The former Erotic Review magazine editor answers your sex questions...QUESTION: My boyfriend of eight months is still in touch with his recent ex-girlfriend, who dumped him abruptly after four years together because she wasn't sure he was The One.
They talk all the time, text and email, and the language they use is often flirtatious. I have stumbled across a few communications and they always call each other 'Darling'.
I wouldn't say I'm a possessive person, but I can't help feeling jealous, yet I don't want to behave like a prison warden.
I am close to my ex, too, as my boyfriend points out, but it all ended several years ago and we don't behave like besotted teenagers. How should I deal with this?
ROWAN SAYS
Ah, the toxic former girlfriend, loitering around the picket fence of your lovely new relationship sprinkling poison on the rose bushes.
Of course, there's a chance you're being a little paranoid and that this woman has made a perfectly straightforward transition to friendship with your man.
We live in a world where people habitually use hyperbolic forms of endearment (name the actor who doesn't say 'Darling') and she might just be the type who calls everyone sweetheart or petal.
Having said that, you say you're not the kind of person who has a hair-trigger jealousy reflex, so I would trust your instincts on this one. If you feel uneasy, there's probably something to feel uneasy about.
It is also perturbing that this loitering ex was the dumper, not the dumped, as people often retain feelings of 'unfinished business' towards lovers who have rejected them.
You are right to examine your boyfriend's emotions and, indeed, to question whether he still has feelings for this woman. He can't fully embrace you if he still yearns elsewhere.
The situation is particularly worrying if she hasn't found a new man, but regards your beau as a legitimate companiion and confidant.
It is only too easy for old lovers to tumble into bed again, because many people in that scenario tell themselves it doesn't really count. After all, they've slept together many times before, just one for old time's sake, hey! But a lazy, retrogressive one-off can swiftly turn into a habit.
In my early 20s, I had an older boyfriend who had never managed to separate emotionally from his most significant ex. She had left him shortly before their marriage and the scale of that rejection seemed to reinforce her fascination for him.
She phoned him constantly and when we were eating in restaurants she would often suddenly appear and plonk herself down beside him, launching into a catalogue of personal problems, while ignoring me.
It was clear she still regarded my boyfriend as her property. He went along with the situation because he was nervous of her tantrums. I was too young and naive to know how to deal with her. And, like you, I didn't want to look dictatorial or possessive.
But now I am older and wiser, I know that I would have been perfectly within my rights to lay down some boundaries.
I should have told him that it was unacceptable for her to interpose herself in our dates and that he would have to tell her so himself.
I would not have said that he could not see her at all, as that would have suggested insecurity on my part. But I would have discouraged meetings a deux, and suggested that I invite her formally to lunch at home. I would have said that his ex had to learn to be a friend of us both.
In other words, I would have followed the old dictate: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
In a domestic situation, you can make the battleground your own and can call in your trusted lieutenants (a troop of supportive girl friends) to back you up.
If you were to follow this policy, you could easily invite your partner's former girlfriend and your ex-boyfriend to lunch together. I never feel there's any harm in saying: 'Two can play at this game.'
Generally, manipulative women will back off if they see that their antics are anticipated and outmanoeuvred. Conversely, if you throw a hissy fit about her and try to impose bans, she will probably exploit the rift.
Furthermore, you will look like an arch hypocrite when you are still keen on keeping up with your former partner. You just need to display confidently to this woman that you are in pole position.
Most couples have teething problems involving exes, which become more vexing only if they don't get sorted out early in the relationship. You don't want to find yourself planning a wedding and still feeling threatened because this woman is a guest.
Neutralise her now with studied politeness.
If you can't trust your boyfriend to see her under any circumstances, then it means, ultimately, you suspect he's duplicitous.
You can't police a partner every minute of the day and it's exhausting to try.
source: dailymail.co.uk