[Jenn2u]

Me and my fiance have probably not been together long enough to be getting married. It will have been a year in Sept. We’ve been engaged since Valentine’s day. He is 32 and I am 29. I will be the first to admit I have some insecurities with our relationship. We have a long distance one. He lives maybe 200 miles away from me. But we see each other about every other week and talk constantly. Now here is my problem: he is friends with his ex. He tells me they never slept together which I believe and that he broke up with her because he wasn’t attracted to her, but because of how much they have in common decided to stay friends with her. Their relationship was a while ago, going on 10 yrs. To be completely honest, for the most part I’ve been OK with it. A little uncomfortable with it, but that’s it. I told him I just need to get to know her. Which basically has never happened no matter how many times I have said it.

The issues I do have are that until me and him got together, every time he came to where I live (she lives near me) he would sleep in the same bed as her. She used to cook for him, he would see her almost as much as he sees me now, they saw each other on valentines day often and tell each other they miss each other. Basically everything a normal bf/gf relationship has minus sex and sex related activities. About 2 months ago I was snooping around on facebook and noticed she has the same tattoo as him but on her stomach. It’s a video game tattoo, the hearts from zelda which in the game is the life line. Before I knew they shared that, I loved the tattoo. I grew up playing that game with my family so it had significance to me. I always told him how much I liked it and how I wanted us to match. He never mentioned he already matched with her. When I found out I flipped. I was pissed. It almost ended us. Silly maybe, but I was hurt. Before I found this out I also thought it would be fun to get a tattoo and let him pick it out. He picked something from Zelda because he knew how much I liked it. The hearts are not involved but the significance is huge to me. I felt betrayed and hurt and lied to.

So once again we are sorta fighting about their friendship. After the tattoo incident he called her and told her to reach out to me so that we could be friends and I could understand their friendship. Problem was, he did this without telling me anything about it and I was surprised with a message from her on facebook. I agreed to meet up with her and we had a good time and she is very nice. Still didn’t fix everything with my fiance, just led me to not put blame on her for what had happened. My fiance told me since he has moved to where he lives now he talks to her about once a month. Unfortunately, this is false. I don’t know if he just didn’t realize it was more than that or if he is lying to me (blatantly) but, once again, facebook tells a very different story. When I try to (calmly) talk to him about it he flips out on me.

I DO NOT think he is doing this stuff with her now, and I understand it is in the past, but I am worried him and I won’t ever have the emotional connection he has with her. And I am still trying to understand their friendship which apparently will never happen. I am at a point where I feel I have to just accept it to be with him or not accept it and move on, My major problem with their friendship is the boundaries. Which I explained to her and him (separately). They both seemed to understand my point, and my fiance agreed to not go to her with emotional stuff or anything else he can get from me. I realize what I have done could possibly push them closer together and me and my fiance further apart. But I don’t know how to be completely ok with all of it and accept it. Since hanging out with her I haven’t heard from her. I have a bit of social anxiety so I have trouble being the one to reach out to her. My fiance thinks I don’t trust him and now wants to delay marriage because of it. I feel like all of this could have been handled a different way from the beginning. I guess I don’t really have a question, but instead am just looking for some insight.
Thank you.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Trust your instincts. Your fiance still has a relationship with his ex that includes sleeping in her bed [i]with[/i] her and not being upfront about that relationship. Right now, the stakes at hand are a relationship. If you marry him with this uncertainty that is pretty well based in fact, you’ve got a marriage at stake. I don’t think your timetable for marriage is too quick — but I do think you have a compatibility issue that has to do with boundaries and relationships that could tank your relationship whether you marry or not.

Frankly, I think you know the answer to the question you’re not asking, which is: Should I stay or should I leave this relationship? And you’re not coming out and asking that question because you don’t want to face the answer because you don’t want to be single again. Nobody here can blame you — dating is a lot of work, but…. if you choose poorly, you’ll regret it, and you’ll wish you’d gone back and done the work to choose the right guy.

My advice is to accept that this relationship your fiance has with his ex is a deal breaker, and frankly, these boundary issues he has are the same ones that break up marriages when a mother in law comes into play or a sister in law pulls a power play and the husband doesn’t put the marriage and the wife first. In fact, these boundary issues occur with same sex relationships, too — I’ve seen relationships fall apart because a fiancé, boyfriend or husband puts a relationship with a best buddy who is single and acts very single, if you know what I mean, ahead of the relationship he has with his girlfriend, fiance or wife. Your fiance has made his choice — and it’s not you or your feelings. My advice is to let go and move on.

I hope that helps. Let me know how things go.

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