Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it :(

[Serene]

My boyfriend and I have been together now for 9 months and in the beginning when I found out that his best friend was a women I didn't really care that much because we were "just dating" but now that things are more serious (we live together and just opened an LLC ) I am starting to want her out of my life. The background is that she was originally his brother's friend until he moved and then those two became friends after highschool, also her mother is his mom's BF.
Anyway, he claims that they have never been together and that they look at each other as brother and sister. BUT, here are some other facts:

She is VERY pretty
She is married with two kids
I recently saw something in his facebook messages that he left open from a while back writing to her about me saying that I was emotionally damaged, that I was a cool girl but eventually he would lose his mind ( och )
He feels very close her and always commenting on what a great mother she is knowing I don't really like kids


He hasn't really talked to her in a while but today he said that he wants us to go over there on Saturday and I almost dropped my weight. ( at the gym)
I am trying to decide if I should go or not? He knows how I feel but is kind of trying to say she will always be a part of his life and is defensive about it.

What do I do? Stay calm and go? Ignore it?
I want her out of my life. Sorry but I just can't be cool about this one.

[Zephyranth]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

I'm in a sort of a similar situation. I've seen some inappropriate texts and he just won't listen to me about my opinion of her. What I'm doing, though, is giving him the benefit of the doubt. If something happens, obviously he wasn't the man I thought he was, and he doesn't deserve me. That's how I see it... I just don't wanna damage the relationship we have going in case it's for nothing. I'll continue to share my opinion with him, but short of that it's his life and unless he says something really horrible to her that I somehow find out about, I'm going to do my best to trust him.

[Serene]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

I'm in a sort of a similar situation. I've seen some inappropriate texts and he just won't listen to me about my opinion of her. What I'm doing, though, is giving him the benefit of the doubt. If something happens, obviously he wasn't the man I thought he was, and he doesn't deserve me. That's how I see it... I just don't wanna damage the relationship we have going in case it's for nothing. I'll continue to share my opinion with him, but short of that it's his life and unless he says something really horrible to her that I somehow find out about, I'm going to do my best to trust him.

I am just hoping that every time he mentions her name and I just move on to the next topic he will get the hint. I am thinking though that I need to go this Saturday with him. He said that we should stop in and see her because he hasn't seen her for a while. I really don't want to go but I don't want him there alone. How should I act towards her I wonder?

- - - Updated - - -

Also I wonder if there is anything I can do to get her energy off of my mind?

[Jembru]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

Ouch! Personally, I wouldn't be able to handle this. I don't like tall men, muscley men or men who are into sports and as shallow as it sounds, I would not be able to overlook these 'flaws' and date such a guy. The same goes for a guy who has a best friend who isn't me. Maybe because my first true love was a girl who began as my best friend, became my lover and later returned to being my best female friend (and still is today, 13 years later!). So for me, this amazing relationship set the bar high and no one who isn't my best friend as well as a lover, can fit the bill. If the relationship is of the style I require, there should be no space for other close female friends.

BUT, JP and I are way too close for a lot of people's taste. My ex roommate for example, would feel smothered if her partner wanted her constant and undivided attention like JP and I do. Some people like body builders, some people can tolerate sports addiction, or see past the baggage of children from a previous relationship. The question then, is how much are you willing to tolerate or accept in order to remain with this person? It is unkind to expect them to stop being friends, but reasonable to tell him your feelings and see if he would be willing to either cool off with her or involve you in their friendship. Beyond that, you need to decide if he is so perfect in every other way, that you can forgive this one flaw.

In the meantime, focus on the fact that it is YOU he chose. If he was going to get involved romantically with this girl, it would have happened by now. She may be jealous, but it probably won't be because she wants him as a lover, but just that you are competition for his attention. I used to get terribly jealous in my youth when my close friends started hanging out with a different girl, especially if they had in jokes or shared interests that excluded me. Yet I honestly never had a single romantic feeling for these people. I just didn't like feeling left out!

[thalassa]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

Honestly, as someone that's been married for going on 8 years...

This is your problem to get over, not his problem to fix to please you:

Either you trust him, or you don't.
If you don't trust him, you will never have a functional relationship.
If you trust him, he could be best friends with a porn star supermodel, and it wouldn't matter.

If you can't handle that, then (IMO) you might need to work on some insecurity issues...or you need to move on and find someone else.

She was his friend first. On top of that, she's married with kids. People have histories...when you get in a relationship, its ridiculous to expect them to abandon their friends because you don't like them. And, just an FYI, guys and girls can just be friends without having a romantic history or a sexual relationship. Most of my good friends are male, and a good number of my hubby's friends are female. Some of them are hotter than I am, and some of my friends are hotter than my hubby. So what? Its not like we got married for looks, and we certainly aren't so shallow to abandon our relationship for something that transient. He's told you about their relationship, and if they are friends, I'd expect him to talk about you...whether that friend was male or female. I'd be less concerned about the female friend, and more concerned with why he thinks you have issues he's not sure if he can handle.

[Serene]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

Its hard, I went through a lot recently and have just started to get my confidence back (losing half you hair to PCOS and having to always wear a weave kinda sucks that out of you at times ) so I am a little insecure. I know my boyfriend knows how I feel and he really doesn't bring her up much and I liked it that way its just now he wants for us to go see her took me off guard. I would like to be friends with her but honestly we are like oil and water. I know that being with her has crossed his mind, I just have a feeling because I did a hand gesture or something that was very similar to her and he got all excited. I feel like the whole time he was single he was looking for someone like her.

[Just_Wondering]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

Let it go.

If a person wants to cheat, they will cheat-and nothing you do can stop them. By trying to push his best friend away, you're making yourself look clingy, jealous, possessive and insecure. These are not desirable traits, so if anything you're making it worse for yourself. Not to mention, whenever they do hang out in an entirely platonic way they will feel like they have to be secretive about it which will further exacerbate your suspicions.

If you really want to compete with her, then stop trying to micromanage his social life and start trying to be the very best girlfriend you can be. If his life with you is peaches and cream then why would he want for anything more? And if he does cheat, you can rest easy in the knowledge that you did your best and it had nothing to do with you, only with him.

I say make friends with her. That way you're more than "the girl who won't let me see my best friend". If you build a friendship with her she has even more reason to not move in on him.

Has he ever cheated on you before? If not then give him the benefit of the doubt. For your own sake so you don't spend your time stressing about it.

[Zephyranth]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

This thread has been really helpful to me, too I sort of have the same attitude as a lot of you, but it's good to hear it from other people. I hope it's helped you, too, Serene!

[Jembru]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

I really liked what Just_wondering said. I believe this too. I feel every action has an equil and opposite reaction. In this case, using force to pull someone towards you, is just going to make them pull in the other direction. Get to far appart and the magnetic forces that hold you together will break and you'll end up a free radical. Free radical human beings are scary, I've seen it.. but gently move towards him, and he should respond and move in closer. If not, then you simply aren't the right type for one another. Too many protons or something..

I should not post tired. So far been awake 25 hours. I miss my futon!

[Dumuzi]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

I have crazy Arab blood running inside me, so don't take this too seriously.

To me it's all about fairness and the whole, love for others what you would love for yourself. It also totally depends on what you mean by best friends. Do they go out alone together? Do they spend lots of time on the phone talking and chatting? Since I wouldn't like it if my partner was doing those things, I also stay away from them and would not do them.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

It really depends on the relationship. It would not work for Mr Penry and me. He is my best friend and I believe that I am his. If he also had a best friend who was female I wouldn't care if she looked like the back end of a bus. I would probably end up garrotting him. Maybe her too. It's just the way I am.

That said, I know it can work for some people, so I'm NOT saying it's wrong. I'm just saying we couldn't make that work for us.

[ChainLightning]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

From the other side of that fence.

I don't do too terribly well with male friends. I have, vastly, way more female friends and a few are of them are quite close, in that brother/sister sort. I'm also not very quick to sleep with, or even try to sleep with, ANY woman, let alone those I know. In that one respect, I'm probably a bit of a prude, as compared to many of those male friends I mentioned.

So yeah, this has come up, quite a few times with the women I've been in relationships with. Including my ex-wife, though she was really, most concerned about my lingering contact with women I'd slept with at some point. Out of my respect for her, I pretty much stopped talking to all of my ex-girlfriends. I didn't stop talking to my other friends and I didn't stop flirting. It's just how I am - so there was little I could do to stop that.

Which meant that my being open and honest was going to have to be enough to build a trusting relationship. And it was. Fortunately.

What I've found, over the years, is that women that tried to change who I am never stuck around long, regardless of how much I may have capitulated. It's that trying to change someone else that makes it fail... I can change me, you can change you. That's it, no other options are available. Even the expectation that someone is going to change for you dooms most relationships.


***Note: Using "you" in a general sense. Nobody specific.

[Ula]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

You said they are friends but do they have a romantic past together? If not after all these years they probably will not. He is seeing her with your knowledge and with you there so, that seems on the up and up. My issue would be him discussing me in not very good terms per the facebook posts. He should be talking to you about problems, not any friend, female or otherwise. It will come down to you deciding you can accept her or not since he seems pretty sure he is not getting rid of her.

[Jembru]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

I just thought of something: in a way, JP DOES have close female friends. He has a circle of around 6 internet friends who he has chatted to online for several years. At least half of these are female. When we first got together, I did get a bit upset about it as he admitted that one in particular had a crush on him. I had fairly recently broken up with a guy who I had fallen for via the internet so I knew all too well how obsessive online crushes can be and that the friendship, however imaginary some aspects are in reality, can be very intense. I never asked him to stop contacting these girls though. He still speaks to them now, although not as frequently as he did before he met me, more because he has less time than less desire. I have a close online male friend too, although he backed off a bit when I met JP, suggesting that he possibly liked me a bit more than I thought (he'd hinted once or twice when I was still single, but English isn't his mothertongue and I am NOT learning another soddin' language for anyone!)

Aaanyway. A year on and JP and I are inseperably close, we always know where one another is and spend most of our free time together. The possibility of your partner cheating is always there, but when you trust one another, the probability drops dramatically. I'd even let JP travel to meet his online friends in person now, although when I told him that, he said he'd want to take me with him anyway if he did that!

[DanieMarie]

Re: Boyfriend's best friend is a women and I don't know how to handle it

Honestly, as someone that's been married for going on 8 years...

This is your problem to get over, not his problem to fix to please you:

Either you trust him, or you don't.
If you don't trust him, you will never have a functional relationship.
If you trust him, he could be best friends with a porn star supermodel, and it wouldn't matter.

If you can't handle that, then (IMO) you might need to work on some insecurity issues...or you need to move on and find someone else.

She was his friend first. On top of that, she's married with kids. People have histories...when you get in a relationship, its ridiculous to expect them to abandon their friends because you don't like them. And, just an FYI, guys and girls can just be friends without having a romantic history or a sexual relationship. Most of my good friends are male, and a good number of my hubby's friends are female. Some of them are hotter than I am, and some of my friends are hotter than my hubby. So what? Its not like we got married for looks, and we certainly aren't so shallow to abandon our relationship for something that transient. He's told you about their relationship, and if they are friends, I'd expect him to talk about you...whether that friend was male or female. I'd be less concerned about the female friend, and more concerned with why he thinks you have issues he's not sure if he can handle.

I can't agree more.

I'm opposite of Jem. Maybe it's because when I'm friends close friends with a guy, it's because he's someone I don't feel 'that way' about. If I do, either we both feel the same way and get together, or else it's too hard for me to be friends with him (I can't look past my feelings). So all my male friends are sort of sexless to me. I also don't expect to have my boyfriend be my best friend, because I'm 28 and I've been on my own for most of my life, and I've got friends that I've had long before I met him, and knowing that, I know and understand that it's the same way for him. We get along great and are friends as well as bf/gf and like doing things together, but the other friendships in our lives are important as well.

She's a girl in your situation, but she's still his friend. Asking him to choose isn't really fair. I've been on the other end of that before (the friend) and it really sucked.