"My Partner Reconnected With Their Ex...Should I Be Worried?"

Today's episode, I think you're really gonna enjoy. We're gonna talk about friendships with people you've hooked up with or people you've had relationships with in the past and whether they're okay when you have a new relationship and when you have a partner who's maintaining a friendship or communication with someone they've hooked up with in the past or had a relationship with. Is that okay? How do you navigate it? This is a really tricky area. It causes a lot of hurt. a lot of pain. We're going to see if we can unpack it a little bit today and provide some clarity. Before we get into this Love Life podcast episode, we have a Black Friday offer. That's pretty great because we never do Black Friday offers. We haven't done one in years. So we are doing one this year because we have the perfect thing to do it on. It is called Matthew AI. If you have not used Matthew AI yet, it is basically like making me your coach 24/7 anytime you need. You can call Matthew AI you can text, you can ask any question, you can have full conversations about things that you either need practical advice on or emotional support on, and people want it unlimited because once they get started, they're like, this is amazing. I have so many more things to ask. Well, I have good news. If you go to askmh.com, not only can you try Matthew AI for free, but if you decide to join Matthew AI unlimited, meaning you can have it as much as you want, anytime you want. We have a 50% off offer on your first month. That means that your first month is only $19 for you to use Matthew AI as much as you please. It is an amazing deal. Go check it out at askmh.com this is just for Black Friday so take advantage right now. Tricky subject today. I really wanted to do this subject after a conversation that I had with a guy who a couple of weeks ago started asking questions on a live. David, you were there. I might need. Oh, there you are over there. You were there and. I know that that guy's name was JD, I think. He asked a question about his... Was it his fiancee?

It was his fiancee.

And the basic gist was that his fiancee has started up communication again with a guy, and I don't think he spelled out whether this guy started the communication or whether she did, but in any case, It had started up again with a guy that she used to sleep with and has become friends with. And he said, you know, I told her I was okay with it, but I'm feeling not so okay with it now that I think about it. I didn't want to come across as high maintenance or a difficult partner. I didn't want to come across like I was being controlling. And she had mentioned in the past that guys she had dated had had a problem with this guy. Which makes him not want to make.

A fuss of it even more.

Right.

Because he doesn't want to come across as crazy.

Yeah, when someone says, oh, it's really bothered me in the past when my exes have had a problem with this.

You don't want to be the ex.

That has a problem with it. Yeah, you want to position yourself as someone who's chill. I'm more chill than your exes. I'm not controlling like that. But now you get yourself in a bind because you're like, well, but maybe I do feel a bit weird about that. And now I feel like I can't say anything. And so he was asking this question, like, what do I do? Should I be okay with this? Should I not? Should I say something? And that became the kind of impetus for this episode, because when we go through these situations, they're really quite painful. They leave us in these, none of us, no one goes into a relationship wanting to see themselves as a controlling person. who comes across across as insecure. Like, we all want to be the confident person who's like, ah, I've got nothing to worry about. I'm in control. I'm too confident for that stuff. I'm too confident to get jealous about these petty things. That person's not a threat to me. Most of us want to go into a relationship like that. But then these very real situations present themselves, and in fact, Later in the week when I was doing another live, there was a woman who said, I have my boyfriend, he's once a month going for drinks and appetizers with a female friend. And it makes me uncomfortable and I don't know what to do about it. And oh, a detail she added, which was interesting, is and I'm never invited. So these are just two variations on situations that are actually very, very common. Because look, all of us get into a relationship with someone who has some kind of a past. And at the moment we meet someone, there's often a kind of overlap between their old life and their new life. And that overlap can be innocent. It can be that they are just, you know, they stayed in touch with people while it was okay to do so. It could be that they've stayed in touch with people that have become legitimate friends. It's also possible that some of the overlap is not so innocent, where they stayed in touch with people where there is still very much something in the air, where there was until recently something still happening. and it feels much murkier as to whether that's appropriate or not appropriate. So this is today's subject. I'm hoping that by talking about it, we can help everyone who's going through any kind of a situation like this breathe a little bit of a sigh of relief, know a little bit better what they should do in their situation. and have a bit more clarity. So does your mind go anywhere first when you think about these situations and how to frame this up?

To me, when you were telling me the story, I wasn't there when you had that conversation with him. When you were telling me the story just now, I felt like that was a bit of a red flag. First of all, why did the exes all have an issue with this person? Fair enough, maybe just because of the past, but still, you know, there might be a reason. It might be because a relationship made them feel uncomfortable. We don't know. But secondly, the fact that they weren't in each other's lives and now they're back in each other's lives, to me, that's a little bit of a strange thing. It's not like they're best friends in the world. They slept together years ago. They decided to stay really close friends, and they're like, you know, just have this very platonic and very kind of, you know, innocent connection.

And so now he comes along and it would be like just a severing.

Of something that means a lot.

Of a presence in her life. her life until that point.

That means a lot to her. It sounds like they weren't even in touch for a long period of time. So I'm like, why would you then need to reintroduce this extra person into the fold and risk making your partner feel uncomfortable? I don't know that. That, to me, that very specific scenario, I'm not speaking about, like, you know, a hard and fast rule in general about being friends of exes and stuff. It's just that specific situation to me felt a little bit off.

What do you think? Well, it felt off to me too, because I'm like, why is she valuing starting up communication with this person who, you know, it sounded like just a month ago, her life was fine without having this person in it. Why choose right now to start up communication with this person again? Maybe he reached out first and then she slipped into communication. But I think at some point we have to say, what am I valuing? most. Am I valuing the relationship that I'm in or am I valuing some connection that I'm can reunite or rekindle with someone from the past, even if it's just platonic, right? Is you, is it necessary for me to, like, re-engage this friendship?

So what do you say to people who would hear that and say, but, you know, I should be free to be friends with whoever I like. You know, I don't want there to be rules around me being able to be friends with other people. Like, if you trust me, what's the big deal with me being friends with this person?

It's a great argument, and it sounds fine, it sounds reasonable, but to me, life is all about what you're gonna value the most. like, and what Hills you want to die on? Like, do you really want to die on every Hill? Because if you want to die on every Hill, you're gonna go through a lot of different relationships. You're gonna go through a lot of different breakups. There are gonna be moments in life where you essentially asking your partner to give you the benefit of the doubt. and asking your partner to work on their comfort level with something are gonna be a statement of how important a certain relationship is to you. And don't you wanna save those moments for the times where it actually matters rather than kind of wanting to die on the hill of starting up a connection again with someone who's not that important to your life. Or you have to be honest with yourself and say, what is it I'm seeking here that I'm trying to justify? Am I constantly trying to seek these little connections everywhere? Like, am I about real friendships in my life? And do I feel I don't have enough friends? Is that where this is coming from? That I feel I don't have enough friends and therefore I must have a friendship with this person, in which case, Do you really need to like, if you feel like you're suffering from not enough friends, do the friends you now invest in have to be people you slept with once upon a time?

It's so interesting, right? Because, yeah, totally. I agree with you. And I think there are people in this world who almost don't care about that stuff. You know, like, We have friends who are just very kind of, they're friends with each other's exes or people they've slept with and there's no, there's just no jealousy or feeling of unease anywhere in that, in their relationship, regardless of who comes in and out of it. And then we have other friends where it's very much the opposite, where there's quite a lot of jealousy. So there's kind of a spectrum of different kinds of relationships that, you know, you can observe. I, I really think it comes down to finding someone that's right for you, and that kind of matches the way that, you know, your comfort levels in those situations, because there are plenty of people who would not be comfortable with that. And I don't think that makes them wrong at all. There are plenty of comfort of people as well who would feel controlled if they were not able to do that. And as long as their intentions are pure, which is a whole other conversation, that also doesn't make them wrong, but it would make them wrong for each other. Very much so.

Yeah.

There's actually a little wrinkle to this story, Matt, which is that at a certain point JD chimed in and he said that when asked to see her phone in the past and during this, that she was totally okay with it and had actually blocked other people in her life that had stepped over a bound, which is just kind of interesting.

Yeah, she was like quite vocal with him. I do remember this. She was quite vocal with him about being like, anytime there's been anything untoward with anyone in the past where I've sensed that they are trying it on, I have blocked them. See? Like, so from her side, there was a bit of like, when it's not appropriate, I block people, which I won't lie, a little piece of me felt like, why is that happening as often as it is?

I had the exact same thought when you said it.

You know what I mean? Like, why is it that you're having?

Why are you replying? Why? Why is there, you know, an abundance of people who feel like they can flirt with you, basically?

Yeah, why is this issue cropping up? And is it that in this situation she's almost got this sort of deniability because he hasn't tried anything yet? You know what I mean? So it's like, well, until they try something, I'm, I, you know, it's okay because I'm just, it's just a friendship. You see, when they try something, I block them. And that concerns me a little bit because it's like that seems a little bit disingenuous to me.

I wonder what you think about this. And I don't know about this person. So if we, you know, put her and his situation aside, I believe there are a lot of people who keep open threads in their lives. And they're either doing it for a kind of more insidious reason where they're actually trying to have like some kind of, you know, not a fair but you know like cheat or whatever on the side. Or they're doing it because they almost want to like feel tethered to their life as a single person outside of the relationship. so that they're not like, I'm all in with this person. Because I do think when you're all in with someone, unless this person is like a really good friend, someone you really, really love and value, they mean a lot to you in your life. I don't really know why you need to have people you've slept with, random people you've got kind of semi friendships with around in your life. I don't really know personally. I don't really understand the point of it, especially if you know your partner is going to be uncomfortable with it.

I agree with this. And these are personal views because the thing I want to keep saying in this episode is that there is right and wrong in these situations is incredibly subjective. Yeah, absolutely. It's a very personal thing. And the two points that I want us to kind of almost end up making here is to spoil the punch line, is that we have to be prepared to have conversations that actually bring our vulnerabilities to the table. And I'll talk about that in a moment. And we have to identify whether the person we're having those conversations with is ultimately an animal that is gonna make us happy, right? That's ultimately what a relationship is. There is no one right way to have a relationship. There are many.

Yeah, of course.

Plenty of people are in, you know, relationships where they treat monogamy as flexible. Other people are in relationships where it's, you know, it's very rigid. Just when you just look at things on that spectrum, you realize there are so many different roles that people make for themselves. So I don't want this to come across like in any way we're saying, here's the right way to have a relationship. We do have to figure out what's right for us. What the point I would make, I think, is that and I almost feel like this is a point about how to live well and in some sense be successful. is people I meet who tend to be successful in life. And I don't mean just outwardly. I mean like successful in terms of living by certain values and being happy and aligned. They're people who don't bleed energy everywhere. They decide things that are important to them in life. and they focus their energy around those things. And a relationship is an area where we get to do that. I think actually one of the big benefits of an amazing relationship is that you are no longer spreading your energy among multiple people or being single and starting and stopping things all the time. And you just get to align your energy and invest it in this person. and then you get to focus the rest of your energy in other ways in your life, like on friendships, family, hobbies, your career, Etc. So it gives you an opportunity to be very aligned. I think there's a lot of people who are being very unintentional in their relationships, who spread their energy by maintaining these pointless relationships.

Why do you think people do that?

I.

Maybe there's some element of not really ever choosing their relationship, never really, like, leaning in and going all in. Maybe there's some cheap thrill element to staying in touch with certain people, even though, you know, nothing's going to happen. But it feels kind of fun to do that. Maybe, you know, we tell ourselves a story that there's the. The principle matters. I. I should be able to talk to anyone I want. I should be able to keep messaging people because, you know, I want these people were part of my history and so on. And it's like, okay, fair enough.

But is your partner okay with it? That's the big question.

Is your partner okay with it? And also what? To what end? Like, we all have people that you have on social media that you wouldn't call them your friends if they sent you a DM today and it was a funny joke and you went, haha, like, That's so funny. And that was your exchange today, and then you're going to do that again in three months? That's not your friend. It's not your family. It's not your partner. It's just one of these relationships that's not even really a relationship. It's just something, a dynamic that falls in between the cracks of real relationships. if you can maintain some of those and they have no impact on your something important in your life, then fine. But if those things that really don't matter at all are having an impact on something you care about your relationship, then you have to ask yourself to what end? Why am I maintaining these superficial relationships with other people? so I do think we have to decide what actually matters. And I think in JD's case, whatever we may or may not assume about his fiance, maybe, by the way, there's nothing untoward about what she's doing. Maybe it's perfectly platonic and there's no other agenda or story there. It still matters that JD feels he can vocalize his discomfort, that he doesn't have to feel like he's treading on eggshells for fear of coming across like someone in her past who was controlling.

I think it's unfair as well. Sorry to interrupt you, but I think it's unfair for anyone to say, like, this is something my ex has had an issue with. Because then to the point we made earlier, it puts him in a situation where he feels like he can't voice anything. The conversation really shouldn't be like, oh, my friend who I used to sleep with, who all my exes had this problem with, has messaged me. I'm so happy to be back in touch with him. If you really want to have a relationship with this person, the conversation needs to be. I just want to let you know, I have this friend. We haven't spoken for a while, but he actually means a lot to me, and he's got back in touch, and it's actually really nice to be reconnected, but I don't want you to feel weird. And the truth is, we did have a thing once upon a time, but there's nothing there. You know, I just want to be completely transparent about it and make sure that that's like, doesn't make you feel uncomfortable. Like, and again, this is a conversation you would have if you know that your partner would be prone to feeling uncomfortable because there are some people who'd be like, go right ahead, I don't care. You don't even need to tell me. So we're just speaking about those sort of types of people who may actually feel a little bit uncomfortable with it. that's the conversation one should have in that instance, not almost kind of producing your partner. Yeah, like that's the part I think is just a little bit unfair because then he doesn't feel like he actually has a voice to communicate like how he feels about it.

Well, it's kind of an indirect way of telling someone you don't get to have your own feelings about this.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, which is not a nice thing to do to the person you're with.

That's such a good point.

Yeah.

He, you, you know, JD gets to have his own feelings about this. And actually, what's important, this is important from his perspective, because from his perspective, when he communicates with her, what he has to do is a good job of communicating the precise DNA of his feelings instead of allowing himself just to be lumped into some group of people who have had a problem in the past. So now I'm just part of this, you know, this. This party that are all controlling exes.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, I. I get to have my own feelings that are nuanced, and it might be in JD's case, by the way, JD has already, already proven himself. to be a person who does not wish to be a controlling force in her life. Because his first reaction was to say, it's okay. And the fact that he's deliberating over it this much in his head means that he's probably on the right side of wanting to be a good partner. but he has feelings about it. So the, the juxtaposition of those two things, that JD wants to be a confident partner, he wants to not be a controlling force, and he's uncomfortable, is actually quite attractive.

Yeah.

And endearing.

Right.

And that should come across when he speaks. It should be that he can say to her, I never want to be someone who denies you things that will make you happy. And I don't want to control you. I don't want to be that force. I don't want you to associate me with being a controlling force in your life. But I also want to be able to share feelings with you. And I've. I've had some discomfort around this situation.

And I felt like I can't bring it up because of what you said about your exes. And the last thing I would want you to think is. that I'm trying to control you or, you know, be possessive or jealous. So actually what you said there sort of stopped me from being able to express what I'm going to, what I'm expressing to you now.

And the reaction of her will tell him a lot about the relationship he's in.

Yeah.

Because if she shames him for having those feelings or if she says, oh, God, you as well, you know, like, if that's where she goes, then that would be a further red flag for me in that, if I'm in his position.

We actually talked about this last week, I think, but just the concept of teammates in this particular scenario. Can you speak a little bit to that?

Well, I think if his intention starts with, I want my partner to be happy.

And.

Something they're doing is making me feel uneasy or anxious. That's a nice place to start. I want them to be happy and this is making me uncomfortable. So now I state that to them. Now, if she's being a great teammate to him, she'll hear that and she'll say, God, the last thing in the world is I want is for you to be uncomfortable. and, you know, she then has to decide, by the way, how important this thing is to her. Maybe by sharing more, she can make him more comfortable. Or maybe she says to herself, you know what?

This.

I don't need to die on this hill. Like, this is not that.

Or.

And maybe she says to him, look, in a perfect world, would it be nice to stay in touch with this person? Because they're actually important to me and it's been platonic for a long time and there's nothing there and you know, this person's just happens to be part of my history. Yes, but is it more important to me in this case that you're happy and that you feel comfortable? Absolutely. So if you really feel uncomfortable with it, I you come first. Now, the irony of some a situation like that, is that it might even make JD more willing to go, you know what? It doesn't even matter.

Yeah.

Like, he doesn't have to do that, but it might make him more likely to do it because sometimes all we need is to know that- Our feelings come first.

Yeah.

That we are the priority. And it's very hurtful to learn that we're not. Now, he doesn't get to say that about everything all the time.

Right?

Because we all know there are relationships where people are with an extremely controlling partner who denies them access to friendships, to experiences, to plans, to certain outfits, to, you know, to kind of life in a way. And And by doing, by being with a partner like that, their life contracts and contracts and contracts until it is, you know, barely resembles its former glory before they were in this relationship. And that's a really sad situation when that happens. And it can't, if the partner who keeps shrinking their life to make someone else comfortable is doing so with the view that they, their feelings come first. That could become a mandate for really impacting your life in ways that are untenable, which kind of then tells you what you need to know about these two people. Right. If I have to continuously shrink my life in ways that make me unhappy, then you might not be the right person for me. But if I never put your feelings first out of principle because I want to die on every single freedom hill there is just to prove a point that you shouldn't be able to have a problem with this, then you're going to, you know, miss out on a lot of really great people. Because guess what? If you're out there dating, you're going to come across people with feelings, not bad people, not people who are trying to control you. You're just going to come across people with feelings, people who get scared, people who have been hurt in the past, people who have been cheated on, people who at some point in their life gave someone grace and it got thrown in their face because they were lied to and manipulated and betrayed. So, we also have to make space in life for people. And I think there are situations where we know that everything about this situation is entirely innocent. There's nothing for my partner to worry about.

And.

This is not important enough for me to make my partner feel uncomfortable over. So you know what? Why even bother? There will be other situations where it happens to be really important to you. And those will be moments where you.

Say.

To your partner, I. It really pains me that I would. any way hurt you with this because it's the last thing I want to do. And I want us to be a team in supporting each other's happiness. And this is one of those moments where this friendship is important to me and it has been important to me for a long time and it would mean a lot to me. If we could work together on you feeling more comfortable about it.

Exactly.

And you can do things.

What can I do to make you feel more comfortable about it? Do you want to go, we can go, maybe we go for dinner, the three of us, so you can see that there's nothing there and you know, you might even get on.

Which is the problem with that person, that example of the person who said, My boyfriend goes for drinks and appetizers every month. with this woman and it makes me feel funny. One of the reasons it made her feel funny was because she was never invited.

Yeah.

And he could make his life easier if he was willing to include her. And again, it says something if he's never willing to it. Do you like, again, should he have to include her every single time? Not if it's a relationship that she can trust. not if it's a relationship she's comfortable with, but if he never includes her, then he's making his own life harder if he's trying to prove a point that this is a relationship she doesn't need to worry about.

So I have a bonus question I want to ask you. It's a little bit left field, but it's adjacent to this topic. What do you say to the person who because we'll have a lot of people listening, I suspect, who have partners that go out on the weekend with their friends, go and do things with their boys or their girls and whatever, and they may be feeling insecure, jealous, fearful, anxious when that happens, even though it's not rational, even though the partner's not doing anything wrong, they're just hanging out with their friends. They're completely trustworthy and deep down, they probably know that, but. Something about them almost like existing out there doing those things makes them feel uncomfortable. What do you say to those people as a kind of something helpful for somebody who might be going through something like that?

I understand that because I've had that feeling in the past. And it's a horrible feeling. No one wants to have the feeling of their partner going out at night and now you can't relax. and your night is ruined by the fact that your partner is out.

I.

Do not feel that in our relationship. You can go away for a weekend with the girls and have the best time and go out and do what basically, honestly, within reason, whatever the hell you want. I don't sit there anxiously worrying about it. Now, I only say that because firstly, hopefully it can offer some hope to people who right now feel anxious about these situations, but that they can in the future actually feel really safe. and not safe because they're with a partner who never does it and who never puts them in that situation, but safe because they actually feel a lot safer in that relationship than maybe they have in the past.

And I think to add to that, a crucial part of that feeling of safety, in my opinion, is having agreements with the person that you're with.

So, yeah, let's talk about that, because I think the safety in a way, there's two levels to this. The first is that there is clearly a time in dating someone where the safety that they're not gonna hurt you is not really an option. Where you don't know this person that well yet, where you don't exactly know how they operate. You may know that you have a great time with them. You may know that there's chemistry. You may know that you want to see them again, you may know that it seems to be going well between you, but you don't truly know their character. So trying to feel safe under those circumstances, or let me put it a different way, trying to derive our safety from the idea that when they go out, they're going to be an angel is really hard in that stage. So our safety at that point in dating has to come from somewhere else. And it has to come from saying to ourselves, my job is not to control this person's behavior, and not that I could anyway. My job is to use their behavior to determine whether they are right for me. And if I do that, I don't need to feel unsafe. because them going out tonight is not a test for me. It's a test for them.

I love that.

Now you're free. Either they're going to go out and be the person who's loyal, in which case, great. You, you. This. You're on the right track with this person. Or they're going to be someone who's not, in which case, sooner or later, you're going to find out that this person is not the person you thought they were. your safety comes from realizing that and walking away. Now, here's where I want to hand the board to you, because there's a point where that switches and your safety starts to come on. It should come on some level from the fact that you actually do trust this person. Speak to us more about what you mean when you say agreements and how they could lead to that stage where we're able to kind of sit back and relax knowing that we are safe with someone.

Yeah. Well, what I mean by agreements, I suppose, is when two people come together, they are two people with two sets of feelings, experiences, standards, things they are comfortable and not comfortable with. You know, the whole point of a relationship is hopefully to find someone that you align with as much as possible, but you know, it's very useful in the beginning of relationships when you do have that commitment and you are saying yes to each other and you're going, you know, let's, let's try and see if we can have a relationship to communicate with the person in front of you about what you feel comfortable and not comfortable with. And for some people, that's really different, right? Some people might say, I think if you are messaging another woman, even if it's like not flirty, but another woman that you're not friends with, to me that's cheating. For another person, they might be like, I don't care about that. I feel completely comfortable and don't care that you're messaging other people. Some people might not be okay with you liking pictures of other people on Instagram. Other people might be okay with it. Again, it's a very personal thing. But it's important that we're honest with ourselves around kind of what we need in a relationship to feel happy and to feel safe and have those conversations say, you know, like when you go out or when I go out, this is what I do. This is how I behave myself. If somebody comes over and chats me up, this is how I would respond.

Which is a nice entryway into talking about how they feel about that and how they conduct themselves because you're really making it about you and the way you conduct yourself.

Exactly. And you can't expect someone, by the way, to treat you one way and then you treat them a different way. So, you know, you really are kind of putting your money where your mouth is and you're sort of, you know, you're holding yourself to that same standard. And I think communicating that early on sort of, it can prevent miscommunications and sort of like, I suppose, unknowns, right? Because if you have that conversation, you get on the same page and you basically go, we both agree that it wouldn't feel appropriate to do X, to do Y. And we also both agree we're totally okay about this other thing over here. You then have to sort of trust that that's their words. You have to trust that once they've said that to you, okay, we're on the same page. We've made an agreement around what we think is okay, not okay. Now I just send them out into the world and I trust that they're going to respect that and respect the relationship. You can't ever know whether or not they will. Like you just don't know that. But that's just life. And I think then you just at that point have to trust and you can kind of relax a little bit and just say, I'm choosing to trust that this person will respect the things that we've discussed. And that's what I mean by agreements.

[Just my opinion] well, if anyone out there wants to learn more about how to do this, how to discuss these agreements, you want to learn more about how to navigate a situation that has come up or have a conversation with the person you're seeing, dating in a relationship with about something that is making you uncomfortable right now, go ask Matthew. AI that question, you can get an instant answer right now that could both put you at ease, but also help you improve the relationship and create a stronger dynamic as a result. It can also help you have a conversation that reveals that someone maybe isn't right for you because of the way they're handling these things. And we always have to be prepared for that. But do go check it out. AskMH.com is the link. Ask a question that this has brought up for you today. and remember, if you decide that you want unlimited access to Matthew AI for the entire month, right now, the Black Friday offer is that you get Matthew AI unlimited for the first month for half price. That means it's only $19 to ask me as many questions as you want and to get my answer to everything you could possibly need to ask. Go check it out at askmh.com this is only available as a Black Friday offer for a limited amount of time and get the cheapest coaching you'll ever get at $19. Enjoy. Thank you so much for watching this episode or listening to it on the Love Life Podcast. We really appreciate you being here. We hope that this subject struck a nerve for some of you and we look forward to seeing you in the next one. Take care everyone.