His Ex Wants him Back

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Visitor's Question:
I am having a tough time dealing with a sitution... My fiance and I have been living together for over a year. He has a 2 year old daughter from a previous relationship. Although I am not the type of person who would interfere with him having a relationship with his daughter, the situation with the baby's mother is driving me CRAZY! And I don't know how to deal with it.

She does know that I exist in his life, and hates me because, as I see it, she's not over their relationship, and still wants him back with her. Her and the baby just recently moved out of state. Now he is planning on taking a trip to visit with his daughter. This means that he'll be spending the nights at her house. I can't help but wonder what will happen? Will he end up sleeping in her bed? Will they make love to each other?

I don't have any kids, so I don't know how strong the connection can be when you have a child with someone. I imagine that the love never completly goes away... If he loved her at one point in his life, even if I'm the one he's with now, how can I be sure that he doesn't still have some sexual feelings left for her?

I am so jealous of her that she gets to have him over to "play house" while I stay behind heart-broken about it. Its hard to talk to him about it, because he thinks I'm trying to prevent him from seeing his daughter. Can you offer me any advice to make me feel better?

Our Suggestion:
I think you have quite a right to be worried and concerned here. It's not like you're jealous about some co-worker of his that happens to be pretty. You're worried about him *sleeping* in the house with his ex-wife who is still actively after him and who will undoubtedly use this time to try to sink her hooks into him.

I know many people who divorced and have kids, heck that probably describes half of all children in the world right now. Just because you have a child with someone does not mean that you still lust after them. Yes, you love the child. But you can easily HATE the other parent for all sorts of reasons. It's of course far healthier if you are able to be friends with the parent for the sake of raising the child sanely. But staying in lust with the ex? It happens sometimes but isn't typical.

Instead of dealing in generalities, let's deal with your situation. The ex DOES want your guy. Your guy apparently wants you and NOT the ex, but he loves his daughter. Which is great. So now the THREE of you need to work on this. The daughter isn't going to vanish, this is going to be an ongoing issue for the next 16 years (if not longer). So the time to start laying down some groundrules is now.

First off, why is he staying with her? To save money? While it was nice (and probably self-motivated) for her to offer, he is YOUR FIANCE and should have refused politely. In fact, if you are going to be his wife, why isn't he bringing you along with him? You two should get a cheap motel - they have them for $39/night in most places, with those discount coupons - and spend the weekend TOGETHER with the child, taking her out to parks and zoos and such. This isn't supposed to be about "the couple spending time together" (i.e. him and his ex). This is supposed to be about HIM THE FATHER spending time with his daughter and building that bond. Since YOU are part of his new family, you should be there too.

That would take care of many things at once. It would make it clear to the ex that you two are now a unit and will be so for all future. It would make it clear to the daughter that she can consider you and him "a family" she spends time with. It's only going to muddy things if your fiance goes and "lives" in the home as a cozy little family, even for a while.

Yes, it'll cost a bit extra. But the important things in life do.

--Your Friendly Advisors at RomanceClass.com

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