The Girlfriend Code of Ethics, Dealing With The Ex

Ha ha ha, I asked for more contrast in my life, and I got it!

I'm now beginning to clear out some old cobwebby, socially-programmed habits regarding The Ex (and Ex can be plural, but Exes doesn't look as good), and have also run into an Ex from almost a half a lifetime ago who I've been talking to lately.

First I'll talk about the social programming regarding the more recent Ex, and then I'll delve into information about the Dusty Ex (you know, the one I found up in a box in my attic that I didn't think I'd see again).

Social Programming and The Girlfriend Code of Ethics

What do you think, people?

If you were workmates in a small, intimate company with both sides of a couple who had been married for nearly 10 years and divorced in the last few, and you got involved with the man after he was divorced, what respects, if any, would you extend to the ex-wife?

What if you kept in contact on a social site with the ex-wife (liking almost every status line and making cheery comments on others), and agreed to meet for coffee to "catch up" after many years of not seeing one another?

At what point would you admit to being more than "just friends", and therefore having had access to his innermost deep thoughts ... about MY relationship with HIM?

And why do I even CARE?  Or DO I even care...  I wax and wane between these things, but I really do think that all those questions above come from my social conditioning and from the Girlfriend Code of Ethics that I somehow learned about in my early teen years.

I'm confident that we broke up for good reasons, that it was about the only thing we could really do since counselling failed so miserably (with him giving up or walking out, claiming we had only one problem in our relationship, yet he asked for a divorce from me after that one problem was resolved) and I would have had to have given up my very soul to stay with him.

He's always wanted to "be friends" and every time I've had any contact with him, or heard from others within my social circle who have contact with him, he comes across as a depressed, lonely, self-loathing guy, which repels any interest of mine in fostering a friendship with healthier boundaries than I managed while we were married (moved in together way too fast).

I guess I care because I know that at the end of our relationship, after "the talk", the stuff he was spouting about why he thought I was doing what I was doing was flabbergasting.  Utterly flabbergasting.  I was shocked and speechless that he'd ever think that I'd be that kind of person.

But I realized very quickly that he was just re-writing his vision of me into something that was more in line with the fact that we had broken up and weren't going to be together forever anymore.  He needed to feel like I was the bad guy in order to make the transition.

So I did pretty well at not taking it personally.

Until going for coffee with this old workmate (I'm looking to increase my quota of girlfriends too, not just boys to date), and finding someone who is nice and cheery to my face, but if she's as "tight" with my ex as she claims to be (and oh god, he's her "life coach"! *boggle*) then what lines of BS has she been fed about my part of our breakup?

But again, Law of Attraction... I'm doing my best to focus on what I want, not what I don't want.

As a result, I'm putting more efforts into finding other female friends to fill my Friendtris (like the Mantris, but more for my girlfriend social needs), planning to "squeeze out" this girl from the wee spot she holds.  I'm also not initiating meet-ups where we may talk about what's going on in our lives, because I don't want to feed her anything she can bring back.  If she asks me, I will conveniently be busy.

Oh, and I think I should add... the story she told outside of any interaction with my ex was a scary one as well.   Not thought processes and life habits I want to bring into my close circles that can influence my vibration!  She's not a good girlfriend choice, but she sure has made me think.