The Ghosts of Lives Past

When you start a relationship, you have to figure out how to incorporate all those past relationships—the people and the stories—into the new relationship. For me, it's only the stories. I have not stayed friends with my exes. Oh, #1 and I see each other occasionally, as we share children and grandchildren. But I doubt he considers me his friend. I like his wife a lot, and think we could probably vacation together successfully, but the three of us won't be going places and doing things together anytime soon. My #2 and #3 have no contact with me; in fact, #2 would turn around and walk quickly in the opposite direction anytime he saw me when we lived in the same geographic area. John and I stayed friends after we split up in the early years, and I considered him my most treasured friend, but he was an exceptional man. I certainly didn't push him to maintain a relationship with me; he had made it very clear that he preferred the other woman and I tried to treat his choice with respect.

He had stayed friends with both his exes, and we often joked about having a three-story house where he could have one wife (or ex) on each floor. Mr. Match considers his wife #2 to be his best friend, and I have no problem with that. I told him last night that I was looking forward to meeting her sometime in the future, and he said he thought I would like her a lot.

I think the ex's behavior has a lot to do with how successful the extended family of relationships past can be. John's wife #1 had the habit of remembering only that they had been married for 20 years, not that they had also been divorced for 20 years. I tried to be gracious to her for the sake of their children and grandchildren. But sometimes she made it very difficult, as, for example, the totally inappropriate comments she made to me at his memorial service. His wife #2 had to be restrained from grabbing her when #1 made those comments.

But I will say in defense of both of them that they did not try to insinuate themselves into our life. They seemed to have a clear understanding of what was an appropriate amount of contact.

So I guess my question today is: what constitutes a healthy level of contact? And when the level of contact borders on unhealthy, how long does one allow it to continue before saying, "I know we were going to try to stay friends, but this clearly isn't working." And even if it's healthy, is a continued close relationship with an ex healthy in and of itself? Should I have to expect and accept my partner's having dinner with his ex one night a week? Somehow that just doesn't feel right.

How many ghosts can hang around a relationship before it becomes a seance?

As much as I question dating anyone who, past 50, has never been married, can't you see how much simpler that could be than having all these ghosts around?