A friend of my girlfriend’s...

radioguru02

Hi all,
Having had a quick glance at this strand of the forum, I feel and my query seems very small, but here goes...
My girlfriend of a year and I have a very good relationship. We’re both very happy and early on we agreed rules/boundries etc.
One of our rules is that we are not allowed to communicate with exes (this only applies to me as I am her first boyfriend). My girlfriend, though, has a rather close guy friend who, in the past, has admitted to liking her. More recently, he has come out as gay.
My query is, given that I’ve agreed to stop talking to my exes, is it fair that she talks to a guy who may still have a crush on her, or do I need to cop on? Please and thanks

Tikki Wang Wang

Just split up with her and save her the hassle you will cause with such an unbelievable attitude and approach.

ever not always

Tikki Wang Wang wrote: »

Just split up with her and save her the hassle you will cause with such an unbelievable attitude and approach.

I don't know, sounds like there's two of them in it. Was there any specific reason she requested you break off all contact with your ex's, or was it just a rule she laid down?

tritriagain

Tikki Wang Wang wrote: »

Just split up with her and save her the hassle you will cause with such an unbelievable attitude and approach.

Which pales into insignificance when compared to your superior approach.

lawred2

Rules and boundaries? Sounds like a trade deal.

ManOfMystery

pirateradiohed wrote: »

Hi all,
Having had a quick glance at this strand of the forum, I feel and my query seems very small, but here goes...
My girlfriend of a year and I have a very good relationship. We’re both very happy and early on we agreed rules/boundries etc.
One of our rules is that we are not allowed to communicate with exes (this only applies to me as I am her first boyfriend). My girlfriend, though, has a rather close guy friend who, in the past, has admitted to liking her. More recently, he has come out as gay.
My query is, given that I’ve agreed to stop talking to my exes, is it fair that she talks to a guy who may still have a crush on her, or do I need to cop on? Please and thanks

To be honest, if I started going out with someone and they told me I 'can't communicate with exes', I'd tell them to grow up. I have a couple of exes who I'm still very good friends with and I'm not going to suddenly cut them off because of a new partner's insecurity. In your case, this insecurity is now spilling over into even having potential issues with admirers, not just exes.

People have relationships, people have histories, deal with it. You can't control all the people out there who might like your partner (and vice versa), and cutting them off so you can both live in a little bubble is incredibly unhealthy and disrespectful to those friends who get cut off.

What's the issue anyway? If he's come out as gay - rather than bisexual - then he's into men and it's highly likely he never fancied your partner at all.

woodchuck

OP it's unreasonable to ask her to stop being friends with this guy. However, it was also unreasonable of her to ask you to cut off communication with exes (unless maybe there is some important context here that you haven't shared).

I'm someone who generally doesn't keep in touch with exes anyway, but there are plenty of people who do. Have you actually ended friendships with exes because of this rule?

You say this is her first relationship. So hopefully she's just naive about how these things work and doesn't realise how controlling she's being.

LegacyUser

One of my best friends is getting married next month to his boyfriend of 5 years but many moons ago before they met and before he came out as gay he told me he fancied me. He didn't really, he thought he did or was trying to make himself believe he did because he didn't want to admit he was gay. All you say is he at some point in the past said he fancied your GF but nothing happened between and he has since come out as gay. I'm not understanding why she should stop speaking to her friend. Your issue isn't with him, it's with her and you either trust her or you don't. She had the chance to be with him before she meet you but clearly if he did ever really fancy her (and using the example of my friend I don't think he really did) it was a one way thing as nothing happened. I'm confused as to what you think is different now unless you think he's playing as gay as a ploy to steal your GF???

As for banning each other from speaking to exs - whose idea was that? If she made a crazy demanded like that at the start of the relationship i'd be telling her to go do one.

Xterminator

Hi Op

multiple instances on unreasonable behaviour do not cancel each other out.

your asking her to drop a friendship of a mail friend you suspect has a crush on her is not okay. The fact he is gay is irrelevant. The fact you want to control who she talks to for no good reason is central.

That you accepted such behaviour from her is a separate issue. there are different etiquettes around handling exes. You mention this is her 1st relationship, and i infer from that she has a lot of growing up to do, and she probably doesn't really know how to handle her feelings of you being with another person. That doesn't make controlling behaviour acceptable.

so my advice is don't be a richard. telling her who she can be friends with is not on!

Idle Passerby

"pirateradiohed wrote: »

is it fair that she talks to a guy who may still have a crush on her, or do I need to cop on? Please and thanks

You need to cop on. So your not allowed to keep in touch with your exes (a bit controlling and insecure on your girlfriends part assuming there's no bad blood with your exes) and since she has no exes of her own your now trying to ban her from speaking to a gay male friend because he may at one point have had a little crush on her?

There's a weird unhealthy dynamic going on between ye for such a new relationship.

radioguru02

Rather surprises me that people think that the fact that I agreed not to talk to my exes is so shocking. Don’t get me wrong, I get it - I just sort of expected a 50/50 split

LegacyUser

pirateradiohed wrote: »

Rather surprises me that people think that the fact that I agreed not to talk to my exes is so shocking. Don’t get me wrong, I get it - I just sort of expected a 50/50 split

You've given no context for why this conversation even happened OP so without that I'm not surprised people find it odd this was agreed between you two. If she demanded it it's not right, if you offered it's odd.

Dial Hard

pirateradiohed wrote:

Rather surprises me that people think that the fact that I agreed not to talk to my exes is so shocking. Don’t get me wrong, I get it - I just sort of expected a 50/50 split

But she doesn't have any exes so you were never going to get this. And it's still a really bizarre attitude to have, tbh. What age are you both, if you don't mind me asking?

radioguru02

ever not always wrote: »

I don't know, sounds like there's two of them in it. Was there any specific reason she requested you break off all contact with your ex's, or was it just a rule she laid down?

I can’t remember how it came up tbh, but I wouldn’t want her to talk to her exes either. I guess a lot of you will say you deserve each other

radioguru02

Dial Hard wrote: »

But she doesn't have any exes so you were never going to get this. And it's still a really bizarre attitude to have, tbh. What age are you both, if you don't mind me asking?

18/19

radioguru02

OSI wrote: »

This is one of those things that starts off with "You can't talk to your exes" and eventually becomes "You can't talk to your Mam, she looked at my funny". It's toxic behaviour.

I can see where that might happen in a relationship like ours tbf

Idle Passerby

If you have to make a rule not to talk to exes it suggests that there is already an ongoing communication with those exes. So your presumably asking someone to cease contacting someone they have a remaining friendship with (or alternatively some sort of toxic residual interaction with, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.)

Personally neither me nor my partner keep in touch with any of our exes but it's not because either if us demanded that from the other.

You've just said your both 18/19 though so that does paint it in a slightly different light. Either way, your barking up the wrong tree if you think you have any right to ask her to ditch an old friend because once upon a time he might have fancied her, that's the height of controlling insecurity.

radioguru02

Idle Passerby wrote: »

If you have to make a rule not to talk to exes it suggests that there is already an ongoing communication with those exes. So your presumably asking someone to cease contacting someone they have a remaining friendship with (or alternatively some sort of toxic residual interaction with, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.)

Personally neither me nor my partner keep in touch with any of our exes but it's not because either if us demanded that from the other.

You've just said your both 18/19 though so that does paint it in a slightly different light. Either way, your barking up the wrong tree if you think you have any right to ask her to ditch an old friend because once upon a time he might have fancied her, that's the height of controlling insecurity.

I respect your view. In response to your first point, there wasn’t any ongoing or consistent contact between myself and my ex at the time, no.

LegacyUser

pirateradiohed wrote: »

I respect your view. In response to your first point, there wasn’t any ongoing or consistent contact between myself and my ex at the time, no.

Then why did your GF ask you not to speak to exs? in what context did this conversation happen?

Idle Passerby

pirateradiohed wrote: »

I respect your view. In response to your first point, there wasn’t any ongoing or consistent contact between myself and my ex at the time, no.

In that case perhaps your girlfriend is just a little intimidated by the fact you have a past and she doesn't. It seems a little hysterical on her part to ask you not to contact someone you weren't in contact with but I guess she's young and it's still all new to her. I doubt you have anything to worry about with her friend.

LegacyUser

pirateradiohed wrote: »

Rather surprises me that people think that the fact that I agreed not to talk to my exes is so shocking. Don’t get me wrong, I get it - I just sort of expected a 50/50 split

But she doesn't have any exes. Did you think right well she doesn't have any exes so that leaves me with a wild card to play when I don't want her communicating with certain people?

Also it's quite common that people don't want their partners to talk to exes, I don't necessarily think that's a red flag at all.

radioguru02

image verification wrote: »

But she doesn't have any exes. Did you think right well she doesn't have any exes so that leaves me with a wild card to play when I don't want her communicating with certain people?

Also it's quite common that people don't want their partners to talk to exes, I don't necessarily think that's a red flag at all.

I wouldn’t see it as a red flag either and I’m quite happy with the arrangement, but a lot of people wouldn’t agree and I see it totally from their perspective.
No, I don’t think I have a wild card, rather I wondered if, say for example she didn’t like me talking to my exes because they may still be interested etc, whether that would make it one rule for me and one rule for her.

eviltwin

Laying down ground rules like that is childish and unrealistic.

I would imagine most people don't have contact with their exes unless there are kids involved or something of that nature. If you're ex is living locally or someone you see socially and if you parted on good terms then it's okay to be friendly, friendly doesn't mean your friends, it just shows a maturity that you can move on and conduct yourself in a responsible way.

If she has an issue with that level of communication I'd be out of there.

As for you asking her to not talk to a male friend who is gay.... It smacks of tit for tat and is completely unnecessary. If you don't trust her, get out.

LegacyUser

pirateradiohed wrote: »

I wouldn’t want her to talk to her exes either.

Why?

Think about the actual reason for putting this rule in place. Is it so that either of you don't run off with an ex? If it's going to happen it will happen regardless of rules? If you both respect each other and your relationship then you will avoid situations which might be misinterpreted by others without the need for having a firm rule in place about it.

Do you not trust each other? Must be awful to be in a relationship where you think your straight gf is going to sneak off and have a fling with her gay friend. Or because the rule has been applied to you , are you now looking at applying a similar rule to her to even up the score?

If you are both going to start limiting the amount of people you grant permission to talk to you are going to find yourselves very secluded from social groups. Especially if you're quite young and in the phase of life where people in social groups sometimes hook up with each other but in reality it's meaningless and doesn't go anywhere.

Dial Hard

pirateradiohed wrote:

No, I don’t think I have a wild card, rather I wondered if, say for example she didn’t like me talking to my exes because they may still be interested etc, whether that would make it one rule for me and one rule for her.

No, because he's gay!!!

LegacyUser

Why stop at exes? Why not extend the ban to all people who might potentially fancy either of you?

You fancy each other, so it's fair to assume that others in the world could find either of you attractive. You've already been there with an ex and it didnt work out so you'd be unlikely to go back. So a bigger threat is likely to come from friends or classmates or work colleagues.

I think you both need to sit down and talk through how ridiculous your rule is. Unless you and your ex(es) are openly flirting with each other and disrespecting your gf then there's no reason to have a blanket rule. If you feel a rule is needed in order to keep you both faithful then you need to spread the net wider than just exes.

cannotlogin

At the risk of sounding patronising, you're very young but life will reach you that if people are going to cheat or be tempted or leave you, all the rules/boundaries/promises etc. won't prevent it from happening.

Rules etc. are controlling, stiffling, unnecessary and actually achieve nothing. She could cheat with someone she never even spoke with before or talk to someone every day and never have any thing more than a mutual friendship.

Relax, chill out and enjoy what you have, rather than focusing on what may go wrong.

LegacyUser

pirateradiohed wrote: »

No, I don’t think I have a wild card, rather I wondered if, say for example she didn’t like me talking to my exes because they may still be interested etc, whether that would make it one rule for me and one rule for her.

how exactly is it one rule for her and one for you? She doesn't have any exs. This male friend is not any ex. They may have had feeling for her at some point but they weren't returned and they have since come out as gay unless you think this male friend is faking being gay so they can get close to your GF??? If you think that then you've bigger issues if you think she shouldn't talk to him because you said you wouldn't talk to your ex then you are being petty

radioguru02

cannotlogin wrote: »

At the risk of sounding patronising, you're very young but life will reach you that if people are going to cheat or be tempted or leave you, all the rules/boundaries/promises etc. won't prevent it from happening.

Rules etc. are controlling, stiffling, unnecessary and actually achieve nothing. She could cheat with someone she never even spoke with before or talk to someone every day and never have any thing more than a mutual friendship.

Relax, chill out and enjoy what you have, rather than focusing on what may go wrong.

You know what? You’re right.
You haven’t even touched on the issue at hand, but you have hit the nail on the head. Respect
Where I do think rules are important, with everything else...

ManOfMystery

cannotlogin wrote: »

At the risk of sounding patronising, you're very young but life will reach you that if people are going to cheat or be tempted or leave you, all the rules/boundaries/promises etc. won't prevent it from happening.

Rules etc. are controlling, stiffling, unnecessary and actually achieve nothing. She could cheat with someone she never even spoke with before or talk to someone every day and never have any thing more than a mutual friendship.

Relax, chill out and enjoy what you have, rather than focusing on what may go wrong.

I would go a little further and say that setting up rules, boundaries and controls can even be counter productive at times - by making partners feel controlled and trapped, they are more likely to feel stifled by the relationship and be tempted to look elsewhere or leave.

Aim for comfortable, relaxed and chilled. Millions of people can attest that this works a whole lot better than trying to control one another. We're humans, not pets.

I think the rule in the first place is a problem. You tacking on the "no gay friends" rule is just the same problem.

People who set rules like this are often projecting ie they would cheat in the circumstances they are trying to prevent you from being in.
How do you know this guy is gay? Is it your gf that told you? Biggest red flag there is along with "I don't fancy him at all" or "he is more like a brother to me"

You are young - you should set this girl straight that you won't be told who you can and can't see. I would dump her tbh.

ILoveYourVibes

More recently, he has come out as gay.

I don't think you have anything to worry about.

fmpisces

pirateradiohed wrote: »

Hi all,
Having had a quick glance at this strand of the forum, I feel and my query seems very small, but here goes...
My girlfriend of a year and I have a very good relationship. We’re both very happy and early on we agreed rules/boundries etc.
One of our rules is that we are not allowed to communicate with exes (this only applies to me as I am her first boyfriend). My girlfriend, though, has a rather close guy friend who, in the past, has admitted to liking her. More recently, he has come out as gay.
My query is, given that I’ve agreed to stop talking to my exes, is it fair that she talks to a guy who may still have a crush on her, or do I need to cop on? Please and thanks

Jeez, I think she has a very immature attitude and it also sounds to me like she's insecure. That's not your problem though, that's for her to work on.

leggo

To be fair, to everyone calling them childish/immature...they're 18 and 19. They are kids (I don't mean that patronisingly OP) and this is the exact stage of your life you learn these lessons. So let's not lay into them either maybe...

OP if someone is going to cheat on you with someone else, they will and there's no way you can stop or control it. It's the risk you take getting with someone. And when you do try control it, what you actually do is make the thing you're trying to avoid significantly more likely, because what's happening is you're admitting through 'rules' like this that you don't trust each other. The mad thing (you'll hopefully never learn) is that people who get jealous and try control who you speak to etc are often actually the ones who cheat themselves. Often they're projecting how they know they're thinking onto you, assuming you feel the same and trying to control that. This is why it's important to learn to listen to your gut. If something feels wrong and your gut is screaming at you, but you're talking yourself around like "But I like them and really want it to work!!" then alarm bells should be going off. Take it from someone with experience: the end of this story is you not liking them much at all and feeling like **** because you got hurt.

When something is working, it's easy and stuff like this doesn't even come up because it just flows naturally. Think of, say, your friendship with a really close friend and how easy that is, how it doesn't demand much from you that you're not happy to give etc. That's how it's supposed to be with the right partner, not messy.

This is messy and you two don't trust each other. If you want to make this work, I suggest you put this on the table, acknowledge that you've both been behaving unhealthily and it could make the relationship fail. Talk through your feelings, insecurities and fears openly. Saying "Don't talk to your exes or other guys" is unhealthy. But, for example, you reassuring each other and letting the other know how much you like each other, that you don't want to talk to anyone else in a romantic capacity and then trusting each other to live your lives freely...that's how it should be and will leave you both happier.

Annasopra

pirateradiohed wrote: »

Hi all,
Having had a quick glance at this strand of the forum, I feel and my query seems very small, but here goes...
My girlfriend of a year and I have a very good relationship. We’re both very happy and early on we agreed rules/boundries etc.
One of our rules is that we are not allowed to communicate with exes (this only applies to me as I am her first boyfriend). My girlfriend, though, has a rather close guy friend who, in the past, has admitted to liking her. More recently, he has come out as gay.
My query is, given that I’ve agreed to stop talking to my exes, is it fair that she talks to a guy who may still have a crush on her, or do I need to cop on? Please and thanks

Can I ask.

What are the other rules?

Hoboo

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

Can I ask.

What are the other rules?

Rule 1. You can't talk about the relationship