Watch the subtitled video above if you prefer to listen to my advice.
When an ex girlfriend still talks to her ex boyfriend — such a relationship is like being the boss at your own company and finding out that your employee is working 4 hours every day after work for someone else. On the surface, it sounds reasonable. Who are you to tell your employee what he can’t do after he’s done finishing work for you, right? Good for him that he’s making some extra cash! That money will come in handy for his big dream.
But you see, there is always a payoff when a relationship is loosely defined without a set of rules of what’s allowed and what isn’t. Eventually, that employee of yours will grow tired, lose their energy, and put less and less effort into the working relationship with you because there is still more energy needed for someone else. What started out without problems initially will spiral out of control until you need to “have the talk” and tell your employee to step up their game, or you’ll fire their ass and find an employee who will make their job a priority.
What are your Boundaries with your Girlfriend: Setting Rules in a Relationship is Crucial
A relationship with a woman is no different. Boundaries are the magic ingredients that make or break a relationship with a woman. Every relationship needs a set of ground rules to be followed or it’s bound to run into problems. And one golden ground rule every man should enforce with his girl is this: I am your priority number one — and you’re my priority number one. And anyone you’ve dated in the past is at best an acquaintance that you message once every 2 years, or a distant friend whom you exchange happy birthday wishes with. Anything beyond that is a breach of trust and dedication.
Your girlfriend may not like these rules, but you’re the boss in your house, and so she either respects how you envision growing together as a couple, or she’s free to find another relationship that matches her level of commitment. These rules are not meant to be punishment, they are designed to make each other happy. Rules create clarity and alignment on how to lead the relationship. And whenever your girlfriend breaks one of the tenets of how you define a good relationship, it’s your job to man up and tell her how you see it. The sooner you define the core rules of your relationship, the better.
So, I got a message from a guy who’s dating a woman who is still talking to her ex. And he’s not sure how to feel about the situation. Should he tell her to stop talking to the ex? Or is it not in his place to tell her what she can or can’t do? What if she has no feelings for her ex, but her ex clearly seems to be thirsty for her? Should he dump her or accept that she’s still friends with her ex? Let’s dissect the problem.
New Relationship Problem: She’s STILL Talking to her Ex Boyfriend — Should she Stop Talking to her Ex?
Hello, coach. I would like to get your thoughts on a situation with a new girl that I am dating. Well, dating might be the wrong word. We’re already a couple. We’ve been together for about four months now, and I’ve been pretty happy with her all this time. But I noticed something that I don’t really like. She is still talking to her ex. For me, that’s kind of a big no go. But I’m torn because I understand that it’s up to her what she does with her life.
Obviously, we are an early couple, so it’s not really up to me to tell her to not talk to her ex. But I can’t help but feel that it’s not the right thing to do. Usually, I probably wouldn’t mind if my girlfriend still talks to her ex, but this one is different. Her ex is kind of thirsty. I can just tell that he still wants to be with her. I know I am biased and it is more a feeling than 100% proof. But the way he talks to her just seems weak and needy.
If the ex boyfriend of your girlfriend is thirsty, that is a big red flag and she shouldn’t be oblivious to it. Most women are highly tuned into social cues and know exactly when a man wants them. Of course, it is technically possible to remain friends with an ex if the relationship ended with absolute clarity and closure. Some couples can be friends, but science suggests that most exes drift apart over time. This is why I said at best, over time an ex should be an acquaintance. I’m still “friends” with an ex of mine but I hardly consider her an acquaintance. I’m still friends with her on Facebook but we never ever talk. In fact, she’s now married but even before getting married, there would have been a 0% chance that we would have ever dated again. That’s the pattern observed by researchers between most exes. As time passes, exes drift apart, lives diverge towards vastly different paths and there remains zero romantic interest because they have fewer things in common — after all, the reason why couples break up is because they can’t see themselves walking the same path together. And then, at some point, the ex-couples are likely to completely lose touch. But that’s not what your girlfriend is doing.
Of course, you are in a new relationship, so her ex is probably still a fresh ex, such as 6-18 months, but the bottom line is that you can feel that there is something wrong with this guy. And if you can feel that her ex boyfriend is thirsty, aka, he hopes for another chance with the relationship, then your ex girlfriend likely can feel that these are his intentions. Your girlfriend not setting a clear boundary between her ex and her new relationship is a deliberate choice. An ex who’s still in the picture is an escape hatch that can be pulled open at any time to escape a sinking ship. But a good captain would rather drown and fight to the bitter end to get the boat ashore than simply take the easy way to escape. Staying friends with an ex isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The problem of staying friends with an ex arises when there is intent to keep it as a backup plan. Only you will know for sure if that’s what your ex is doing. But women aren’t stupid. They know when a man wants them. And I bet your girlfriend can see that her ex is thirsty for him.
My Girlfriend and her Ex: Does she like the Attention from her Ex Boyfriend OR are they just Friends?
I don’t want to make any wrong assumptions, but if I didn’t know it any better, my ex kind of likes the attention she gets from him. I talked with her about it and she assured me that they are just friends and that she just thinks that they spent a lot of time together and he’s been an important part of her life, which I get. But I don’t know, man, am I actually just crazy or what? Am I in the wrong? Should I just chill the fuck out?
I understand that your situation feels tricky, after all, you’ve only been dating for four months. So everything is still fresh. It feels like you have no right to tell her what to do with an ex that she has been dating for God knows how long. But never feel bad about having clarity on what you want from your girlfriend. The way how you feel about some things in the relationship may not always align, and if she thinks it is too soon to break off contact with her ex, then that is absolutely her prerogative.
You don’t have to pull the plug right away. Try to communicate with crystal clear clarity what you want from her. Tell her exactly how you feel and that you feel that being in touch with an ex in the way she currently is with her ex symbolizes a lack of commitment to the new relationship. If you’re a man about it and communicate your boundaries with her respectfully and with pure intentions, she will appreciate you for it and it will bring you closer together. And if she doesn’t appreciate it and she becomes butthurt that you are trying to oppress her, then you know that she is not the right woman for you. If she’s not willing to give you what you want, then you know where you stand with her. I wouldn’t even suggest that she’d need to fully break contact with her ex. As I mentioned before, this tends to happen naturally anyway. The key is whether you keep on getting the hunch that her ex is thirsty and whether she appreciates the attention from her ex.
I’m not even 100% faulting her for it. If I were a woman, still not fully over my ex, then I’d probably have a similar mindset of still keeping one foot in the door with an ex of mine. But love is a choice and at some point, we all have to make a choice to move forward and let go of people we’ve loved and commit fully to someone new. It may not be convenient and sometimes it’s way out of our comfort zone, but that’s what a kind person does. She may not fully be consciously aware that she is doing this. But as soon as you communicate it with her, she should be awake of what’s going on. And if by then she still chooses to keep her relationship with her ex as is, then you know that she’s an attention seeker.
And there are few things worse than dating an attention-seeking woman. Because the commitment and attention span of an attention-seeker woman is about as long-lasting as the average relationship of a female digital nomad who travels from one beach to another. The pussy is never satisfied, and the goal is to score a hat-trick. Some women just aren’t able to commit and the only way they feel satisfied is if they were filled balls deep with as many balls as possible. An attention-seeking woman will demand an entire stadium of men instead of just the one good player right in front of her. So once you told your girlfriend how you feel, and if she still seeks the attention from her ex, then you know that it’s time to no longer be her key player.
If she can’t give you what you want from her, then it’s time to break it off with her. The sooner you have clarity about the ground rules in the relationship, the sooner you both know if you’re compatible with each other. Maybe you’re crazy and reading into everything. Who knows? I can’t say for sure without seeing the type of conversations she has with her ex. But the risk if you are correct about your assumptions is simply too big.
Is she a woman prone to monkey-branching, cheating, and backup planning? Maybe, maybe not. But either way, the only way to find out is to have clear communication. One thing that is clear is that right now her commitment level to you is not 100%, and that’s understandable given that you’ve been only dating for a short while. You might only be a rebound for her and that’s why she’s talking to her ex.
Now is the time for her to make a choice and commit to you. If she’s serious about you, she’s going to listen to your needs and respect them. A good woman is grateful when her man communicates his needs without being rude or controlling. The purpose of relationships is to synergize, support each other with each other’s strengths, become tighter as a unit, and act in tandem. If she keeps one foot out of the relationship, there’s no way to become a real unit. Instead, you’ll be 1 1/2 man.
She’s Friends with her Ex: Can she be Friends with her Ex or Should she CUT OFF Contact with him?
I actually had a girlfriend before with who she was still friends (with her ex). And back then, I didn’t bother me with my current girlfriend. It’s probably because I can see him commenting on her posts. I just don’t like it. The way he talks to her is just too comfortable for my taste. I know this is so lame, but I checked out her Facebook. I saw that recently he tagged her in some cute dog video, which is just so fucking weird to me. I mean, who does that? I feel like you only do this with people with whom you want to be intimate with. And if you’re having feelings for each other.
Yes, that is definitely too much. You are 100% correct that this is not normal. She lacks boundaries to keep her ex at bay, and her ex lacks a proper understanding of boundaries to know that he should keep his distance from her. How often do you really share things on your social media with a very specific person? These are typically the closest people to you, which might be a few of your tightest and closest friends. Or it might be someone you started dating who becomes your best romantic friend, where sharing every little meme, and every cute cat video becomes fun to share with your significant other.
I bet her ex boyfriend is an insecure, weak beta male who will do anything to stay close with his ex. It smells of “use friendzone to get ex back” route to me. A man of integrity with a strong mindset would never do this. He knows if it would happen to him, he’d feel uncomfortable with it. Even if I would still be pretty tight with an ex girlfriend of mine, I doubt I would ever tag her with anything if I know she was dating someone else. It’s a matter of self-respect and dating abundance to not hit an ex up when she’s not single. That part of their lives is over. The one who she should be sharing funny memes with is you. And she should not accept this behavior from her ex. She should have already communicated with him that it’s inappropriate to maintain the relationship on this level.
I would still suggest communicating it with her. There is definitely a red flag slowly rising from the horizon, but I always like to communicate my concerns with my girlfriend, even if I can already tell that the relationship may not be the right one for me. I appreciate it when I can train myself to remain civil and communicate my needs before I draw false conclusions in any situation. This kind of behavior teaches you emotional self-control, so communicating your feelings even in a bad situation is beneficial in the long run.
Ultimately, when your girlfriend maintains a tight relationship with an ex like this, it means your relationship will become unsustainable. I leave the call to break it up to you. I am not here to judge your girlfriend as a low-value woman because I don’t know the exact details and can’t see how bad it really is. But the bottom line is that if you cannot reconcile this quickly, then staying in the relationship will only make things worse for you. Relationships should feel good and when you don’t feel good — even if your girlfriend may do something that could be called justified — then it’s best to end it before the problems spiral out of control any further. That’s not to say that you should dump any woman the first moment that you see a problem on the horizon. Relationships are complex and require sacrifices. But in this case, it seems to me it’s her who should make a sacrifice — not you. Her old relationship is already over. Not staying in touch with her ex shouldn’t have a massive impact on her. But it has a massive impact on you and your new relationship together if she stays in touch with him.
When she Doesn’t Respect you as a Man: What Should you do if your Girlfriend Still Talks to her Ex?
I know you could theoretically also share stuff with random friends and that also happens, but I just can’t get this sour taste out of my mouth. What do I do about this? If I tell her that I don’t want her to talk to her ex, am I the shitty toxic boyfriend? Where I come off as weak and insecure? I don’t want to seem like I am feeling threatened by him or anything like that, although, of course, I somewhat do, I guess. So what’s your suggestion on what I should tell her? Thanks.
Is it weak when you show that you feel threatened by another man? Well, it depends. It’s perfectly normal to feel insecure if your own girlfriend is the one who’s facilitating the thing that makes you feel uncomfortable. It’s about the intent. For example, if you’d be in public with your girlfriend — let’s say you are hanging out at a bar in a tourist area and playing some darts. You’re about to throw the next dart, and some dude comes over to her and starts hitting on her because he thinks you might not be her boyfriend. In that case, your girlfriend had zero intention to get attention from that guy. If you’d feel intimidated and let it out on your girlfriend after the fact, then you’d be a weak beta male. A man in his masculine confidence won’t care if some random guy hits on his girl because he knows his girl will just reject that guy. That’s because your girlfriend loves your strength in the relationship — she’d never betray you.
However, imagine you’d be at the same bar, this time you’re going over to the bartender to buy some drinks, and next thing you know it, you see your girl talking to some guy and it was her who initiated the conversation with that guy — of course, feeling intimidated by that would be completely natural. And confronting her about the matter would be common sense.
Expressing your boundaries never makes you a toxic boyfriend. Some entitled women will say that you are controlling but that’s not your problem. When you express to your girlfriend that the way she behaves makes you feel uncomfortable, a good woman will immediately stop her behavior and she’ll try to do better. A good woman knows when she made a big mistake and she’ll feel sorry as hell for it.
In your case, your girlfriend is failing to protect the relationship. In a sense, you could say that she herself lacks a literal boundary between herself and another man. Relationships need to be protected by both the woman and the man. A man will protect his relationship by controlling his urges and never letting his attraction to another woman influence his decision to choose his woman every single day again. And a woman will protect her relationship by rejecting all the advances of the men who are attracted to her. When you see that your girl isn’t doing that properly, you’ll confront her on it right away. No buts and ifs. This is a core rule of a healthy relationship. Whether it’s you or your girlfriend, you’ll both ring the alarm bells if one of you doesn’t protect the relationship from outside influences. It’s a gigantic red flag that needs to be addressed immediately.
Confident Alpha Male in Relationship: How to Lead a Relationship as a Man & Set Boundaries
Don’t be too much of a woman or people-pleaser. You don’t get any awards for not speaking up when there’s something wrong in the relationship. It doesn’t matter if it leads to a fight, tension, a hurt ego, or whatever else. I’d rather sound the battle horn and confront it upfront than allow something so damaging to silently sabotage the relationship. It doesn’t matter if they used to have a great relationship and she still sees her ex as a great friend. I’m sure she may very well see him that way. Maybe it’s innocent. It’s plausibly possible. But it doesn’t change the fact that it makes you feel bad about what you have with her. So speak up and let her know how you feel.
Your gut is almost always right when it tells you that there’s something wrong with the woman you’re dating. If you let this slide right now, you’ll pay the price for it later on. Trust me. I’ve been there, I’ve done. I’ve seen it in my clients and it just never leads to a satisfying conclusion. If your gut tells you that her ex is a thirsty bastard, then he probably still has feelings for her, he surely would like to get back with her, and his agenda is to get the two of you to split up so he can get back in his pants. There’s always a chance that this assessment is — wrong of course — but hey, would you want to take that risk?
Some moments in a relationship call for massive assertiveness or it will be doomed in the long run. Without dating boundaries you won’t even notice how your confidence is degrading bit by bit. Letting a girlfriend disrespect your boundaries and not telling her about it is like getting subtly bullied in high school by a close friend of yours. For the most part, he was your close friend that you’d hang out with at the schoolyard, but the damage caused by small mocking behavior would eventually set deep roots in your psyche and make you destroy your confidence as time goes on.
When a woman doesn’t respect your boundaries, she’s subsequently saying that she doesn’t respect you as a man. Such a relationship cannot work. That’s why it’s crucial to be dominant and assert that you will not be in a relationship without respect. This doesn’t mean that as a man we need to be mean, aggressive, or rude when we see behaviors that we notice from our girlfriend that we perceive as disrespectful. Especially in young relationships, a woman might not know any better and makes poor judgment calls without being conscious of her bad decisions.
It’s your job as a man to lead the relationship and point out when your woman isn’t at her best. Just as your woman will always call you out when you are messing up in the relationship. That’s not something to be afraid of or feel that it suggests that you’re overreacting. Course correcting and reacting to your girlfriend’s flaws is an act of love — and a good woman will see it that way.
This guy will always be a thorn in your eye. If the situation were different where she’s not talking to her ex, but then all of a sudden she’s talking to her ex again, you’d be furious, wouldn’t you?! So course-correct, let her know you feel, and if she doesn’t respect your boundaries, meaning, when she doesn’t respect you: Break up with her. Because there are countless women who will always respect their man as long as he loves her properly.
