Help, My In-Laws Like My Husband’s Ex More Than Me!

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Good morning,

I’m truly struggling with how my husband and his parents have dealt with his exes over the history of our relationship and marriage..

He was married before and cheated on his ex-wife with a woman whom he ended up living with unmarried for 8 years. This woman remained friends with him on social media while he and I were dating. She ended up messaging him for an entire weekend, begging him to get back together with her after he posted a pic of him and I at a baseball game together. During that weekend, he treated me differently and was very different, but he told me about it by Monday. He explained that he told her he would not be with her. I appreciated his honesty; however, I was hurt by him continuing to talk to her as long as he did. He continued to be her friend on social media and his parents would “like” and comment on her pictures. On my husband’s (then boyfriend’s) birthday, my mother in law posted pictures of him, and his ex commented about his tattoos and how he looked good. He and I got into a bit of a bickering match where I asked him to remove and block her and asked him to have his parents do the same. The end result was that he deleted her angrily, but would not block her, he still follows her business page to this day. He said he won’t tell his parents who they can or can’t talk to. My husband continues to keep pictures of her on his social media that continue to pop up on his memories annually and won’t delete those either. We’ve gotten in many fights about this. I try to space out when I ask him to do this as well by putting several months in between asking. I’m insecure because this woman was able to wreck his first marriage and I keep imagining she will do the same to mine. His parents continue to communicate with her., which also bothers me.

On top of it, my husband continues to be friends with his gf from sixth grade. He says he lives vicariously through her life and cares about her and she’s helped him through some things. My husband’s mom also follows her and likes all her pics on social media. This woman also comments on my mother in law’s post.

On top of this, I also struggle with my in-laws continuing to talk and go to barbecues and events with my husband’s ex-wife and family. They keep my husband and his ex-wife’s wedding picture up in their house. Whenever I ask my husband if he can confront them about taking it down, his answer is “it doesn’t bother me! You ask them.” Or, it turns into a fight. There was even a time when he and I were dating, that he had a picture of him and his ex-wife together as his contact picture for her. Every time she called (because they have kids together), I had to see the picture of them together. He almost broke up with me the day I asked him to remove that.

On top of it, my mother-in-law wants him and his sons to come to her house to visit and, in her words, “leave his family he sees all the time” to come see her. We see the in-laws almost twice a weekend EVERY time his boys are here. But, I don’t understand why him and the boys seeing them have to exclude my children and I. I never invite her and tell her she has to leave my father-in-law behind.

He continues to hammer me about my insecurities whenever I ask him to change these things. I’m okay with hearing if I am wrong for worrying. But, my heart and head are filled with so much worry. It makes me sick, and sometimes I get angry. Not outwardly, but inwardly.

Please help me! Thank you for your time and the blessings you have given to others through your advice!

Exes and Oh-Nos

OK, so there are layers to this letter that we’re going to have to dive into.

Let’s start with your husband’s relationship with his exes. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m not seeing anything egregious here. In fact, this is the sort of thing that I would (mostly) say is more of a “you” problem than a “him” problem. Specifically, you seem to be making your insecurities everyone else’s problem.

Part of the issue at hand is that he… seems to still be on good terms with his exes. Most of the time, that’s actually a good thing. These are people who he shared a significant part of his life with and – seeing as the relationships didn’t end in blood and fire (metaphorically and literally) – having a good relationship with them tells you a lot about him as a person. The way a person acts with their exes tends to be a good measure of who they are and how they’re likely to handle your relationship. A guy who has exes who are all “crazy” or “unreasonable” or whatever is someone who’s waving a warning sign. If someone has a “crazy” or “toxic” or “evil” ex, then they had a partner. If all of them are “crazy” or “evil”, then he’s telling you that he’s the problem.

Now, the times when it goes wrong is when someone is not actually over their ex and is holding onto that friendship because they’re hoping to get back together…eventually. Somehow. Details to be filled in later (when they’re actually feasible). The folks who are pulling this move tend to be one-foot-out-the-door already and are just looking for a reason to fully commit to the exit and are treating their partners like a place-holder. But the way you describe things, it seems like the only person who’s behaving badly here is your hubby’s ex, not him. 

The fact that he cheated on his first wife with her definitely gets some side-eye. Cheating hurts relationships, sure, but I’m firmly of the opinion that infidelity isn’t the worst thing that someone can do in a relationship. I also believe that cheating is often more nuanced than many want to acknowledge. In your case, the fact that your husband ended up living with the woman he cheated on his first wife with for eight years – married or not –  is an example of this to my mind. A person with a bad case of “can’t keep it in his pants/commitment is something that happens to someone else” generally doesn’t end up committing to their side-piece for close to a decade. 

Similarly, the way he’s acting about her begging him to come back tells me that he’s pretty well done with that aspect of their relationship. It would help if you said just how he was acting ‘differently’ after she messaged him and said she wanted him back, but from the sounds of it, he laid down a firm boundary about it and it hasn’t been a problem. If she’s respecting his boundary and knocked off the line-stepping, I’m not shocked he’s remaining friends with her. If her friendship is important to him – and it sounds like it is – then not throwing it overboard immediately is a relatively mature thing to choose. 

Yeah, I know there’re folks who will feel that this is the sort of thing that requires kicking a person out of the friend circle immediately. Personally, I think there’s a benefit to giving people, especially folks we know well, some grace when it comes to times when one fails one’s wisdom save against dumb choices. Giving someone some space to save face after making an ass out of themselves without hanging it over their head for all eternity is part of making a friendship work. 

I’m also not terribly shocked that his family still has a relationship with her. She was with him for nearly a decade and has been a close friend since. Since it seems like the break up wasn’t a particularly dramatic or serious one, the fact that his parents are still friends with her is entirely reasonable to me.

The same goes with his ex-wife. The fact that his family, your in-laws, still have a relationship with her is entirely unsurprising; she is the mother of their grandchildren after all and they seem to be splitting custody. Even if it were just a “staying civil for the grandkids” situation, it’s not that much of a surprise.

It sounds to me like your issue here is that his exes didn’t vanish into the ether once they broke up, taking all traces of their existence with them. Getting upset that he’s still friends with someone he dated in the sixth grade is, quite frankly, getting to a level of absurdity that I think says more about where your head is at than his. The same goes for his family spending time with his ex-wife and her family. They’re all adults, and they’ve got every right to be friends with whomever they please and to put up whatever pictures they choose.

Who they interact with, in person or on social media, incidentally, is also very emphatically none of your business.

This is why it’s honestly a little concerning– assuming I’m reading things correctly – that you’re monitoring his family’s relationship with his exes and making demands of them, not just of your husband. Not only is that a bit obsessive, it seems to me that this would be counterproductive to dealing with your feelings of insecurity over this. If his exes’ continued existence is like sandpaper on your nerves, it would be much better for you to block them on social media and let yourself be blissfully ignorant about other people’s business. I understand that you may feel like you’re monitoring for signs of shenanigans or impending crisis, but this isn’t the way to go about things. At best, all you’re doing is making yourself miserable. At worst, you’re spinning yourself up by feeding your anxieties and insecurities and giving your worst fears oxygen by giving into your confirmation bias.

Now where things get a bit weird is in his family asking him to come see them with his kids but without you. This in and of itself is… honestly, rude as fuck if not actively disrespectful. However, based on what you’ve written so far, I’m wondering both whether this is precisely how it’s happening but also if there isn’t a reason for it. If you’ve been making a fuss about his parents’ relationships with his ex-girlfriends or (and I can’t stress this enough) the mother of his children and their grandchildren, they may be tired of fielding demands from you over their relationship with other people.

Especially if the crux of the matter is that he and they still has a platonic relationship with people who’ve been a part of their lives for literal decades.

Regardless, as I said, this is very much a “you” issue. Your insecurities are running amok and they’re not just causing you pain but actively damaging your relationships with your husband and his family. It doesn’t matter that you “space out” the times you make these requests, because the issue is less about how much time you let pass between them and more about the fact that you aren’t dealing with your side of this. If you’re willing to be told that there’s nothing to worry about, then you also need to be willing to accept it. That comes down to a very simple matter: do you trust your husband or not? Because right now, despite what you say, the evidence suggests that you don’t. Even if his ex-girlfriend is some home-wrecking Jezebel, it takes two to tango; she can long for him all she wants, but he still has to be the one to take her up on it. She can’t exactly impose her will on him.

Honestly, it sounds like the metaphorical calls are coming from inside the house and it’s making things so much worse for you and your husband. The best thing I think you can do is start addressing these problems on your end. You’re asking other people to manage your insecurities for you and this is very much an abdication of your responsibility to yourself.

Take care of yourself and look into finding ways to manage these insecurities. I think you’ll be much happier over all… and it’ll make the difference in the overall longevity and success of your relationships.