Should you be gifting your exes?I have been with my boyfriend for four years. We don't live together, we fight very often and most of the time it's over his ex-girlfriends. He is in touch with all of them. He says they are his good friends: he does favours for them, buys stuff for them and get them gifts. He hides all his activities from me and he has no answer when I find out and confront him. What do you think? I want to be with him, he says he loves me and not them but I will never be able to fully trust him. I do not want his past in his present. Shall I end this relationship?
Nat
Kevin says…
It's difficult to answer these questions sometimes because you only get one side of the story. Based on the information you've given, this dude sounds like he is in the Top Three Worst Boyfriends in the World (along with Silvio Berlusconi and Phil Mitchell). And I'm left with a distinct impression he is having sex with all of his ex-girlfriends, while having similar arguments with them too.
But it's a bit unfair of me to suggest that because we haven't heard his side. Plus, I'm friends with some of my ex-girlfriends (and don't have sex with them). We rarely interact but I might theoretically do them favours if they needed help. I might even get a birthday card for the nicer ones.
What I wouldn't do is lie about it to my current girlfriend. Unless she was a jealous nutter. So my question is: are you a jealous nutter?
Maybe you're banging on about him "giving his ex gifts" when all he did was lend her a pen. Or maybe you always fight because every time he gets an innocent text from an old flame, you kick a fridge in anger. This would be the only justification for his secrecy - he's scared of you. But if you're not a jealous nutter, and I have no reason to believe you are, I think you should end the relationship because he sounds horrible. There are plenty more fish in the sea: and it will probably be more fulfilling going out with them even if they are all wet and scaly.
Christine says:
I'd say stop being such a control freak. Do you tell him what he can eat as well and what time he has to go to bed? Relationships are about compromise not having everything your own way. I'm a big fan of remaining friends with your exes and the only time I haven't been able to achieve it is when someone's girlfriend steps in and makes an unnecessary fuss about it.
If two people have spent a proportion of their life together and it doesn't end badly then if they want to remain friends they should be allowed to. It shouldn't be up to anyone else. If he wanted to still be in a relationship with an ex they'd still be together wouldn't they? Maybe they just want to be able to still have a chat and say hi. I think remaining friends with people he has been close to in the past is a sign that your boyfriend is emotionally mature and a downright good guy. You on the other hand you sound like a phone checking nag.
There is nothing worse than being dictated to by someone and having them try to ban you from seeing people that have meant something to you throughout your life. In order to keep everyone happy, including himself, he probably has resorted to not telling you when he meets them as he knows it'll cause an argument. You've been together for 4 years so he must have been friends with them for a long time, why are you making a fuss about it now? His 'past' makes up part of who he is as a person and in trying to erase it you are being very selfish. If someone told me who I could be friends with, I would kick them to the curb quick-smart. If he's going to cheat on you, then he'll do it. You can't stop it happening. But you can make him less likely to want to do it, by not being such a moaning minnie.
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