There is a very specific kind of nightmare scenario that happens when you date someone significantly older than you. You think you are mature for your age. You think you can handle their baggage. You think you can be the “cool girlfriend” who is totally chill with the ex who is still in the picture. But then, you wake up one morning in the Hamptons to find said ex-husband wearing pajamas in the kitchen, pouring coffee, and asking if you want hash browns like he is the host of a bed and breakfast you didn’t book.
Our narrator is a 21-year-old woman who is currently in a relationship with a 36-year-old woman. That age gap alone is enough to make most of us pause and raise an eyebrow, but it gets messier. The girlfriend started a company with her ex-husband, a 43-year-old man, over a decade ago. They are still business partners. They still work together. And apparently, they still have sleepovers at vacation homes while the current girlfriend is sleeping in the next room.
The couple was vacationing in East Hampton. It sounds lovely, right? Sun, sand, and expensive lobster rolls. But the vibe shifted when the ex-husband came over after dinner to “work on a project.” Our narrator, trying to be understanding of their business relationship, dozed off while they were still working in the office. She assumed, like any rational human being would, that the man would go home to his own house which was only five miles away in Bridgehampton.
But when she walked into the kitchen the next morning, she wasn’t greeted by a quiet house. she was greeted by the ex-husband. He was casually pouring himself a cup of coffee and asking her about breakfast potatoes. He wasn’t rushing out the door. He wasn’t apologetic. He was settling in. And the kicker? He used to own the house they were staying in. He looked more at home than she did because, in his mind, he probably still felt like he was at home.
I need you to feel the absolute disrespect radiating off this situation. The man lives five miles away. Five. Miles. That is a ten-minute Uber ride. That is a fifteen-minute drive. There is absolutely zero logistical reason for a grown man with his own property nearby to crash at his ex-wife’s vacation rental while her new girlfriend is there. None.
But it gets worse. When the girlfriend walked in, instead of addressing the elephant in the room (or the ex-husband in the kitchen), she and her ex started chatting away, completely ignoring the narrator. Our poor narrator says she was “practically pulling on my girlfriend’s sleeve” to get attention. This image is heartbreaking because it perfectly highlights the power imbalance here. They are treating her like a child they are allowing to sit at the grown-ups’ table, provided she stays quiet.
When she finally asked the obvious question of why he didn’t go home, the gaslighting began immediately. Her girlfriend got “offended.” She called the narrator “rude and insecure.” She claimed she was just being a “hospitable business partner.” Hospitable is offering someone a glass of water, not a pillow in a house you are sharing with your partner.
Then the ex-husband chimed in with the most pathetic excuse in the book. He claimed he “missed the dog.” He sat there, petting the dog, making no motion to leave, blaming the canine for his decision to invade their privacy. And because the narrator is 21 and probably being manipulated by two people nearly double her age, she “immediately felt bad” because she didn’t want to keep him from the dog.
Let’s be real here. This wasn’t about the dog. This wasn’t about business. This was a power play. They are showing her exactly where she ranks in the hierarchy of this “relationship,” and it is somewhere below the ex-husband and possibly below the hash browns.
So, is she the ahole? Absolutely not. N-T-A. She is a young woman being taken for a ride by two people who have no boundaries and no respect for her feelings. The “insecure” label is just a tool they are using to shut her up so they can continue their weird, boundary-less dynamic without consequence.