Am I wrong? What do I do?

Esoteric_

I'll try keep this as short as I can. My boyfriend of 8 months has three best friends, all female. I met two of them straight away and loved them and one of them is now a really good friend of mine. THe third friend, I met 2 or 3 months into the relationship. We met on a night out and she immediately asked me to come to the bathroom with her. I assumed it was to get to know me better because y'know, friends are protective.

In the bathroom, she told me he was her ex boyfriend and that I'd never ever be as close to him as she is because they love each other but only broke up because friendships are closer than all relationships. She also sent him texts saying I was "weird" and that "she'd never do that" when I asked him not to text me for an hour or two one day because I was stressed and needed some time alone. Just to throw out there, we're not kids or teenagers, we're mid-20s, although she is acting very childishly IMO. This girl has an on-off boyfriend but spent the entire night dragging my boyfriend to the smoking area, making it clear that I wasn't welcome (always having to talk to him about something "private" for 40-odd minutes). Naturally I was a bit unhappy so stopped making as much effort to get to know her and just chilled with my friend Shane as he was the only one not leaving me sitting alone for 40 minutes while they talked.

I asked him about all this stuff a few days later and he has never gone out with her, which his other friends verify. I don't care about exes or being friends with exes, I think it shows you're a sound person if you can stay friends with exes, but he never so much as kissed the girl! He had a crush on her 10 years ago and that was it, nothing happened.

I was really unhappy about what she was saying to and about me, but he defended her down to the ground.

Tonight, I invited her over for a party as I haven't seen her since and wanted to give her another chance because maybe she's just a bad drunk and my first impression was wrong. Immediately she started treating my boyfriend like her boyfriend, talking to him about porn, asking what porn he liked, giving him recommendations for porn, complimenting his legs, tan, hair, outfit, etc. At the same time, she flat out ignored me several times when I tried to talk to her, but would answer me sporadically on other stuff. She has also insulted me 4 or 5 times because I suggested youtube videos for us to watch, you know, funny stuff because we got bored. Each time I suggested one, my boyfriend would ask has she seen it and each time her response was something along the lines of "eh no, me and my friends don't sit around at computers all day because we're not sad" (I don't do that btw, I just happened to know like 4 decent vids). She also calls him "baby" and "gorgeous" all the time and loads her texts with kisses to him, when she doesn't with anyone else.

SO now I'm pretty angry about it all. I had told him that if she continued to insult me after the first time meeting her, I'd be very unhappy for him to continue being her friend. I don't want to do that though, because I don't want him to lose friends over me, but I'm extremely hurt over all of this, especially because he laughs at her comments, oblivious to her directing them at me, even though his other friends realised and have been looking at me and making faces because they know what she's saying is aimed at me.

So guys, what can I do? I thought to tell him that I don't wanna hang out with her anymore but he can, but everytime they're alone, she just goes on and on about how her relationship isn't serious and is just looking for someone else. And she flirts with him almost every time she texts.

One or two of the above things, I would ignore, but it's constant! So guys, what do I do? I don't want to tell him not to be friends with her because it shouldn't be a case where it comes down to an ultimatum, but I'm stressed about it. I tried SO hard to like her and get along with her for his sake but she made it impossible

IrishEyes19

If his other friends see what she is doing, is there any chance you could ask them to have a word rather than you. He might listen to what the "the lads" think rather than his gf. Even though I think you are completely in the right here, it might be seen in his eyes as you being jealous especially if for some reason he cant see what she is doing.

Esoteric_

Yeah, his closest friend completely agrees with me and has said it to him that she's a cow (none of them like her because she's rude to all of them), but he's so guillible and naive. His closest friend was here tonight and even looked pointedly at me and raised her eyebrows at me when the other girl made some comments to me. She's had a word before but nothing changed. It's really not that I want him to cut contact, but she's deliberately trying to drive a wedge between us as far as I can see and I don't want that to happen because he's a lovely guy. I just wish she didn't make it so hard to get along with her.

IrishEyes19

I know what you mean. But it's not fair on you either to have this to happen. From what you've written, she's sounds jealous of your relationship with him. Has he had other gf's and has she acted the same?

I know you care for your bf, but he shouldn't be oblivious to this either and it would worry me that if he can't see that you are being seriously disrespected by this girl too. I would sit him down and explain it once again, but in a very serious manner, in fact it would serve well if you brought along his friends who do see it, and discuss it with him, with their backing. She sounds horrendous OP, and if you put up with any longer, she'll know she can go as far as she wants.

beano345

i'd have it straight out with her to tell you the truth,sometimes people like that need to be shown you won't take it lying down,then she can either do two things give up this ridiculous behavior or continue it.she sounds a bit jealous of your relationship i wonder does she see herself with your boyfriend in the near future or is she being protective as a friend,if as you say the rest of his friends say shes a cow maybe one or two could have a word with her aswell to really drive the point home that she is acting ridiculous towards you.

Chinafoot

LyndaMcL wrote: »

She also sent him texts saying I was "weird" and that "she'd never do that" when I asked him not to text me for an hour or two one day because I was stressed and needed some time alone.

This bit jumped out at me Lynda. Why is your boyfriend telling this girl the ins and outs of your relationship? I would be pretty pissed off about that tbh.

This girl is being an absolute cow but your boyfriend needs to cop on to himself. Her behaviour towards him is completely inappropriate and I don't believe for one second that he is oblivious to whats going on. It sounds like he likes the attention. As soon as you told him about what she said to you in the bathroom (which should have been immediately really) he should have told this girl to keep out of your relationship. He certainly shouldn't be laughing at her snide comments, responding to flirty texts and he most definitely shouldn't be telling her private things about your relationship. She is very obviously an insecure, immature, jealous child.

Lynda I know it's very easy to direct all your anger at this girl, and I agree with you that she is so out of order its unreal, but the onus is on your boyfriend here. He is her friend and he should be the one to put her firmly in her place. He needs to understand how upset her behaviour and his lack of respect for your relationship makes you. If it were me I'd be having a very serious conversation with the boyfriend.

IrishEyes19

Chinafoot wrote: »

This bit jumped out at me Lynda. Why is your boyfriend telling this girl the ins and outs of your relationship? I would be pretty pissed off about that tbh.

This girl is being an absolute cow but your boyfriend needs to cop on to himself. Her behaviour towards him is completely inappropriate and I don't believe for one second that he is oblivious to whats going on. It sounds like he likes the attention. As soon as you told him about what she said to you in the bathroom (which should have been immediately really) he should have told this girl to keep out of your relationship. He certainly shouldn't be laughing at her snide comments, responding to flirty texts and he most definitely shouldn't be telling her private things about your relationship. She is very obviously an insecure, immature, jealous child.

Lynda I know it's very easy to direct all your anger at this girl, and I agree with you that she is so out of order its unreal, but the onus is on your boyfriend here. He is her friend and he should be the one to put her firmly in her place. He needs to understand how upset her behaviour and his lack of respect for your relationship makes you. If it were me I'd be having a very serious conversation with the boyfriend.

Spot on, she sounds like a trouble maker, but your bf could put a stop to the trouble maker. thats the main point here. If he didnt encourage it, she wouldnt have a leg to stand on. He needs to tell her to stop, and you owe it to yourself not to have to worry about such things aswell. If he doesnt comply, Id consider moving on and explaining this to him. Peace of mind is better than any relationship. It shouldn't be this stressful

Firetrap

What jumped out at me wasn't this woman's behaviour but your boyfriend's seemingly passive role in all of this. Why is he letting her do all of these things? Has he ever taken her aside and told her to stop flirting etc? What was his opinion on her texting him to say you're weird?

thefeatheredcat

I would approach this quite cautiously.... she is looking for you to come down to her level and have an open all-out conflict so she can put it in your boyfriend's head and friends the whole "see what I mean? wasn't I right about her" thinking

She's blatantly putting you down about the youtube remark - alarm bells of an insecure person trying to bully and get a rise and would no doubt turn it all back on you to make herself look like a targeted victim for the drama of it. You could respond in a like fashion, to put her in her place but I actually think compassion may be the way to go on this.


Rise above this girl and don't stoop to her level (although I don't think where she is even qualifies as a level as it's so low) and don't give her what she wants.

I'd be pretty pissed at your boyfriend too, he's either way too used to this girl's behaviour and is totally oblivious to it or enjoys it or just sees it as part of who this best friend is. Some people can be totally blind sighted to things like this and need to be able to see things from another perspective with a wake up call.

Esoteric_

Hey guys, thanks so much for all the responses! I feel like less of a cow for having it out with the boyfriend after I posted this last night

WIth regards to the boyfriend side of things, it wasn't that he was telling her the ins and outs of our relationship. He happened to be texting her chatting and he was worried about me when I asked for space and he just texted her (he showed me the text later when I flipped about her calling me weird) saying something like "oh, Lynda's in a bad mood and wants some time alone to relax, is there anything you think I could do to make her feel better when she texts me later?" He also ignores her flirty texts, or just ignores the flirty bits and responds to the rest.

He admitted after I posted this that he realized the porn comments were out of line, and to be fair to him he did try very hard to close that topic of conversation.

He was still oblivious to the rest, but I think that's just a part of who he is. I don't like it, but he's like that with everyone, he just refuses to see any bad in people. I'm not trying to stick up for him but I think although he's bang out of order leaving me to sort this, he genuinely is clueless and hasn't seen what she's been doing. He's like this with everyone, his best friends say he lets people walk all over him because of how overly trusting he is. It's a characteristic I hate because it makes this situation more difficult for me >_>


So I had it out with him last night, got quite upset (thank you bottle of wine!) and said how hurt I am and that not only is she disrespecting me, she's disrespecting him by trying to wreck a very happy relationship. I basically ranted at him for an hour

In the end, he apologized for not seeing it, like really apologized and said that he'll call her out on her behaviour and that I can choose whether or not to be there. I don't know if I'm happy calling her out on it because we all know how that'll go down "your gf is lying, I'm not like that, she's paranoid" etc. I had thought of maybe catching her out on one thing she said. Like, next time we have her over, I could just say something like "God, it's great that you and the boyfriend get along so well considering you're exes" and see how she reacts because the boyfriend would pretty much immediately deny it. I also figure, that way he'll be left in no doubt as to what she's like.

thecookingapple

Put this girl in her place regarding you and your relationship in straight layman terms, no catching out or anything like that kind of nonesense, if she calls you paranoid etc what do you care?

You are an adult, no one is defending you here, im sorry to say that, nice as your bf may be he is as bad as her, being nice and clueless is often traits used to hide being a coward, if your bf wont sort out his friend then you should, tell her back off, mind her own business and while you repect her friendship with you bf you will not tolerate this destructive attitude she seems to have of you.

Being meek will get you knowwhere, put this person in her place or you will be writing another relationship issue regarding the breakup of your relationship.

Good Luck

LegacyUser

She fancies your boyfriend, he's well aware of it and likes the attention.

MiniSquish

If I was in your situation I wouldn't tell him that he couldn't be her friend anymore. I would just refuse to be her friend. I wouldn't go out if she was going to be there (unless absolutely necessary) and I wouldn't invite her over. If she took me up on it I'd explain that I had made an effort with her in the beginning and she was nothing but nasty and bitchy so I had decided that I didn't care if she didn't like me and wasn't going to bother anymore with her.

That's probably what she wants, to be sly to you when your boyfriends back is turned to try and get you annoyed with her and in turn the boyfriend annoyed with you for being stuck in the middle. My boyfriend's best friend is a girl and I don't have that problem with her at all. Its made clear how close they are and it has been said jokingly too "If you ever hurt him..." but my friends would make the same comments as a joke so it doesn't bother me. I would definitely not give this girl any more of your time OP.

Kimia

As the idle passerby and Chinafoot said, she fancies your boyfriend and he knows it and enjoys the attention. He may even enjoy you being angry about her because it feels like there's two women fighting over him. I've actually experienced this to a lesser extent with my boyfriend years and years ago when we first were going out.

I would take a different approach. I would say to the boyfriend that you are having nothing to do with this girl anymore - she's disrespectful and rude to you in front of him so you are done with her unless he would like to step in and speak to her as a friend and until things start to change.

I would also act as if it didn't bother me. This drama is feeding your boyfriend's ego to the nth degree so once you start acting like it's boring you to the point where you are losing interest in him, I think he would be changing his behaviour pretty quickly.

He's basically sitting back surveying two women fighting over him and loving it. If you seem to be uninterested in fighting for him that would change things very quickly. Don't be around the other girl, if he tells you she's texting him trying to get a rise out of you, act uninterested, or even say 'How sad' and change the subject.

If he wants to be with you he will be and this (imo orchestrated in some part by him) drama will end when you refuse to play your designated part.

Zebra3

OP,

Sounds like your boyfriend is either sly (loving the attention of two girls) or seriously oblivious to the hurt this girl is causing you-and he's the bloke who should be standing up for you!!!

Do you really think there is a future for the two of you together?

If this girl has been lurking for years, there may be a lot of pain ahead if you decide to stick with him.....

Esoteric_

Hey guys, thanks for all the responses, really appreciate getting different opinions on the situation.

Tbh, I really don't think he's enjoying it. After the first time, he barely spoke to her and only hung out with her once in the following 5 or so months, and ignored most of her texts except for like twice when he needed to get the number of his old boss from her (they worked together for a while last year). I tried several times to get her to come hang out with us so that I could try to like her, and he never wanted her around because he said it wasn't worth it if she did end up upsetting me again. Like, I agree that there is NO way he can be SO oblivious to it all, but he pretty much stopped contacting her at all after the first incident, and he's not speaking to her at the minute.

So yeah, we talked about it some more today and he came right out and said that it's really not fair that she's upsetting me and that whatever happens is my choice but if I want to have it out with her, he'd be happy to do it for me so that I'm not being left upset again. He also said he'll cut contact with her if I want that, but at the end of the day, I know it'll hurt him to do that.

Something similar happened to him in the past, like he was being taken for a complete ride by an ex (before we got together) and he acted the same way. I think he is genuinely oblivious to it because he doesn't lack confidence but he also doesn't even notice women flirting with him in bars. Like, if a woman in a bar calls him hot or asks for his number, he will immediately walk away and ignore them, but will be completely convinced that they're just being friendly. He's not exactly streetwise if that makes any sense.

Thanks a million for all the help guys. I'm gonna think about everything you all said. I don't want to break up with him because tbh I'm extremely happy with him, but I definitely think this issue needs to be fixed as soon as possible otherwise I'll have no choice but to dump him. I think the fact that he is completely cool with having it out with her or even cutting contact is looking good on his behalf, but that all depends on if he goes through with it or not, I guess.

Thanks again everyone.

LegacyUser

If it were me, I'd do the following:
- be sweetness and light to her (it'll drive her mad, and won't give her a leg to stand on in her little campaign to drag you down to her level)
- I'd defo mention the "isn't it great how you get on so well, as ye are ex's" - in front of your bf and as many of his friends as possible
- I'd also bring up her flirty texts in front of your bf and as many of his friends as possible, mentioning the specific thing that she said, and treating it as though it were a hilarious joke
- if he is gone more than ten mins, I'd find him and plant a big kiss on him and pretend that you were going to the bar and wqnted to find out if they wanted a drink / totally interupt their conversation to tell a funny story / refer to one of her flirty texts and say how you were just telling the story about it, and everyone thought it was hilarious

Fentdog84

Sounds like your bf dosent really give a crap, ''ah its only women cackling and being overdramatic'' kind of attitude. You need to take this woman on yourself. She is a love rival, basically.And she is threatening your relationship. She has your bf in her back pocket, almost. Your bf isnt really seeing the problem, so its up to you to sort her out.

This is what you do. You talk to her face to face, and in no uncertain terms tell her to back off, and stay away from your bf. When youive done that, tell your bf what you did and warn him never to speak to her again, and if he does, say your done..

if you know where she lives, you should call round to her house and do it, it will show her you really mean business

LegacyUser

Totally agree with sunflower! Don't let your bf do the standing up for you thing - and I wouldn't challenge her head on either - cos she will know that she has got to you, and in my opinion this will make her re-double her efforts, because if you go down that road, you are obviously taking her seriously, and will make her feel that there is merit in carrying on that behaviour.

I don't by any means think you should take that behaviour as ok - but I'd fight it with laughter and ridicule, to suck the energy out of her really pathetic 'game'. She sounds like a right piece of work. I'd be a bit disappointed in your bf's seeming acceptance of her carry on, but I think guys can sometimes be fairly straightfoward, and not fully aware of the sheer manipulativeness that some (very insecure!) women engage in.

I'm thinking I'd start slagging him off about her too - he's clearly not listening to reason about this eejit; I'd start making him feel silly about her. God, now I sound like supremo manipulator, having given out about that girl!!

Esoteric_

THanks guys! I have no glasses on so apologies if my typing isn't great!

So he texted her and asked why she said they're exes when they're not. First she tried to pretend she was joking, then she got really defensive, tried to accuse me of lying and then started ranting and swearing at him.

It all ended with her telling him to not bother speaking to her again, so he happily deleted her number. Saved me the trouble of having to make him choose I really appreciate all your advice guys!