On New Year’s Eve, one hour before midnight, my boyfriend turned to me.

            “I want to tell you something.”

These are six of my favourite words to hear in conjunction. They are usually followed by, at least, some juicy gossip, at best, some sort of declaration of hidden emotion. Even if it’s bad news, it’s usually a bit exciting.

Safe to say, I was sufficiently spurned for my gossip-mongering ways.

            “New Year’s Eve is me and Kate’s anniversary.”

Kate (name changed) was my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. They broke up maybe 18 months ago. We’d been dating for eight.

She had messaged him earlier that day, he explained, and he’d been thinking about her a bit lately, but mainly in the sense of feeling like this New Year’s was symbolic. That he was properly ready to move on. That he loved me, could see a future with me. Was hopeful for 2022 (which really should have been the bit I fixated on because what sort of crazy person is still hopeful these days?!).

But I had stopped listening at the sound of her name. Kate. The ex-girlfriend. Their anniversary. How dare they have an anniversary? They were barely even a legitimate couple? Right?

Well, no, wrong. They had dated for a good couple of years. In the eyes of Father Time, they were a more legitimate couple than we were.

Yet we are trained by movies and outdated notions of ‘The One’. To pretend that we are the only real person our partner has dated – or at least really loved. The sole main character in the rom-com of our lives.  

The truth is, my boyfriend has dated many main characters before me. At least three. As have I. And I loved them all in very individual, unique ways, and still think about them all at random, occasionally inopportune times. Sometimes lovingly, sometimes loathingly. Usually with some lifelong learning attached.

So why must it be so hard to acknowledge that a partner still thinks of their ex when we literally all do it?

We need to talk more about our exes, not less. They live in our heads for a reason and will forever inform how we go about future relationships – both for better and for worse.

And let’s not forget there will be times in life when you literally can’t avoid them. Say, when you’ve shacked up with someone who already has a kid with someone else. All of a sudden, you’re swapping pleasantries and home-made bathroom spray at Christmas and birthdays, not to mention seeing them every second Monday for handover. Even when they aren’t physically in your face, you have to listen to your lover’s kids asking when “daddy” first met “mummy” and what he thought of her.

You can’t stash this one into a cute box labelled ‘my beloved’s quaint and quirky but ultimately irrelevant past’. But you literally have no other reference point for this situation! Society hasn’t raised you to (metaphorically) cohabit with your partner’s ex.

I spoke about this for the first time the other day with my step-mum who has ‘lived’ (again, metaphorically) with her partner’s ex – aka my mum – for as long as I’ve known her.

“I think perhaps in the early days of the relationship [with your dad] I was not 100 percent secure. If I'm honest with myself, I did feel pangs of jealousy sometimes when he was at your house for dinner or at a family event on your mum’s side.

“After the break-up, [your dad] was very keen to keep up as many of these events as possible to keep things as 'normal' for you and [your sister]. Intellectually, I was totally on board with this, but I have to admit that sometimes my heart felt otherwise.

“Sometimes I did feel on the outer but I knew that [your dad] was trying to do his best for you both… Plus I was determined to do what was the right thing for you girls. You can choose how you act even if you're feeling a bit shit inside.”

Now a certified “adult” who can (somewhat) handle learning that my parents are real people with real emotions, I am immensely grateful to my step-mum, dad and mum for grinning believably through what sounds to me like relationship hell. All three of them prioritised and protected what were essentially two living reminders of painful past lives and loves: me and my sister.

In comparison, my own New Year’s debacle seems incredibly petty – but perhaps it was the opportunity I needed to practice being ok with the presence of a partner’s ex, just in case I, too, one day find myself with little wide-eyed step-children telling me how amazing their mum’s spag bol is and dad do you ever miss mum’s cooking?

I think my own parents’ normalisation of messy-yet-healthy love lives has no doubt gone a long way to helping me get where I am today – that is, writing this highly self-evolved article. But society has still fought me at every step. The message is loud and clear: “your lover should never have loved another.” Because if they’ve done it before, they could do it again.

My step-mum faced these catchcries, too. “I know some others around me thought it was a bit weird that [your dad] was going to [your mum’s] family Christmas gatherings and other family events.”

I have no doubt such suspicions are generally well-meaning, born of protectiveness towards a loved one. But they can create an unnecessary extra reason for said loved one to resent their partner’s ex: the optics.

When my boyfriend started hanging out with his ex again, I at first avoided telling my friends. I didn’t love the thought of him mentioning it to his friends either.

Did I at any point think he’d leave me for her? No! But I couldn’t stand anyone else thinking that might be the case. Or that I might be jealous (me? Never!). I didn’t want their pity or, worse, for them to legitimise any fears that may be waiting to be spawned within me.

It’s time to de-vilify exes. Because marriage might be “to the exclusion of all others” in physical practice, but in the messy light of day we all drag our former lovers along with us like wheelless suitcases.

Just last month I watched the cheesy GoPro video my ex and I had made of an overseas trip and shed a beautiful, movie-moment tear in bittersweet nostalgia. It’s the sort of nostalgia that can be a nice, safe bear to poke at times, to check in with how you’ve moved on, and how your memories of that person are settling in.

I’m proud to say I can think lovingly of that ex and that, far from remotely detracting from my love of my current boyfriend, it is reflective of how happy and satisfied I am now – just as my boyfriend’s New Year’s musings were (albethey poorly timed, as I moshed in silent drunken rage to Client Liaison).

Rather than ignoring exes, we can welcome their memories as instructors, and even important contributors to the parts we adore most of the people we love today.

Let’s normalise this reflection as a natural process for human development which holds enormous potential for self-growth and better, more sustainable relationships. Let’s open up the conversation with our kids and step-kids, mentees and friends.

Still, as I write this, I am struggling to follow my own wisdom. My boyfriend is catching up with his ex tomorrow. It’s the head versus the heart once again.

But I’m trying. Let this article serve as a standard against which I permit all current and future partners to hold me.

Oh god.