Confliction - Men & Women Can't Be Just Friends?/Don't Control My Friendships!

[Doitright]

I have a situation. My boyfriend has several female friends. Most of them he rarely sees, just Facebook pals mostly. But, one in peticular we fight about frequently. He only met her a couple of months before he met me (not a long time friendship). She was a client of his when he was a Personal Trainer, but they became friends outside of that. When we first started dating, before it got serious, I found out through his Facebook that she called me names. I was referred to as "WT" (white trash), a "filler" (until he got something real), a liar and a joke. This was about 1 year ago. He remained friends with her, but told her she could no longer talk about me like that. He was been living with me for about 7 mos and just got engaged. They continue to talk. It bothers me because they talk about sex and very personal things. We continue to fight over her after the engagement. He always defends her against me and acts as if I can't accept her, the relationship won't work. He is a very private person and he doesn't always share his feeling with me. But, he is always willing to share his feelings with her. I have been researching this and according to many, men and women can't be "just friends", but then you should not try to control who your significant other's friends are. How should I handle this? I don't want to ruin my relationship.:(:(

[skywriter]

The exmm that I had an A with, said his W didn't care....as in , who he was friends with.

 

I believe he was being truthful, because when I tried to reveal to her, that we weren't just friends, she made it clear that she wasn't hearing any of it.

 

You've made it known that you care and it bothers you. This should be enough for your boyfriend ,to not persue a friendship with this woman any longer.

 

It shows a lack of concern for your feelings, and a lack of boundaries while being involved in a relationship with you.

 

I don't get the feeling you are trying to control him at all. It's more of an expectation, that he would want to consider, that this is hurtful towards you.

 

I won't say how "you" should handle this. However, I would make my feelings crystal clear and give him an opportunity to make his choice.

 

Then I'd make my choice, based on his.

[imtooconfused]

I sense a lot of red flags here.

• Personal Trainer and student relationship becoming more than professional. Makes me think boundaries are not a concern for either of them.
  
• Inability to accept the appearance of a romantic conflict by defending her over your feelings. As a male who has battled jealousy at times, the lack of, at a minimum, the recognition that the outside relationship could possibly appear inappropriate would be a large red flag for me.
  
• It seems like the engagement was rushed despite a large outstanding barrier to trust. It sounds like someone set up a test to see how he would respond when you became more committed, and he failed the expectation. As a result, it would seem that the engagement was premature.
  

I can't even begin to tell you how to handle the situation. But my biggest rule of thumb is that the behavior that you want to change in your partner will NEVER change, and will most likely get worse. This means either you accept the behavior as it is or else you need to consider...