Emotionally mature or emotionally stuck?

Is it healthy to stay friends with an ex-partner?  Does it mean you're strange if you don't? Does staying friends with an ex mean you are emotionally mature or emotionally stuck?  Friendship is one thing.  Living together for years after a relationship has ended is in an entirely different ball park, especially when you are actively searching for a third person to plop into the mix.

I’ve just finished up a relationship with a man who has been living with an ex-girlfriend for the last year. In fact, they have lived together a few times since they broke up 7 years ago. For a confluence of reasons I was told.

How did I feel about this?  Well, those living arrangements caused a lot of problems for me, as I am sure it would most, if faced with this situation.  Problems arose pretty early on, before I even knew they’d had a sexual relationship.  I had originally assumed they had dated once or twice and then just said ‘lets be friends.’  Nothing further was explained to me.  Six weeks into the relationship, he told me otherwise. "I thought you knew?" It's such a small detail I guess it slipped his mind.

There were many moments that got a rise out of me. For instance, when he said he couldn’t see me because he needed to get an early night… what he was doing was cooking, drinking wine, eating and watching TV with his ex-girlfriend, then getting the early night.  Or when he would choose (and this happened on 2 occasions) to have dinner with his ex-girlfriend and her new date, rather than come to my place to see me.  Or, when I sucked his balls in his office and he followed that shortly after by asking if it was ok if I showed myself out, and when I got home and sent him a message about how great I thought he was, unfortunately he was busy having dinner and watching TV with his ex and therefore just didn't notice that nice text.  I waited 3 hours with no reply.  Anyway as this situation, and many others arose, I tried to explain to him how I felt. He responded that I was CRAZY for feeling the way I did.  Even when I specifically said ‘You must admit that this is a completely normal way to feel about this situation’.  Silence, he wouldn't answer. 

To make matters worse, on top of living with his ex-girlfriend she was biting and rude towards me.  Toward him too actually, but he just laughed when she mocked him.  She would roll her eyes at my comments during conversation. Yes, some adults actually do that. They both talked a lot about his previous ‘crazy’ girlfriends, and she kindly pointed out that she was assessing me for craziness when she shared dinner with the two of us on our 3^rd date.  She also explained to him after that date that she thought my eyes were off-centre.  

The relationship however did not end because of her.  I can handle mean bitches because I grew up with one as my stepsister.  I admit that he was a nice man who did plenty of nice things with me and for me (as I did for him).  Perhaps if he hadn't lived with her things may have been different. Perhaps a completely self-actualized individual would have dealt with the situation a bit better than me.  Self-actualized people however, are few and far between.  

The relationship ended partly because I couldn’t stomach a relationship with a man who I felt had a wife at home, and who, I felt, would visit me at bedtime for sex, provided he’d had enough sleep the night before, and had enjoyed dinner with his ex.  Mostly it ended because he labeled me bitter and ‘maniacally angry’ when I raised the topic of how I felt.  He told me I was angry about things that didn’t have anything to do with US.  He could not BELIEVE my audacity when I asked if they ever had sex with each other between relationships. How could I possibly question him about that???  I was COMPLETELY unreasonable.  His ex-girlfriend only wanted the best for him.  Yes, he acknowledged that she was rude to me, but ‘she’s rude to everyone!’  That’s just her! 

So the break up was harsh. I called him co-dependent and weak; I told him his ex-girlfriend was surrendered (she washed his clothes for him), obese, rude and repugnant, and during my last messages to him, I mocked her addiction to tanning salons and tanning injectables.  I kept to myself what I thought of her mean mouth and hawkish eyes.  He called me insane and sent me a link to a website about bipolar disorders.  Probably the same link he’d sent to his previous girlfriends. Angry women need to be either mocked or diagnosed as insane by men who are ill-equipped to deal with emotions. Sexist crap that happens all the time in our society. 

Still, that was between us. It was rather odd, and a little unnerving when the woman he lived with, his ex girlfriend, sent me a text message after we ended it.  Why did she have my phone number?  The text message basically ranted on about how great the man I had dumped is, how true and noble and honest and kind he is, how she couldn’t believe the nerve of me treating him like I had – imagine even considering that the fact that they live together, and the fact that she was rude to me, in any way contributed to the end of my relationship with him! She called me a ‘self-sabotager’ and then she went on about how I should question myself because ALL of my relationships end badly, and she was great because she stayed friends with her exes, and she had seen my Twitter account where I had mocked her:

 “My (morbidly obese) friend says your eyes are a bit off centre” #QuotesFromMenIveDated

…and that’s no place to air my dirty laundry… blah … blah … blah.  Reminded me of standing in front of one of those child-hating schoolteachers who yell at you for far too long about ‘respect’ or any other topic, as long as it allows them to YELL.

What would she know about my previous relationships?  What the fuck was SHE contacting me for?  Well, I had suspected from the beginning of the few short months I saw this man, that he had shared everything I said and all of my thoughts with her - perhaps when he went home to her at night…or when they ate breakfast together…or when they drank their gin and tonics at night.  He had found this blog and my twitter account, and he had shown them to her – the ex girlfriend he’d slept with in the past, who obviously had no romantic investment in him whatsoever.  The ex-girlfriend I was feeling uncomfortable about and who I had noted had been rude to me. He had shown her my accounts and for some reason, given her my phone number. I guess he used her to talk about his relationship problems.  Seems like a healthy solution. She wouldn't be biased in anyway.

Oh, he did share a few things about her with me too.  He told me when they watched R rated movies together (I loved hearing that).  He told me about her recent addiction to painkillers (yikes) and how he had financially supported her through a recent difficult patch (I’m not sure why he told me that, but he told me that a lot). He told me how great she’d been, how supportive she was when he suffered a deep depression following a breakup with a girlfriend (wow, that’s wonderful).  He told me what she sounded like when she was being fucked (vomit!). He told me what he thought of the new man she was dating. Didn’t like him (fancy that!).

I’ve dated a few men in my time.  Most have lived by themselves.  That’s pretty normal for an adult right?  I can only recall 3 other men I’ve met in 4 years of internet dating who have lived in some sort of shared accommodation.  I’ve had sex with a man who lived with his parents (eeuuww).  I dated a man who lived with a male friend – I spent most of my time over there listening to the two of them talk together (in French).  I nearly had sex with a man who was still living with his wife. He explained: ‘just good friends now’.  Fortunately, he was unable to maintain his erection long enough to manage penetration - I found out later that I work with his wife.  We all have our prejudices.  I have some pretty strong ones when it comes to dating.  I guess this is one of them.  There is something off-putting about a man in his 40’s or 50’s who is still sharing accommodation like a university student. It conjures visions of financial hardship and lack of independence.

However, this particular man and woman didn’t seem embarrassed about it, and both he and his ex-girlfriend thought I was insane for feeling anything but happy for them both.

So to put matters straight in my head, I have decided to put together some for and against reasons for remaining friends with (or if you're stupid enough, living with) an ex-partner.  Does staying friends with/living with an ex-partner mean you are emotionally mature, or emotionally stuck?

For 

1. In every relationship there is a dumper and a dumpee.  The dumper may find it too traumatic to stop communication completely. I guess if the gaping void that needs to be filled is too big to manage alone the ‘lets just be friends’ comment can ensure that they won’t be alone…while he/she searches for their next mate.
2. ‘Lets be friends’ gives the dumper the solace of knowing they aren’t a horrible person.
3. There will always be someone handy to compare the new relationship to.
4. Always a back up relationship if the new one fails.
5. I guess the sense of being in a relationship without having to do any work to keep it healthy would be pleasant.
6. Great company at-the-ready to sit back and laugh about the newest ex girl/boyfriend over a glass of wine and a foot-rub.
7. If you still live with your ex you can listen to him/her rooting the new partner across the hallway and tell when he/she is about to come.
8. Someone handy to sleep with for comfort and an ego boost when each relationship ends.
9. There's a chance for the dumpee that one day…maybe one day the dumper will come to their senses and they will live happily ever after together.  You know, like "the man of her dreams" or something.

Against

1. You’ve seen each other naked and you’ve watched each other’s facial expressions when you’ve orgasmed.
2. There is the real possibility that one person always wants to get back together, and they’re just waiting for the dumper to realise how great they are. (That's sad and a bit lonely, so I've put it in the against column as well)
3. Moving on would be almost impossible, especially if LIVING together.
4. It creates an emotional barrier to a new romantic relationship.
5. Spending time with the old will prevent time with the new.
6. It’s a completely shit situation for attracting a new mate. I mean just admitting it would scare most new potentials off, let alone have them live it.
7. If they still live together the new mate will have to fuck in the room across the hall from the old one. (See “For” point 7, this can also be a positive)
8. There isn't any man or woman who would find it reasonable to have less time with their partner than the ex-girlfriend/ex-boyfriend gets with their partner. They just don't exist.

Jesus!!  More positives than negatives! Well, what do you know! 

My blog post A Valentine Love Poem was written to this man I dated who lives with his ex-girlfriend.  It was my way of expressing how he might feel if the situation was reversed.  Not a particularly offensive poem.  His ex-girlfriend, with whom he still lives, then sent me a retaliatory poem (yes, this is after that retaliatory text message she had already sent me) that I have popped in a blog entry all of it’s own which you can find here.  Is she his friend, his mother or his angry lover?  You decide. What I do know is that she is definitely not normal.

He said one very telling thing to me early in the relationship.  He was taking me through a story of how insane one of his ex-girlfriends was, and how for some reason she seemed to have a real problem with him living with…no hang on…he never used the term ‘living with’, he just said she had ‘a problem with’ his ex-girlfriend.  Maybe if he’d said living with, he’d need to admit to himself it’s ground hog day.  Anyway, apparently they loathed each other. 

Then he said the one sentence that I should have taken real note of.  “I nearly lost my ex-girlfriend over that relationship.” The ex-girlfriend he still lives with and supposedly doesn’t fuck. 

Draw your own conclusions: emotionally mature, or emotionally stuck?

Disclaimer:  I did tell the man I dated not to bother looking for a blog entry about himself.  I said I'd written enough about married men.  However, this blog is for me to express my outrage about various situations I find myself in. Writing things down is a wonderful way for me to finalise my emotions.  Time to move on.