Bizarre relationship

LegacyUser

This girl I’m interested in has the most intimate and close relationship with her cousin I have ever seen. The two of them seem like a married couple, she spends more time with him than he does with his wife. He’s married and has two children. Iv overheard him numerous times saying to her that she can do better than me and shouldn’t date me and other things about me that are all negative. I think he doesn’t want to lose any time spent with her. She just brushes it off but I’m worried he’s influencing her decisions. The two of them have very intense conversations about things all the time, it’s like an emotional affair. Its like she’s already in a relationship with her cousin. Should I run a mile?

Big Bag of Chips

How does she react when he says negative things about you? How do you react? I hope someone is pulling him up on it.

They most likely grew up together like brother and sister. But as the one in the relationship with her you have a right to lay down your own markers. You can't stop them hanging around together, but you can tell her that you expect her to not let him bad mouth you. You should also tell her that if you overhear him saying anything bad about you that you will pull him up on it (and make sure you do).

You both have a choice here. She can choose to show her loyalty to your relationship or she might choose to let things stand as they are. That's when you have the choice to put up with that, or to leave them to it and find someone else who won't bring these same issues to your relationship.

TheBoyConor

TBH no boyfriend has any right to tell his girlfriend or anyone for that matter how they should be around someone else. It is controlling.

At the end of the day this girl is very close to her cousin. He is family and the are likely friends since they were only very small. No offence the OP is only a recent blow-in on the scene and it's a bit rich of him to expect to be able to call the shots about who is allowed to be close or spend more time with who.
If you cannpt handle their close friendship then you know where the door is.

Dial Hard

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

They most likely grew up together like brother and sister. But as the one in the relationship with her you have a right to lay down your own markers.

Is he actually in a relationship with her though??? It's not particularly clear from the post.

Are you actually seeing this woman, OP, or do you just want to?

wiggle16

In agreement with the above, are you just interested in her or are you two an item?

Also, how is it that you are overhearing these things all the time? Is he doing this deliberately?

All sounds very strange, OP.

LegacyUser

We’re just mutually interested in each other. I worry that down the line of anything happened between us we could never have an intimate relationship. Everything would be filtered through her cousin. Every good thing, every fight etc. I’m not saying she can’t hang around with him. They spend all day everyday together. I overhear these things because he’s always around.

Big Bag of Chips

If you are mutually interested why aren't you going out? If the cousin is such a big issue for you why not find a girl who doesn't have someone in her ear constantly advising her. You're not even going out together and this is already becoming tedious for you. Imagine if you were actually going out?

Mackleton

If you haven't started anything yet, steer well clear OP.

Relationships are hard enough between two people without feeling like you are locked in an ongoing battle, constantly trying to justify your presence to a third wheel and vying for your girlfriend's attention...don't draw that on yourself, unless you have very strong feelings for her.

What's more, if you feel like she's the type of girl who can't form independent impressions of her own and is easily led around by others, then she's not mature enough anyway.

There seems to be a weirdly controlling vibe to their relationship, does she have the same input in his decisions? Is there a big age gap between them? Would be interested to get a picture of her relationship with the cousin's wife, she can't love it either...

Best of luck!

LegacyUser

I think the wife just wants the quiet life tbh and puts up with it. It’s like he gets something from her he doesn’t get from his own wife. There is definitely subtle manipulation going on. He doesn’t like me and so picks up on every tiny possible flaw and points it out to her. It really hurt to hear him say that she can do better and I don’t just mean looks. It seems she’s lost interest in me anyway. Probably for the best but still hurts.

Church on Tuesday

Confused568 wrote: »

I think the wife just wants the quiet life tbh and puts up with it. It’s like he gets something from her he doesn’t get from his own wife. There is definitely subtle manipulation going on. He doesn’t like me and so picks up on every tiny possible flaw and points it out to her. It really hurt to hear him say that she can do better and I don’t just mean looks. It seems she’s lost interest in me anyway. Probably for the best but still hurts.

Just forget about it.

It's frankly weird what you've described.

And as someone mentioned earlier the whole third wheel craic is tiresome (speaking from experience here) and actually, believe or not, would lead to resentment down the line.