Hey Rob, So...I finally found your thread... Sounds like your XW is still looking for that kind of validation that she'll never find until she looks into herself - and while it's frustrating and insulting to have to hear how her insecurity manifests itself in conversations with you, I think it's best just to remember that nothing she has to say now is about you - (even if she's trying to make jealous) - just as her fictions weren't about you before either.
The similarities between your XW and my W just baffle me...just after she dropped the bomb she decided to share a story with me about a producer on a gig she was working on who asked her if she wanted one last fling before she got married...it was a four-year-old memory that she just had to bring up for no reason, other than to make me think of her as someone desirable to other men...but all it really did was make me think, hm, was she really giving off that kind of signal of availability even just before we got married? (this was literally two weeks before our wedding).
Still...very recently...just before she moved out...and in one of her rare moments of rational conversation - she asked me why I was so frustrated with her over the years, and I, sucked into the lure of reason, said that part of it was because she never let me feel comfortable and confident in her love for me or her commitment to our relationship/marriage since she was constantly getting into inappropriate friendships with "paternal" type men. Her response: "you know you never really had to worry about that." My quiet response (which I just kept in the silence of my head): "have you already forgotten that you had an affair just five months after we were married?"
All of this by way of saying...yes, you have to re-establish those boundaries on your terms - since if your XW shares this "boundary" problem that my wife does, she'll just continue to make her rules...and expect you to live by them...which reminds me of what you wrote on the first page of this thread - that she made the decisions...it's time for that to stop when it comes to your interactions. Sure, you can ignore her, but that won't let her know that the rules have changed and you are no longer going to accept her lack of respect for you. That's not to say you have to argue with her - or take the bait - or put her down or bring up the past - Make your response to stuff about you - and the fact that you don't appreciate comments like that because they seem disrespectful toward you...and you would rather your conversations be civil and respectful (or something like that)...
Now I'm going to jump back to my thread and see what's up there...
