Need advice - was my ex being inappropriate or was it a genuine mistake?
Hi - first time commenting here and looking for some advice and other people’s input on this rather bizarre interaction I had with my ex this week.
For context, I am the father in this situation. My ex and I split around 6 years ago, when our child was around a year old. We are very amicable and co parent well. Everything is 50/50 including time shared between our child. We had children to previous partners when we met each other. After we split, we have both moved on with new partners and again, everything is amicable. She has since had another child about a year and a half ago with her new partner.
So, I usually collect our son from her house after work on my scheduled days with him, as he goes to her house after school most days. Sometimes my child’s mother can keep me talking at the door, my partner has commented on this before but we’ve put it down to the fact we don’t think she gets out much or sees many people during the day, her life seems to revolve around child care, she also isn’t working and has had a major operation fairly recently, so I may be the first other adult outside of her household she’s spoken to in person that day. Never really thought much of it or thought there was any malice to it.
Recently, when I collected our son, she was at the door and kept moaning about her new partner (I will keep it vague for obvious reasons, but basically he is involved with a lot of sporting events and tends to do very well in them, so he is away from home for competitions etc). She keeps bringing up that he was away doing these events and she’s on her own. I found it abit uncomfortable because I find it inappropriate she is venting to me especially unprompted but again, I just kind of try and make light of it and leave with my son.
The last time I collected my son is why I’m posting here and where it all gets weird. So, I went to collect my son as usual, and she mentioned unprompted her partner has won another competition so will be away again, leaving her with the children ‘like he did when their child was first born.’ Again this puts me in an uncomfortable position but I just brushed it off to her needing to moan/vent and I happened to be there. She then said again unprompted that the TVs in the house are all broken due to a powersurge. I responded by saying surely her home insurance would cover it for her? Her response was to say how she isn’t on the mortgage and her partner didn’t sort it out and get insurance etc etc. I just responded that’s strange because what would happen in the event of a fire for example? Anyways, this is when I turn to leave. She then says that she has ‘her youngest’ to keep her busy (the child she has with new partner). I said yeah and dismissed it still leaving with my son. She then said he has a new trick and pulls out her phone.
She proceeds to show me a video on her phone of the child jumping up and down throwing a blanket on a sofa and making noise. Not really a big deal at all. However as with iPhones if you don’t press the screen when watching a video you can see the thumbnails of previous pictures/videos. Her camera roll was full of recently taken nude pictures. When I noticed, I immediately felt uncomfortable and didn’t know what to say or do. At first I ignored it, but as I was leaving I thought no, I’m going to bring this up and just said ‘by the way, maybe a good idea to hide your camera roll thumbnails when showing someone a video.’ She then proceeded to act like she didn’t know what I meant then I shook my head and proceeded to leave. She sort of made a shocked gasp noise and made out like she was mortified by what she did.
I have told this story to multiple people and they have all said the same thing - that it sounds intentional. I also want to say that I told my partner immediately and while she wasn’t best pleased she appreciated my honesty and we are both assuming it was an honest mistake on her part and giving her the benefit of the doubt.
Her partner was away recently on one of these sporting trips for around 4 days so I assumed she was sending them to him then, but my partner said he may not even know, we don’t know if she’s told him about this, and if not, perhaps they were being sent to someone else?
My exs new partner is a good guy and really good step parent to my son. I’m wondering how to proceed now as I feel really uncomfortable about this situation and wondering what other people’s input on this might be? I am currently just ignoring it and giving her the benefit of the doubt but it’s certainly made things uncomfortable now.
Appreciate any input you might want to offer.