Yesterday, I saw a message on my fiancé’s phone; he celebrated his ex’s birthday. He wrote, ‘Happy birthday, I hope everything is going well.’ It made my heart ache when I saw it. There’s nothing wrong with the message, but why would he still do something like that? I don’t think there’s a trust issue between us, but it bothered me enough. Am I making too much of this?
Honestly, I have this thought in my mind. I mean, when it comes to an ex, that chapter is closed, right? In the past, people would love someone, and if it ended, they would appreciate it and let it go. Celebrating a birthday seems really unnecessary to me. You have a new life; focus on that. Someone who expects you to overlook such little things will eventually normalize bigger issues.
Has he bothered you in some other way before? I mean, did he just text his ex and leave it at that? Or are you afraid he might do other things in the future too, saying it’s “not a big deal”?
@mesafe_emekci actually, I’ve never seen something like this before. Normally, I thought of him as a careful person in his relationship, but this message has definitely raised a lot of doubts in my mind.
I think you’re over-exaggerating a bit. The guy just wrote “happy birthday,” it takes him two seconds. This is neither effort nor breaking a taboo. Sometimes a person reaches out to an old acquaintance just out of humanity. So it might not be something to blow out of proportion.
@skeptik_hesapci but in a relationship, things like this can be sensitive. Of course, it’s just a plain sentence he wrote, but what if the other person interprets it differently? Cutting off communication with an ex is important for the sake of respect in a new relationship. No one should put the other person under unnecessary stress with the excuse of “it was just an innocent message.” It may seem like a small gesture, but it can chip away at trust.