Girlfriend's close guy friend. When is it too much?

[Radu]

Communication is the key, you have the right to be concerned, jeolousy is natural and if you fight it you will loose, that's a fact, however you should act upon it.

 

next time she talks about marriage, you should be frank and tell her your concern, do not accuse her or attack her as this will only make matters worst, just talk to her nicely about how uncomfortable you are about her "friendship" with this guy and that you need more assurance. do not forget to talk about the fact that she would dial the contact with him down when you are mad before she resume her contact.

if you put it in a nice way, and if she really loves you, this would be solved.

 

When he does this, she will start playing ball until she has the ring on the finger ... after that he's hooked, line and sinker and he is done.

 

There's no way out OP.

Well, that's not true, there are 2 options :

- condition like suggested, marriage on her making a choice and wait for it for as long as it has to, years ... i would give it 3yrs

This means you will also lose 3 more yrs of your life [i suspect you want a family so you have your own deadline].

- dump her and find a woman who will actually not get lazy when she feels secure in her relationship.

You do not want to marry someone who you will have to borderline Police.

 

PS: Be careful about a Oops baby, it could happen especially since she works hard when her relationship is in danger.

[autumnnight]

You might be surprised how many women over the age of 25 that would argue it. That's why I stay away from women who have too many guy friends, or especially a guy BFF.

 

True, but the whole "But, I like, can totally cuddle naked with, like, my bestie guy friend because he's totally, like, just like a brother...." seems to be more a "I just joined Delta Delta Delta" thing.

[Spectre]

True, but the whole "But, I like, can totally cuddle naked with, like, my bestie guy friend because he's totally, like, just like a brother...." seems to be more a "I just joined Delta Delta Delta" thing.

 

True, with older women it seems to be less "I can cuddle naked" and more "I can go out for drinks and stuff with other men".

[Silverlight]

OP, run for the hills and never look back man. Never. Look. Back.

[smackie9]

Obviously she is very emotionally attached to Nick. To women, emotional attachment doesn't mean it's sexual, in fact most of the time it doesn't. If you are not a woman, you guys probably will never understand how that can be. For Nick, to him he's thinking it is sexual, because that is how he feels. Your GF is drawn in because of Nick, but she thinks he needs her friendship. I doubt she would believe you if you told her Nick is still wishing he was with her, and that is where your problem lies. If she can't see it, then she probably won't for some time, until she matures.

 

It's sad that you have invested 4 years into this relationship, and things are not good. If you want to save your relationship, then you need to ask her if wants to save your relationship and request to go to couples counseling together, to hash this out. There is no point in getting married if this can't be resolved.

[Spectre]

What you just said Smackie makes all women sound incredibly naïve then. Even if she didn't think it was sexual..just common sense and having been out in the world should of told her that her boyfriend wouldn't be okay with this type of stuff. If she's that blissfully ignorant there is a problem.

 

Also why go to couples counseling? It's simple, the friend has to go. It's either a yes or no on that, she either will get rid of him or she won't...no point in wasting money on counseling. Or rather, at least make sure she is willing to get rid of this guy first.

 

Oh and OP when I say "get rid" of I mean: no talking on the phone, no meeting in person, no talking online, no text messaging, no emailing, no using morse code, and no she can't even communicate telepathically with him. Nothing, nada, zip, zero. She see's him walking down the street? She crosses to the other side.

 

She can't do it or whines or it? Buh bye.

Edited September 30, 2015 by Spectre

[poofitsgone]

Heres an idea she could try:whenever she was going to text or message him something to him...send it to you instead.

[poofitsgone]

Also, I agree, either he goes or the relationship does.

[smackie9]

What you just said Smackie makes all women sound incredibly naïve then. Even if she didn't think it was sexual..just common sense and having been out in the world should of told her that her boyfriend wouldn't be okay with this type of stuff. If she's that blissfully ignorant there is a problem.

 

Also why go to couples counseling? It's simple, the friend has to go. It's either a yes or no on that, she either will get rid of him or she won't...no point in wasting money on counseling. Or rather, at least make sure she is willing to get rid of this guy first.

 

Oh and OP when I say "get rid" of I mean: no talking on the phone, no meeting in person, no talking online, no text messaging, no emailing, no using morse code, and no she can't even communicate telepathically with him. Nothing, nada, zip, zero. She see's him walking down the street? She crosses to the other side.

 

She can't do it or whines or it? Buh bye.

Don't twist my post. I didn't say she is naive, I said she was emotionally attached, and is thinking only about her emotional wants, and is overlooking Nick's motives....subconsciously or consciously? only she knows which, you and I can only speculate.

 

As for the counseling... I suggested it, so he can get his point across how inappropriate this situation is and come to terms with Nick's motives, and how it is damaging the relationship. This is what counseling is for.....to help the other see their partners point of view and how it makes them feel. But that's providing the OP feels it's worth the effort to salvage the relationship. It is not up to any of us to make that determination. I think it's fair to give the OP an opportunity to view their options before making a final decision. life isn't always so cut and dry.

[Jinx01]

There are a few things that could be going on. Maybe she's just good friends with this guy and wants to talk to him.

 

The more likely thing is that she is having an emotional affair.

 

If she has talked with you about marriage and it has been quite some time, without you saying that you absolutely want to she probably gave up.

 

Women don't have forever to find out if the man they are with wants to have a family and such things.

 

If you aren't wanting to be married and she is you have probably lost her and now she is going to push you away.

 

You are wasting her time and yours. You don't want the same thing out of the relationship.

 

You are using Facebook messages as a reason that you won't marry the woman you supposedly want to be with. You should really break up with her, the two of you are too complacent in your relationship it's going to end soon anyway

[Spectre]

Don't twist my post. I didn't say she is naive, I said she was emotionally attached, and is thinking only about her emotional wants, and is overlooking Nick's motives....subconsciously or consciously? only she knows which, you and I can only speculate.

 

I actually didn't say you said that specifically about her, I was talking about women in general, but I digress. It's just you always see women talking about having "female intuition" or whatever. Why does that seem to always magically fail when the close guy friend is around?

 

As for the counseling... I suggested it, so he can get his point across how inappropriate this situation is and come to terms with Nick's motives, and how it is damaging the relationship. This is what counseling is for.....to help the other see their partners point of view and how it makes them feel. But that's providing the OP feels it's worth the effort to salvage the relationship. It is not up to any of us to make that determination. I think it's fair to give the OP an opportunity to view their options before making a final decision. life isn't always so cut and dry.

 

I agree counseling would be a good idea, but I disagree that it should be used to bring up the issue of Nick going. I think that issue should be decided prior to therapy. Since think about it..if she is not going to get rid of him isn't that then wasting money on counseling? It tends not to be cheap. If she agree's to get rid of him I would then say they should go to counseling and the OP can make her understand more in depth why her behavior bothered him and boundaries and all that. If she won't get rid of him it is pretty simple what needs to happen.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Spectre

[Chikibro]

I think some are confused with my time line on events and I'm familiar with No more Mr. Nice guy, read that and a host of others after my ex wifes affair.

 

 

Regardless I haven't issued any ultimatiums or demands.

 

I think the relationship is worth figuring out this issue as we have been to 3 or 4 counseling sessions on it.

 

At what price to me in the long run? Always going to be a personal decision if I decide to walk over it.

 

And well aware that it may take that in order to get a resolve in the issue, but will the relationship be salvageable at that point, I don't know.

 

More or less this place allows me to talk it out with out judgement, so I appreciate the insight.

 

She is well aware of that fact that I will not talk marriage when there is a 3rd wheel, that's been established.

 

As it stands at this very minute she says she has cut him out

 

 

Can I verify that somehow? Not entirely if she has admitted to destroying the conversations on facebook before.

 

So that's where I am.

 

She says she has cut him out, but honestly I have no way to verify.

[lolablue17]

She had deleted the conversation in order to keep her privacy after you've read some of them. But as i understand she didn't hide from you the very fact that she talk to him, and chat with him, right?

 

So if she says that she cut him, why wouldn't you believe her?

 

Of course she might lie, but that true to any person in any relationship. I think that if you don't trust her, there is no hope for you two. There is no family that you want to keep. it's only her for you, so if you don't trust her, you should believe your guts.

[Chikibro]

She had deleted the conversation in order to keep her privacy after you've read some of them.

 

I would assume so.

 

But as i understand she didn't hide from you the very fact that she talk to him, and chat with him, right?

 

Yes and no. The way it was explained is that I have a lot of daily contact with various friends, nothing compared to what her and nick have but I always talk about my friends to her, just bc it's conversation for us. The issue was is that she was mainly talking to nick, her other friends who are female would enter our daily conversation, but Nick was barely mentioned. Which to me is odd, that if u were spending so much time talking to someone why then only would they barely enter our conversations?

 

 

So if she says that she cut him, why wouldn't you believe her?

 

Honestly I don't have a reason not to other than the fact that I didn't know she felt the need to delete conversations.

[Jinx01]

If you don't trust her you need to break up with her.

 

She might be doing nothing and you are projecting your insecurities on her.

 

The fact that you brought up issues from your past marriage which had nothing to do with her and you are judging her in relation to that shows that you haven't moved on.

[Chikibro]

If you don't trust her you need to break up with her.

 

She might be doing nothing and you are projecting your insecurities on her.

 

The fact that you brought up issues from your past marriage which had nothing to do with her and you are judging her in relation to that shows that you haven't moved on.

 

 

Not sure I agree that I'm projecting anything other than the noticeable change in our ability to communicate has fallen off since this constant contact with him has entered into our life.

 

I was well aware of their friendship before we got serious and never had any issue whatsoever with their friendship until it started to affect our relationship.

[Spectre]

If she was doing nothing she wouldn't of been deleting convos. Nor would she of been sending so many texts to this other man on a daily basis.

 

You are right you have no way to verify if she isn't talking to him and she has shown she is willing to get rid of evidence so that you might know she spoke to him, but you won't know what they spoke about it. This all sounds like she knows she is doing something wrong.

 

There is also a problem that she even thought it was okay to behave like this. I know some people say women are different, but I don't buy that when you have hundreds of texts being shared like that.

 

I'd say you tell her she has to give you access to her phone whenever you ask. I mean see this is why cheating or lying is so utterly destructive. You shouldn't have to BABYSIT this person, they are not your child. Yes we can never truly be sure about trusting someone, but it takes on a different connotation when that person has already done things to break your trust in them. It's different then having a problem trusting just due to being overly paranoid.

 

But the OP isn't being paranoid. This girl told him she'd dial it back and instead just moved the party from texts over to Facebook. She had a chance right there to show him she was serious about this and she failed miserably.

 

So for me it is just not fair to you man because how can you know she isn't talking to him? She's done too many questionable things involving him for her to deserve you taking any kind of leap of faith on her. Maybe tell her to shut down her FB page? I realize some might say that is extreme, but I don't know what else to tell you man. You can choose to trust her..but she hasn't given you good reason to do so. Maybe if she had dialed it back when she said she would dial it back, but since she just began talking to him on FB instead of on the phone it set a precedent for deceit.

 

I guess what I am saying is I can understand if someone were to say it is unfair to ask her to get rid of her FB page. However I want to point out it is also unfair for her to expect you to trust her based on her word alone. Not after hundreds of daily texts and then saying she will dial it back only to of just changed the way they are communicating. You can't earn trust back with words, but with actions. Short of getting rid of social media pages it's hard to think of what actions she could take to prove to you she is sincere. I don't think the fact she merely admitted overall to talking to him means you can necessarily trust her. The best liars can weave together fact and fiction quite easily. I have found the hardest lies to detect are usually the ones with bits of truth in them.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Spectre

[Try]

Not sure I agree that I'm projecting anything other than the noticeable change in our ability to communicate has fallen off since this constant contact with him has entered into our life.

 

I was well aware of their friendship before we got serious and never had any issue whatsoever with their friendship until it started to affect our relationship.

The above is why emotional affairs ("EA") damage relationships. What she is doing with this other man is classic EA stuff, and being in a EA is cheating. Her telling you that she has currently cut off all contact with her EA partner is not good enough. She needs to acknowledge that what she was doing was wrong, and agree that she will cut off all contact with this other man forever. She needs to also agree that going forward both of you will freely offer full transparency that includes all passwords without complaint.

[Heer]

Well looking at this situation, and being a girl, I don't think that just because your gf has a close emotional attachment to her guyfriend means that she doesn't love you or is having an affair. To her, it is probably just normal banter and connecting with a close guy friend, but if she still makes ample time for your relationship, I feel its fine. Its all about the segregation of sexual love and platonic love.

 

Good luck OP!!

[Chikibro]

If she was doing nothing she wouldn't of been deleting convos. Nor would she of been sending so many texts to this other man on a daily basis.

 

You are right you have no way to verify if she isn't talking to him and she has shown she is willing to get rid of evidence so that you might know she spoke to him, but you won't know what they spoke about it. This all sounds like she knows she is doing something wrong.

 

Yeah it's completely out of character for her and I've explained it that way.

 

 

There is also a problem that she even thought it was okay to behave like this. I know some people say women are different, but I don't buy that when you have hundreds of texts being shared like that.

 

This is interesting to me bc I would say this is her first real serious relationship in which marriage was discussed.

 

I asked her a boundary question that if she thought what she was doing was normal, communication wise with Nick, that when did it cross the line in her mind. She responded by saying daily contact. So why if it crossed the line in her mind was it okay? She really didn't have an answer.

 

I'd say you tell her she has to give you access to her phone whenever you ask. I mean see this is why cheating or lying is so utterly destructive. You shouldn't have to BABYSIT this person, they are not your child.

 

My sentiments exactly, at that point, I'm done.

 

 

But the OP isn't being paranoid. This girl told him she'd dial it back and instead just moved the party from texts over to Facebook. She had a chance right there to show him she was serious about this and she failed miserably.

 

 

Correct. Started off as texting then migrated to FB.

 

She deactivated her account for a couple days, just recently, but now it's back up.

 

Not sure what that means other than a knee jerk reaction by her.

 

She says all the right stuff to me, yet has done little to follow it up action wise.

 

I suppose that spells it all out perfectly.

[Try]

Well looking at this situation, and being a girl, I don't think that just because your gf has a close emotional attachment to her guyfriend means that she doesn't love you or is having an affair.

So in your mind her having "a close emotional attachment" to another man is not a emotional affair, and that it is OK to delete and hide her communications with the other man from the OP.

 

To her, it is probably just normal banter and connecting with a close guy friend, but if she still makes ample time for your relationship, I feel its fine. Its all about the segregation of sexual love and platonic love.

I guess you missed the part where the OP stated that the OP and his girlfriend's "ability to communicate has fallen off since this constant contact with him has entered into" their life, or that the OP "never had any issue whatsoever with their friendship until it started to affect" OP and his girlfriend's relationship.

 

Also, the fact that the OP stated that other man's texts to her sometimes had a "flirty undertone" and "joking sexual comments" is strictly platonic to you. The fact that in 4 years the OP only "met him once", and that the girlfriend rarely talked to the OP about her contact with the other man, even though she regularly hangs out with the other man and communicates hundreds of times with the other man every day is also not a red flag to you. You and I see the world differently.

[qubist]

I asked her a boundary question that if she thought what she was doing was normal, communication wise with Nick, that when did it cross the line in her mind. She responded by saying daily contact. So why if it crossed the line in her mind was it okay? She really didn't have an answer.

.

wow did she really say that? she knows she crossed the line and still insisting which only means that she is evaluating both of you. there is a big chance the other guy is tempting her and she is hesitating. and you know what you do in this case whether you still want to be with her or not is to show your complete disapproval of their relationship.

[PaperCrane]

Her answer was that she doesn't give two ****s about your boundary lines. She couldn't have cared less. Nick is obviously more important to her than the relationship you two built.

 

I hope you've made necessary arrangements to get the eff out of that situation asap.

[Clay]

Well looking at this situation, and being a girl, I don't think that just because your gf has a close emotional attachment to her guyfriend means that she doesn't love you or is having an affair. To her, it is probably just normal banter and connecting with a close guy friend, but if she still makes ample time for your relationship, I feel its fine. Its all about the segregation of sexual love and platonic love.

 

Good luck OP!!

 

Yes this is exactly the reason why I would show her the door. If a guy had a close emotional attachment to a girl he would be branded a cheater. Hung at

the break of dawn and tried before a tribe of women. lol

 

C

[Jinx01]

I curious why OP decided Nick must be the only problem.

 

Usually the urge to go threw you partners phone and tell your partner that they cannot talk to people shows trust and control issues.

 

I know if my boyfriend told me that I cannot talk to my one of my close friends I talk to a lot it would cause problems and I would probably wanna talk to the close friend about my boyfriend acting weird towards me.

 

Really I only spend hours talking to friends threw text when I'm sobbing about romance problems or they are... So aside from the affair I think OP should just expect that the end is near.