It's hard to know about other people's relationship, even when we know one of the people.

My husband's ex-wife and I are friends. We constantly go to each other's houses and are both at all the family parties, etc.

This woman though is jealous of me; thinks I have the life she "should" have had. She doesn't understand that she's a different person than I am and what her ex- and I have in common works because it is the two of us not the two of them.

If she calls and my husband isn't home or can't come to the phone (we've been married 19 years this year, almost as long as they were), she and I will "talk" (she talks I get to listen) and these conversations can last an hour or more. Once when she called and my husband wasn't home yet, she started talking about him and their early years of marriage and might have well have been talking about a stranger. She was accusing him of all sorts of things from child abuse to I don't know what.

When we got married, there were a couple of situations where my husband didn't seem to act in character to me and a little digging got to where she had nagged him and chipped a little common sense out of him. It wasn't hard, but took me awhile and some patience to get him not to act like he was going to get in trouble for being himself.

My point is, I don't know what went on in their marriage, I can only deduce things from what's been said and what I see now. I wouldn't put too much stock in your boyfriend's ex- comments; they're ignorant of both you and your relationship with the boyfriend. Maybe she thinks your mother wears combat boots too? :-)