Tony doesn't like exes

Tweet

I had a previous discussion where I said that Tony doesn't like my ex. And Sara rightly pointed out that I had probably unintentionally poisoned the well. When I was getting to know Tony, I told him the usual stuff that people who are dating disclose about prior relationships. Some of the things I said about why my marriage broke up probably predisposed Tony to dislike R. And then R got cranky with me in front of Tony while we were moving, and that sealed it. Fast forward 6 months. Occasionally things need to be done around here. Mostly Tony or I take care of them. But once in a while, R notices, and he will do something. My attitude is, as long as it gets fixed, I don't care who does it. And I look at it as R doing something to help his kids have a better living situation, not so much as him doing things for me. Predictably, this annoys Tony. His ex is a real piece of work. He married her because they had a child. Basically, she was a one night stand, two years later he discovered that he had a son, and they got married. Two more children later, and he was staying home with the kids while she worked. Well, after she cheated on him, and he gave up trying to make things work, she split with the kids, and he didn't see them again for 7 years. Now that they've grown up, she's done things like use her kids names to get credit, then default and leave them holding the bag. There's a lot more, but you get the idea. So the other day I decided that I needed a stick to put in the sliding glass door so that it couldn't be opened from outside when we weren't home (or when we were home for that matter). I found one that was too long, and another that was too short. Tony said he'd bring a saw by and cut the long one. Then R came by to pick up the kids, saw the stick, and asked what it was. Cary told him, and so he took it up to his mom's, cut it and brought it back. Well. Tony saw the stick, asked what was going on, and I told him. He gave me the glare, and said "no more". Not wanting to rock the boat, I said "OK". Then he made some comment about exes, and his ex. But how do I feel about this? All over the place. 1. R is not his ex. We had our issues, and he's not the man for me, but he's not somebody who would scam his kids out of money, or do any of the things that she's done. 2. I don't like being told what I can and can't do in my own house. 3. I agree that I don't want to encourage R to do things here, hang around here, possibly get false hope that there's a thaw. But I don't mind if he notices something, and decides on his own to fix it. 4. I want to respect Tony's wishes, but I don't want him to decide things for me. 5. I'd like to have a friendly relationship with R... TO A POINT. With Tony in the picture, that's a problem. I guess I really need to talk to Tony about how I feel. Blah. I don't consider this a major relationship ending problem as long as it's handled right, and we come to an understanding. But whichever of you said, in my previous discussion, that this could be a problem with my relationship with Tony seems to have nailed it. What would you do?