Mel

Later today my boyfriend's ex-girlfriend is coming for the week to stay in our house.

My feelings for this woman are confusing at best. I really like her. She's funny, witty, charming, and very helpful. She's a lot of fun to be around and she likes me. (It's really hard to dislike someone who likes you.) But she also told me at the beginning of my relationship with my boyfriend that she intended on getting him back eventually, and that his being with me was merely a temporary situation that she would ride out. This REALLY bothered me at the beginning but then I realized that I had no reason to worry because I had no reason to mistrust my boyfriend. Her advances on him stopped bothering me.

Now she is gaining his favour. He and I are having problems, and the knowledge that she still loves him comforts me. I comforts me because I know that if I give up she will console him and he will be OK. It relieves me to know that he will be OK regardless of whether or not I can make it work.

But when I'm feeling in a particularily poor mood and my boyfriend begins to speak on her virtues it hurts SO MUCH! I don't know why it does. I can't figure it out. I like this woman, I'm happy her and my boyfriend have retained their friendship but it stings when he talks about her liking to cook or clean for him in such a happy way and I look around at the messy apartment that I cleaned two days previous, and think back to the crappy dinners we've made because I don't enjoy cooking. I feel inadequite.

It'll be fine. It's just a week.