First I will address the dog issue. To many people, it is not JUST a dog! Honestly I love my dogs more than I love all but a handful of people in my life and they are better companions than even most of them! lol. So, I can get not wanting to leave your dog behind. With that being said, what follows is an example and my concern for you.
The example:
My WH had a 2-3 year hot and heavy affair with a co-worker. Prior to this happening we got two dogs (both of which are still around). When the shit hit the fan we had several years of nastiness, divorce, and discontent BUT there was no way I was going to leave my dogs behind. As big of a ______ (insert profane comment at will) he was, he also loved the dogs, and even when I left we made arrangements for joint custody of sorts regarding the dogs, including my staying at the house where there was precisely zero going on between us aside from a lot of anger and passive-aggressive nastiness. In the years that followed we repaired our friendship to an extent and we are sort of dating. I do stay there sometimes and most of the time nothing is going on with us but we both get to see the dogs, which is awesome. The caveat is that neither of us are dating anyone else so if something happens, whatever. That being said even if I were dating someone if they were not cool with my going there to see my dogs then we wouldn't be dating. It's an upfront deal-breaker for me. The dogs win over someone new in my life.
Every day you talk about a dog... That is odd.
Then call me odd - we talk all the time about our dogs. They are family. We share photos of them all the time and funny things they do. We really love them. So, I'm not saying this is your situation but I am saying it's totally possible. (I was NOT a dog person before we got these two dogs - I was 100% on the cat person side of things to the extent I was anything and hadn't actually had any pets in a long time so prior to us getting these dogs this behavior would have been totally out of character for me).
My concern:
BF told me that he wants to keep taking care of the dog until his ex find someone that can take care of the dog & his ex.
The fact that your BF wants someone to take care of the dog = admirable in my world. The fact that he wants someone to take care of his ex...red-flag-o-rama. While your therapist says he may still have feelings for the ex and uses the dog as an excuse, this may be true, or these two things may be independent of each other. But for your purposes it really doesn't matter. Excluding you from being around during those times is the issue here. He knows you are cool with their being friends still so that isn't the problem (kudos to you BTW - I think this is healthy behavior). If he felt you would freak out/be rude to the ex or whatever that is cause for concern on his part.
My solution:
You and your BF need to TALK about this ASAP. His reaction will tell you loads about where his head is at. If you tell him you don't care about their being friends but you feel at this juncture in your relationship you need to be a part of his life, including that aspect, you will know where you stand pretty quickly.
[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 6:59 PM, Tuesday, February 27th]
You are the only person you are guaranteed to spend the rest of your life with. Act accordingly.
Constantly editing posts: usually due to sticky keys on my laptop or additional thoughts