He is NOT acting like someone who is committed to YOU. You are 20000% right; the ex's family/friends are in the PAST and his present and FUTURE are with you. Making plans to golf in a tournament (hey, I'd understand if he said "This is the LAST TIME, I promise, next year I'll just give a donation" THAT would be enough. But to commit spending a whole afternoon (my hubby does many of these so I know they take up the whole day)
to a charity that benefits his "ex" in some way, after all this time, would have me out the door, too..

Please reconsider marrying this man. I know we have ALL told you this on this site. Once he "has you" legally, you really lose a LOT of yourself. It'll be a lot LOT messier to break ties.

Sorry, I read NOTHING in your blog that indicates that YOU are a priority to him...

Hugs, girl!

PLEA

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."-Eleanor Roosevelt

If my DH said something like that to me I'd slap him upside the head. YOU are about to be his family. How are YOU not immediate? Any family that is already acting that way and putting up boarders is a family I'd run from.

Next, how can he possibly think that keeping all thier phone numbers is going to be okay with you? Especially since they aren't buddies, they haven't talked in two years!

The Human Beast Bitche's sister called us not to long ago stirring up shit and made the wonderful comment about how my DH has been a part of her life for so long and nothing will come between thier friendship. Nice. And the FRIENDSHIP, oh you mean you and him, yall haven't spoken one word to each other in over three years but NOTHING will come before you in my husbands life? C'mon.

If your DH talked to these people all the time and really did love them and were actually friends with them I would say there's not much you can do. But, being that there has been no communication in two years answeres that question.

I saw Cruella lurking around the other day, she might lend you that frying pan.

I wouldn't want to see DH in a loving relationship with her family! But again, I do think it would be different if you came onto the scene and her brother and him were best buddy pals for years and years, ya know what I mean? I think no communication with them and them being upset that you made him get rid of the numbers is ridiculous. It's even more so that he doesn't have contact with YOUR family. YOUR his life now, not her and her damn family.

I know alot of people say you have to have privacy, etc in a relationship. But I'm not all about that, neither is my DH. IF I want to look through his phone, or IF he wants to look through my purse, neither of us give a crap. Go ahead, look away! LOL! My mom was beside herself when she seen him go into my purse for something. I was like mom, it's a freaking purse, and I'm his wife, why wouldn't he be allowed to go in it?

So I understand what you mean about open book. Nothing should be secretive from the one you love, that's just how I feel about it.

My H had a big issue with my phone. Because I am in sales I have a lot of people calling me and H has the hardest time with this. This is one of the areas where I draw lines at with the phone. The reason though is because at one point he went through the phone bill and was going to start calling numbers to see who they were!?!?

To me that just would have created tons of embarrasment with my clients. So he doesn't have access to those bills anymore.

As far as keeping the exes numbers, I wouldn't see it as a problem unless he is communicatinmg with them on a regular basis. The events are a problem though. And, YOU are his immediate family or STB.

One can only hope!

I remember one time in the first year I was with DH (then-boyfriend), I called him on my way home from a hellish day at work so that I could vent and have some emotional support. When he picked up the phone, he told me that his ex-wife had called and her mom was in the hospital, and that ex-wife had asked him to go pick up SD at the hospital. So in the conversation it comes out that he was in his ex-MIL's hospital room and had been hanging out with her, ex-wife and SD for the past 2 hours. Just as I was starting to respond, he said, "Oh, the doctor's here, I have to go, I'll talk to you later." Click! So I sat there with my phone in my hand while he hung up to go tend to his ex-wife and ex-MIL.

I screamed and ranted in my car all the way home. Then, when he got back home that night, I calmly sat him down and said the following:

1) I am his significant other, soon to be wife.
2) I am not planning on being a co-wife with his ex.
3) His ex's mom is no longer his mother-in-law, and someday I hope for my mother to be his MIL. BUT:
4) He needed to decide which woman was his wife, because what he was doing with the ex and her mom that afternoon was being BM's husband.
5) If he decided that he needed to fill that role in his ex's life, then I would consider that he had made his decision, and our relationship was over.

He heard me, and understood, and my family has not had to take a back seat to the ex's again.

I TOTALLY understand your frustration, and it's totally creepy and unacceptable that your BF can't let go of his ex-family-in-law. I suggest having this conversation with him in therapy, in front of a counselor.

BB

- You are not second best, you are not second class. Do not ever let anyone make you feel that way. (2Bloved)

is a WONDERFUL and open family. Even after our divorce, they still invited me to dinners, bday parties,etc. I had to put an end to it. Out of respect for my EH's new relationship and out of respect for my future relationship (I was single at the time I made the decision). I still know their #'s by heart, but they are not in my phone. We do speak once in a great while because of my BD13 but that is all. I think he needs to make a decision of who's family he wants to be a part of. Another thing, my EH's family would welcome my FH if I were to ever go anywhere around them. They are like that. Did your FH ever invite you to go?

My H still has BM's sister # in his phone. It used to be BM mother number but she passed away and sister lives there now. H does not call her unless SS is with her and wants to talk to him. However when dropping off or picking up SS if her sister is there or when her mother was there H would talk and visit for a few minutes. This use to bother me BAD!!! but that was when we were first into relationship and it was all new. Now I could give 2 craps about it. H, myself, and H's mother attended the funeral of BM mom...heck I made food and took it. I see it as they were his family for a long time and they are SS family on mom's side and H will always be nice to them and talk to them when he sees them and always maintain there phone numbers because H is not with BM anymore because of her family but because of BM. As a matter of fact my parents divorce when I was 2 and up until the day my mother's parents dies my real father would come and visit my grandparents. My grandparents LOVED my father. this weekend we were at a Crawfish Boil some friends of ours have and the woman is a step mom and her husbands ex brother in law was there and they are great friends. Being invloved with the Ex's family is a very fine line. I do not agree with calling just to chat or hanging out. However I see no harm in having the number and see no harm in visitng a member of the ex's family if they are hospital sick or have died. When something that major happens lay it down and have respect for the deceased or the sick.

Now if your fiance is chatting it up daily with the ex's family and initiates calls to them regularly but has nothing to do with your family that of course is a problem. My H has great relationship with my dad and all my family but he does not pick up the phone and call them nor do I call his family just to talk...we each tend to our own family in that sense. However we both have all families numbers in our phones.

Again at first I had issues with all things talking to ex-mother in law, talking with BM etc but I was young in the relationship but now my relationship with H has grown sooo much. My relationship with my H is the most secure thing in my life. We worship the ground each other walks on and so it phases me none for H to be nice to the ex and her family.

and the not an immediate family member thing is a load of crap. I would be pissed about that!!!!

but he is going out of his way to be a part of her family and not a step out of his way to be a member of lil_teapots.

It would be offensive for him to basically ignore her entire family and friends but still befriend and love the x's family.

LilT, you know I love ya girl, and I wouldn't do anything to hurt your feelings, but you gotta pick your battles here. From the outside looking in it appears as though you are trying to control every little nuance of FHs life (deciding who he should / should not be friends with, who's phone numbers are on his phone). You have to remember that men and women are totally different creatures. When a woman breaks up with a man, every little thing surrounding him gets wiped out of existence. Not so for men. I honestly think that if your FH was and has been friends with exBIL, even before he and the ex were married, he sees no reason to sever that relationship. I can almost guarantee he thinks his friendship with exBIL has nothing to do with exW. The golf thing? If he's been doing it for years it has more than likely become a tradition. Should he really have to stop just because you and he are engaged? You say he's making strides in therapy...have you told him that or are you picking on things that he hasn't done?

Now, I'm not saying that he shouldn't make the effort to be part of your family, because he should. Instead of telling him he shouldn't do the golf outing for Parkinson's, why don't you encourage him to do the "thing" (I'm assuming it's also golf?) for epilepsy as well, as in addition to? My point is that if you continue to exert control in everything he does, he WILL resent it and it will become a huge issue between you two.

If I were going to get PO'd about anything, it would definitely be the "immediate family" thing for MIL's internment.

Learn how to pick your battles. You need to decide which mountain you really want to die on cause honestly, some of this stuff, in the grand scheme of things is really just small potatoes.

I don't know about you guys, but whenever I get a new cell phone, I have the phone company just transfer my entire address book over. In fact, I had a Nokia, and FH bought a Blackberry. I wanted his phone, so he bought another one and gave me the Blackberry. They transferred the phone book over from my phone, took his card and put it in his new phone. So, my phone book had all my numbers, plus all his numbers. Plus all his pictures, text messages, and so on. They weren't stored in his sim card.

Anyway, I recently got a Matrix, and had the guy transfer my phone book over. Except, all the numbers that transferred over were from two phones before, and all the ones I inputted in to the Blackberry did not transfer. I had numbers that I had not seen in two years on my new phone, and all my new numbers did not show up.

My point is that maybe he did not manually input these numbers, they were just transferred over from his old phone. Granted, he should not have bristled the way he did, but that's probably just him playing his man card. He probably pulled the "friend" crap b/c he wanted to make a stance, you know? I'd rather he have #'s from the ex family than ex girlfriends.