship, but that behaviour died with it) and that if she truly wanted to, she could get him back in the blink of an eye. So in a way she’s full of confidence but still she completely lacks it.
Now for my question… What the F do I do about this? How do I help my partner in this? How do I treat her when I meet her in person, which I'm bound to do at some point? If I had the possibility to talk to her I would – but I’m not in the position to suddenly call her up and talk as I don’t know her (And she doesn’t know I know all this).
When he asks her why she’s calling, she just says “I just want to talk, what’s wrong with that?” and gets incredibly defensive. Disappears for a few weeks and then it starts all over again. Queue intense eyerolling.
I hate to sign off a post with "help" or "thoughts?" but... Yeah. I wouldn't classify this as a specific poly-problem really, but it does scare my fiancé away from being himself and meeting new men/women. How do I support him?
