"My husband has been in touch with an old flame. Should I confront him?"

[shanaqui]

In late 2020, during lockdown, I met a nice guy. We started dating and our relationship developed at a rapid pace.

Six months into our relationship, I found an email on his computer from his university sweetheart. When we first met, he had told me about her, and how, 20 years before, he was in love with her and wanted to marry her, but his family disapproved. She later got married to someone else, and he moved on with his life. The email was a short correspondence about general things, nothing “out of line”.

Still, I was upset he was still in touch with her. A month later I confronted him and he explained that she had contacted him before we met to tell him that she forgave him. He told me that getting back in touch with her was a relief to him, as the heartbreak he experienced never left him – and even acted as a barrier in future relationships.

Soon after, we moved in together and got married. Then, one day, I was able to access his phone and saw messages between them. They had been talking to each other for months over Facebook. Two hours of video calls – we never talked for more than 20 minutes over the phone! The last phone call was two weeks before he asked me to move in with him.

I try to tell myself that this was a turning point for him – that it was only after talking to her that he realised things were serious between us. I would like to believe that he told her about me moving in, which is why they stopped talking suddenly. But I am deeply hurt. I know he loves me, and I love him. I just don’t get why he did that. What if she gets in touch with him again? What would happen?

If she got back in touch, why should the message from your husband be any different from what it has been since he’s met you? What do you think might change? I don’t know if you are obsessed with the past (or more accurately, his past) because you do sense something is going on – or because you are self-sabotaging, for whatever reason. Some people do stay in touch with exes, and some don’t.

What about your exes? I know when I had my first serious relationship I couldn’t believe my then partner was in touch with his ex, but as I grew up and accrued my own “past”, I realised that, sometimes, things aren’t straightforward.

Clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Stephen Blumenthal had some interesting perspectives. First, he felt that the fact you met in lockdown is not to be underestimated: “It wasn’t at a normal social pace, where you see each other in between going back to your normal life; you were forced together. In these situations, the relationship can develop very rapidly and be idealised, then there’s a crash when reality intrudes.” You mention yourself, in your longer letter, that this was at a rapid pace for you; I wonder if it was too quick. You mention you didn’t know about the Facebook conversations until after you were married – would they have changed your mind?

It’s important to know yourself, and ask for what you need, thereby giving your partner the chance to provide that – or not. There’s no point reasoning away your doubts and fears and pretending they don’t exist. Doing so negates those needs and provides fertile soil for resentment and separation to flourish.

You mention, in your longer letter, about needing to feel safe. “We all have a need for ‘psychological safety’,” says Blumenthal. “You’ll need to fully explore how you feel with your husband, and he’ll need to understand those feelings.” Telling your husband how his being in touch with his ex made you feel is a clear communication of your needs. That’s scary, because it makes you vulnerable, and he may not meet them, but it’s also ultimately empowering. However, you will have to admit you went in to his phone.

Source: Ask Annalisa, The Guardian.

Comments

[shanaqui]

To me, this feels like red flags all over. I would never snoop through my wife's computer and phone like this, and if I found that they were speaking to their ex, I would trust them.

At the very least, this person's relationship (on a short time scale as it was) never had the time to build up the trust required for a successful marriage. Some relationships can rush and everything's fine, there's no one rule for everyone... but they don't trust him. (I'm using the neutral pronoun because I can't see anywhere that the LW's preference is noted.)

They need to stop snooping, tell their husband what they've done, and they need to sit down and talk it out. I always joke when I read/review romance novels that I'm the relationship advice Dalek: "COMM-UN-I-CATE! COMM-UN-I-CATE!" ...but really, do it. It's good for you.

It sounds like the husband had some loose ends with this person he once wanted to marry, and they got back in touch and talked things out, allowing them both to move on (hence the drying out of contact). If the LW had found anything damning in those messages, we'd have heard about it from them: they have no compunctions about snooping through the months of chat. They didn't find anything damning, hard as they tried: they found two people chatting. Now they're terrified because... he talked to a woman?

Newsflash, people are going to talk to people. He's given a reasonable explanation and explained his past with the woman he's in touch with. Cordial contact with exes (especially when relationships ended for reasons like family disapproval, rather than personality mismatch) is normal and doesn't mean they're boning or being emotionally unfaithful or anything.

And in the future, he's going to form relationships with people who he is not married to. That is healthy and normal, and if things continue like this, the LW is going to panic like hell if the husband forms a friendship with anyone who they interpret as a potential rival. They need to sit down and examine that, and to a large degree that's not his problem (though if he is doing anything that makes them feel insecure, they need to talk about how they can both overcome that together).

I'm under the impression that this kind of jealousy and insecurity is fairly normal, which I admit makes me mutter things like "the straights are at it again" and "the allosexuals are at it again". But this relationship to me feels like it's going nowhere: they don't trust him, they snoop on him, and they want to constrain his freedom to talk to other people. Where's that red flag emoji people use on Twitter?

[cimorene]

My reaction was the same on all these points.

With one exception: people who get upset and unbalanced about people talking to or being friends with exes strike me as worryingly unbalanced. I grew up surrounded by straight allosexuals but there were still plenty of examples of people who had friends they used to date!

[shanaqui]

I agree with that, tbh! I just feel like growing up I got a lot of indirect messages from straight couples around me that it wasn't okay to talk to exes, or even other women at all, etc. Heck, early in my relationship with my now-wife, my bestie was always Shocked and Appalled that they still hung out with their previous girlfriend, and would continually ask me whether I minded. No! Why would I?

Of course it's not actually exclusive to straight or allo people, anyway, but sometimes it's nice to grumble.

[legionseagle]

I don't know if this woman had anything to worry about before she started obsessively snooping and measuring how long his facetime calls had been with ex, but if I were the husband I'd be running for the hills.

[cimorene]

Yeah, to be fair, I was aware of that attitude, but it sort of seemed to come from the world of like... daytime talk shows and sitcoms and women's magazines, whereas the matter-of-fact attitude came from my parents and the adults they interacted with by choice - so the other adult role models in my life that I felt comfortable with - and always seemed more natural to me. The exaggerated jealousy fitted in with all that Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus kind of stuff and seemed artificial and illogical to me, although as I grew older I realized there were real people behind it too and not just a conspiracy of sitcoms and magazine writers. So really I suppose I was simply insulated from some gender nonsense by my early upbringing.

Still though, there can't be very many people who never even encounter healthy adult people who can interact with their exes. They have the opportunity to realize that it can be done and do some thinking, if nothing else.

[minoanmiss]

This is an excellent thread.

[minoanmiss]

Honestly.

Apparently LW said, "I want to feel safe", but from what I can see she's bringing all the danger.

[conuly]

I'm confused. Is this two hours of video calls spread out over a period of at least two months? Or does she mean that he routinely has two hour long video calls with this woman? Because those two things are very different and I get the impression that she's trying to make the latter sound like the former.

[ashbet]

Yep. I’m (platonic) friends with most of my exes, and I’d be LIVID to find out about the snooping.

That’s a relationship dealbreaker for me — and so would an ultimatum that I cut off contact with longterm friends who happen to be exes.

LW needs therapy to deal with their inability to trust their partner and respect their privacy, and I’d also recommend couple’s counseling to resolve this insecurity and trust issue between them.

[shanaqui]

One additional thought: I wonder if it's possible there's an age gap here, because I could read the LW as immature. That insecurity about partners was something a lot of the people around me seemed to have in my teens and early twenties, but grew out of as they met reality. We know the husband can't be in his 20s, because he was ready to marry someone else 20 years ago, but we don't know the LW's age.

If that read is right, and they're younger and feeling insecure or unsure about how to go about doing an adult relationship, things might make more sense and seem like less of a red flag, and more of a sign that they've rushed into something they're not ready for, and still need to adapt and grow up. Still kind of a red flag because they'd definitely need to reflect here and stop snooping, but I have slightly more sympathy for them if that's the case. Nobody hits legal adulthood and suddenly knows how to human; it's an ongoing process.

[shanaqui]

I interpreted it as a total of two hours of video calls.

I'm not sure whether regular two-hour video calls would change my mind about the situation, though.

[conuly]

I admit, I'd be a little surprised to find anybody making very frequent two hour calls with anybody, particularly somebody who is not a close relative or going through a serious crisis.

[legionseagle]

I had an ex who used to go in for that sort of thing. Not video, because it was the 1990s, but still very long calls.

sorry to focus on one specific detail, but...

[julian]

"Then, one day, I was able to access his phone..."

Miraculous!

Er. Whut? Did you just fall over it?

[conuly]

And I am surprised!

[conuly]

I can't edit because replies, but it just occurred to me that I only ever facetime people when I want to show them my cat or dog. Occasionally this is the ONLY reason I am calling, because a video sent to their phone just isn't enough.

It's definitely not romantic. I just love my pets.

(Okay, and sometimes when I need help finding something. I'm terrible at finding things.)

[shanaqui]

Most people, I definitely couldn't have two-hour calls with, but there are some people -- especially people I knew when I was younger -- that I could talk to for hours on end, on the regular, about nothing consequential at all. It's kinda soothing.

Re: sorry to focus on one specific detail, but...

[shanaqui]

Yeah, that phrasing very much gave me the creepy feeling of someone who had been looking out for that chance and grabbed it when it arrived.

[ambyr]

I have routine scheduled two-hour calls multiple times a week with multiple people; it’s how I keep up with people who don’t live near me. At the height of lockdown I was averaging six hours of phone time a day (not all with the same person of course).

[legionseagle]

It was a great relief in many respects when we finally fell out irrevocably and the calls stopped.

[laurajv]

right??

one of my closest friends is the first person i ever had sex with! he's a wonderful friend and i talk with him nearly every day. i can't imagine my spouse being insecure or weird about that.

Re: sorry to focus on one specific detail, but...

[lethe1]

That line stood out for me as well.

[azurelunatic]

My first fiancée is now a friend, and it took a long time of not being in contact to get there again. I could absolutely see myself chatting with her for hours at a time, because we have a number of common interests and fandoms and stuff going on in our lives. We're both content in our current relationships. (She married her other high school sweetheart and they have two kids; I am in long term relationships with someone I met via the same nerd camp social sphere as my ex, and someone I originally became friends with because of LiveJournal.)

But the fact of contact is not by itself a proof of relationship malfeasance, even though proof of contact can sometimes be a proof of relationship malfeasance when there's other stuff going on and the other party is denying that there's contact.


I'm not getting anything from this letter that suggests that the husband's contact with the ex was anything more than catching up and tying up loose ends. LW spouse should look into counseling, which should help them work through insecurities without involving husband, should help in presenting the fears to husband without also making unfair demands, and help work out whether there is a problem with husband's loyalty. (And maybe help address the snooping, too!)

[azurelunatic]

I'm doing a tab-closing run, and I think I've identified a situation where I might feel justified in discomfort at a partner communicating with an ex. If it was clear to me that my partner had only ever considered this person as a sexual partner and had no interest in being their friend, I would be plenty mad (if our agreement was monogamy). Or if the reason for the split was bad behavior on the ex's end.

Since my partner is inclined to view people they date as autonomous people and not just convenient warm holes, the first scenario hasn't come up. The second scenario ... the bad behavior was extremely bad, alas, and I would probably call the cops if she showed up on the doorstep.