Dealing with a jealous girlfriend

Hello,

 

I hope this is the right section for the advice I'm about to ask.

 

There's a circle of friends I am involved with in university. One of the friends they are more acquainted with has returned to the house and her boyfriend from back home has decided to move to the same university. Admittedly we've had some doubts about this because there's been some questioning to if he felt pressured to move to the same university to be with her rather than for the degree or university itself.

 

They both have a history of heavy arguments, several of which the girlfriend has told me about. I know for a fact that I am therefore not the first girl she has ever done this to, as what I'm going to tell you happened to another female the boyfriend was friends with.

 

She supposedly talks to me about how she wants her boyfriend to make his own friends and how he's too clingy, she says a lot of things that feel like she's covering up her own issues, the boyfriend and me have become friends and he regularly messages me wanting to know more about me and he's incredibly quick to open up to me and also tries to encourage me to open up to him. I feel a little bit on guard because he's new, but I understand him and his anxieties. We mostly just discuss common interests, though.

 

The three of us go out together, we're talking together and everything seems to be going well, although last time my best friend was here and we went out as a group she did pick up that the girlfriend seemed jealous of me. I won't lie, I get hit on a lot and I get complimented a lot, despite the fact I get shy about it.

 

The boyfriend makes one grave error in her eyes, he casually mentions a game that him and me had been talking about in messages. Something offhanded, all he did was say we'd been discussing it and was going to talk about it. Girlfriend suddenly stands up and storms into the toilets. Boyfriend then looks incredibly uncomfortable and upset and turns to me and tells me she's always like this with his female friends, and I remember the last, and how in the end she guilt tripped him into cutting her off despite her objections to this statement.

 

He vents to me and says that she STILL uses it as a weapon, in arguments, even after cutting her off, shouting things like "why don't you go and her?" and things. He continues by telling me that he knows it's unhealthy.

 

When she comes back she really is being dramatic, stabbing her plate and food abruptly and glaring, and when the boyfriend is doing his best to reassure her and get her to enjoy herself she is quite rude back and sulks. He's visibly uncomfortable, and I'm sat there feeling incredibly uncomfortable that the fact him and me talked ABOUT A GAME, over text, is such an issue to her. This makes the rest of the outing incredibly awkward. She's being passive aggressive and guilt tripping him and doing this thing where she keeps saying to him "oh, don't WORRY, I'm FINE" with the most forced attempt at a fake smile you'd ever seen.

 

When we finished eating she continued this passive aggression and we both did our best to reassure her. We walked her home and tried to cheer her up and she seemed a little bit better and then he walked me home, as I live far away and I'm a small girl. On the walk back he vents for a while about all of it and tells me his friends have said the same and I am honest with him and tell him that I don't think how she treats him is healthy. He agrees with me and says he's known this the entire time. I try to comfort him and we have a good talk. After he drops me off home he messages that he is glad he can talk to me, and I have a message from the girlfriend too saying she had fun tonight and apologising for her anxiety.

 

I reply to it trying to be reassuring, I tell her I'm sorry I made her feel that way and I also tell her that there's nothing between me and her boyfriend. I gently tell her though, that I know it's hurt him too and that he loves her a lot, and I tell her that it's inevitable in university that he'll make female friends and that this doesn't mean he wants to bang them or cheat. I try to be as reassuring as possible but a little blunt, adding that I felt incredibly uncomfortable to be put in that position and that it wasn't very healthy.

 

Oh....big mistake. The next day I'm with a close friend and she's getting messages from one of the friends who knows that circle about me, she gets angry because this person hasn't bothered to go to ME about it. I'll nutshell it but basically, the girlfriend has gone and told this circle of friends that I attacked her via message and that I clearly want to break her and her boyfriend up, which isn't true at all.

 

The boyfriend meets with me about it and tells me all of this and he also tells me he knows I never did any of that and that he's here for me and has my back. He tells me that she screamed what the at him and showed him my text, she was so livid that he'd admitted to me their issues and she was livid somebody had discovered her true colours. Regardless the boyfriend says he's here for me and he knows she's incredibly jealous and petty.

 

Fast forward a day later, he's blocked me and so has she. Both my best friends roll their eyes and agree that she's clearly gotten him to do it. She did with the last female friend, too.

 

The circle of friends eventually met with me and attacked me about it, however girlfriend and boyfriend did not have the heart to meet me in person. Instead she'd given one of the friends a LIST of things to say to me, for her. One was suspiciously, "I didn't make my boyfriend block you, he chose to himself" and some other ones too. I'm fairly certain she did though considering how he was actually supporting me and how he himself was admitting these things to me.

 

She seems to be incredibly good at manipulating others, and whilst a couple of the friends in this circle want to continue being my friends, she's managed to turn a lot of them against me. I can't even stand up for myself to them, I have tried, because no matter what I say, she's managed to lay it so heavy that anything I say is just me being a , I can't even say that I was trying to reassure her but also look out for them, and she has withheld from everyone that THE BOYFRIEND HIMSELF vented to me, so it just looks like I randomly messaged her this, not as a result of both of them venting to me. I found that odd, too.

 

I talked about it to the friends who aren't partaking in this gang up mentality, and they agree that she is controlling, manipulative, and blowing it out of proportion, that she is y and that even if she was jealous of me, this was not fair on me at all.

 

She expects the circle to ostracise me and cut me off and antagonises me now to anyone who listens while playing the victim. A few close friends of mine have commented that it seems like a huge excuse to distance me, in her eyes, a threat, from her boyfriend whilst ensuring I can't be near him through the others.

 

Personally I don't want to make ammends with the friends that partook in this as they not only backstabbed me and just went with what she said without asking me myself, but they seem to be people who enjoy this drama and maybe I was wrong to think otherwise. There's a couple of them who still want to be my friends but the ones who could be so two faced and one sided about this, I personally don't want anything to do with either. However, I still feel incredibly anxious that these ex friends are now adding fuel to the rumour mill about me and I seem to be the current topic of interest between them. The fact they tried to turn my close friend against me, says mountains. She was furious about it and said how dare they assume she's on THEIR side, and she herself is quite disgusted at their treatment of me too. My other close friend I've had to stop from going to them and bashing them, she was so angry.

 

I want to ask, am I right to think the girlfriend is an absolute ? Inevitably they will eventually break up because he seemed near it anyway but right now she's using me to excuse a year's worth of their arguments by saying "oh she made me feel unlovable, she's such a homewrecker" etc, and my anxiety is terrible but at first I was having a lot of panic attacks about it because people turning on you like this is so hard.

 

How do I move on and above these people? I don't know how long they'll be doing this but at this point it's been called bullying. The girlfriend probably won't stop any time soon as she didn't with the last girl but she's notorious for controlling the boyfriend and now I can clearly see how terrible she is to him. The poor guy comes back after saying he wants to stand up to her afraid and suddenly agreeing with her every word.

 

She's a self-proclaimed "sjw" and the kind of girl who hates other girls for being aesthetically attractive without knowing them.

 

I feel isolated but I have friends who are here for me through this and I know who my true friends are, but of course I've still been angry about this because this girl just seems so very snake-like and problematic but is quick to shove that blame onto me and other girls she's been jealous of.

To start - just to give a little context about me - I work in a male-oriented field and I have a ton of guy friends. I firmly believe men and women can be friends. It’s natural and healthy.

 

... but I think your actions were inappropriate...

 

It’s one thing if you are part of the same baseball team and you hang out at the game and have a drink afterwards. Or lunch with a colleague. Or someone you’ve been friends with a long time...

 

... but you are a *new* friend of the opposite sex who is chatting for no reason about common interests and confiding in each other about problems and problems in his relationship, etc. It’s inappropriate. It’s fertile grounds for feelings to develop. You ARE a threat to their relationship, IMO. And when she reacted, you didn’t immediately back off. Instead, you tried to tell her how to be a better girlfriend (!). That was WAY out of line. IMO, you should not have let him walk you home that night - especially after dropping her off.

 

Maybe your actions were innocent, but if you think about what it would look like if you WERE trying to steal her man... it would look an awful lot like that.

 

You also only know one side of the story. He could very well be talking about you and using your friendship to TRY to make her jealous. You don’t know the dynamics of their relationship... and he could very well have done that with the other girl too.

 

Sorry... I know that’s not what you came here for... but when befriending a guy who has a girlfriend, you have to have really strong boundaries and be kind of “monitoring” how your friendship is affecting their relationship. If you are really in it just for friends - you should want his relationship to work - and the way to do that is to back off when your presence is causing problems - not to try to “school” the girlfriend or reassure her. That’s not helpful at all.

 

To be really honest, I think you owe her an apology for not exercising better boundaries.

To start - just to give a little context about me - I work in a male-oriented field and I have a ton of guy friends. I firmly believe men and women can be friends. It’s natural and healthy.

 

... but I think your actions were inappropriate...

 

It’s one thing if you are part of the same baseball team and you hang out at the game and have a drink afterwards. Or lunch with a colleague. Or someone you’ve been friends with a long time...

 

... but you are a *new* friend of the opposite sex who is chatting for no reason about common interests and confiding in each other about problems and problems in his relationship, etc. It’s inappropriate. It’s fertile grounds for feelings to develop. You ARE a threat to their relationship, IMO. And when she reacted, you didn’t immediately back off. Instead, you tried to tell her how to be a better girlfriend (!). That was WAY out of line. IMO, you should not have let him walk you home that night - especially after dropping her off.

 

Maybe your actions were innocent, but if you think about what it would look like if you WERE trying to steal her man... it would look an awful lot like that.

 

You also only know one side of the story. He could very well be talking about you and using your friendship to TRY to make her jealous. You don’t know the dynamics of their relationship... and he could very well have done that with the other girl too.

 

Sorry... I know that’s not what you came here for... but when befriending a guy who has a girlfriend, you have to have really strong boundaries and be kind of “monitoring” how your friendship is affecting their relationship. If you are really in it just for friends - you should want his relationship to work - and the way to do that is to back off when your presence is causing problems - not to try to “school” the girlfriend or reassure her. That’s not helpful at all.

 

To be really honest, I think you owe her an apology for not exercising better boundaries.

 

I agree.

 

And, you should not be getting involved in their problems. You should have shut this down. Out of line.

I totally agree with RedDress.

 

He continues by telling me that he knows it's unhealthy.

What is unhealthy is the amount of conversation you two had about his girlfriend behind her back and then after her clearly showing you that she didn't like your interaction with her boyfriend, he dropped her off and then walked you home alone and without her. What a great way to make yourself even more inappropriate and her mistrust you and her boyfriend.

 

You stepped over a line and so did he. Her reaction to that step over is quite normal. You need to learn to respect romantic relationship boundaries and so does her boyfriend. Since its obvious he lacks in them, his girlfriend is trying to school him in what is and what is not appropriate behaviour when in a committed relationship.

 

What you two have been up to is what very often leads to and turns into emotional affairs even when at the beginning of your boundary-less interactions there was zero intent in taking it romantic.

 

She's a self-proclaimed "sjw" and the kind of girl who hates other girls for being aesthetically attractive without knowing them.

I'm going to be blunt. I don't do it to be mean but rather to hopefully make you understand how such statements make you look: How very egotistical and self-absorbed of you. Sorry but it you're like this as a rule then I suspect your "good friends" that are sticking by your side are just as self-absorbed and shallow and unable to see past their own self interests

Are you sure he isn't trying to get the jealousy thing going?

 

Maybe he enjoys the fact that his girlfriend gets so jealous. Maybe he's hoping to pit the two of you against each other while he stands back and congratulates himself on what a stud he is.

 

I had an ex who would deliberately set up situations where other women would pursue him, being sure that I knew every little detail. Then he'd suggest I physically fight these women. He would actually invite them over while I was there (while claiming "I don't know why she showed up here!!!!!"), telling them I was the one who was uninvited and he didn't know why I wouldn't just leave him alone. Then he would tell me I should "say something", hoping that the other woman and I would start trading punches. He was able to get his ex girlfriend to fight another woman in front of him and he was delighted. And he was so disappointed that I refused to go along with his scenario, claiming I must not truly love him.

 

So yeah...I have to wonder if this guy is as innocent as you are portraying him. He may have an agenda you know nothing about. If so, the best course of action is to step away.

And...agree with this. It's the best solution all the way around. Most of all it spares your time, sanity and won't damage friendships.

 

Step away from soap opera drama and focus on your school and social endeavors and interests.

 

If you are not dating, you should start there to refocus on you and away from friends' dating issues.

And, you should not be getting involved in their problems.

So you were friends with both, until they both suddenly decided to block you at the same time?

 

This story sounds a bit familiar (with different details) so gotta ask --

 

Is he really a new friend or had you ever dated him previously? Are you an ex?

 

Your friendship, with him especially, seems much too emotionally intimate and familiar for a "new" friend. JMO.

 

In any event, agree it was inappropriate.

 

In the restaurant, when she got up and stormed off to the restroom upset, that would have been your cue to politely excuse yourself and leave. How awkward anyway, I would have. Left them to work out their issues.

 

And why did you both walk *her* home first? Should not they have walked you home first so they could walk home alone together? That part confused me cause it just added to the inappropriateness of the whole thing.

 

I am now starting to wonder -- is it you who is jealous of her? Of their relationship?

but of course I've still been angry about this because this girl just seems so very snake-like and problematic but is quick to shove that blame onto me and other girls she's been jealous of.

Sorry to say but she has plenty of good reasons for "shoving that blame" onto you. I have the feeling she probably views you in the same way you talk about her .... no doubt she also thinks of you as being "snake-like and problematic".

 

I agree with all the above posts too.

He walked you home, AFTER, she had become overtly anxious about the closeness of your relationship and in the process discussed personal aspects of their relationship whilst she's left home alone to dwell even further on the evening's events. Then you proceed to 'put her mind at rest' by being condescending about her relationship and her insecurities. And then you sit back and wonder why she went off like a rocket.

 

She's 'always like that' because he doesn't respect her feelings or do anything to allay her fears and insecurities. He just fuels them further and probably gets off on it in the process.

 

Lucky for you you've never had a boyfriend that's treated you like this: I'd love to know how YOU'D respond if the boot was on the other foot..?

 

She is totally wrong for instigating bullying of any kind. She should uphold her self respect, end this relationship and leave you and him to it.

he regularly messages me wanting to know more about me and he's incredibly quick to open up to me and also tries to encourage me to open up to him. I feel a little bit on guard because he's new, but I understand him and his anxieties. We mostly just discuss common interests, though.

 

The three of us go out together, we're talking together and everything seems to be going well, although last time my best friend was here and we went out as a group she did pick up that the girlfriend seemed jealous of me. I won't lie, I get hit on a lot and I get complimented a lot, despite the fact I get shy about it.

 

I couldn't read the entire 'he said/she said' post but you come off as naively innocent when you are not.

 

This is a form of emotionally cheating. He is confiding to you as an ally without her knowing, wanting to get closer to you and at the same time you're pretending to have their best interests at heart. You yourself admitted you told him she wasn't treating him well. Yet when you get called out for doing so, you are the victim and she's crazy jealous?

 

Here's a rule to live by - WHENEVER there is a triangulation going on, someone's going to get hurt. If you feel you are about to get caught up in one, back out.

 

If you were her friend, you would have butted out of their relationship and supported them at distance. Instead you've been pulling strings behind the scene.

 

Not cool and I would have a serious issue with you as well . .so I understand the girlfriends feelings.

Yep - sorry OP, but you're as caught up in the games as anyone else. Sure, this girl is a drama queen and isn't handling the situation well, but you're an oh-so-innocent player yourself.

 

Sure, guys will sometimes try to rope you in as a confidante as they complain about their partners, especially if they find you attractive and want to get closer to you. If you don't want to be manoeuvred into being the third player in the game (all the while telling yourself that she's a b***h and you're completely blameless) then all you have to say is something along the lines of "Look, you should be saying this to [girlfriend] not to me."

 

You have been encouraging an emotional connection between this guy and yourself. This is more damaging to their relationship than having a quick grope and a makeout session behind the bike sheds, and incredibly hurtful for the person who's being pushed out. Unfortunately for her, she doesn't have the self respect to handle the situation graciously and walk away.

 

As to how you 'deal with a jealous girlfriend'... firstly, acknowledge the fact that you are implicit in a situation which is very hurtful to her, even though you're trying to pretend to yourself that you're not. Of course she was livid that he'd shared their intimate issues with you; wouldn't you be? Again, all you had to say was "Look, you should be saying this to [girlfriend] not to me." Your attempts to be reassuring would have sounded so patronising to her after all that, too.

 

Then, make sure you don't get involved in relationships which are really none of your business. And no, I don't think she's a complete b***h; frightened, vulnerable and angry, yes. Lacking in self esteem and self respect, yes. Drama queen, yes. But before railing at her, complaining she's putting blame onto you - take an honest look at yourself.

You were way out of line. Off course the gf would feel weirded out. considering his behaviour, I wouldn't be surprised if he acted inappropriately with others in the past.

 

Also get over yourself lol...You seem very self absorbed.

I'm actually shocked at people's responses to this. I think this girl is batsh1t crazy. She sounds just like someone I once knew who made my life a living hell, as well. She also reminds me a ton of my sister's abusive husband.

 

The thing I've learned is that the messenger gets shot and things can blow up in your face very quickly with even the best of intentions. I don't know why the boyfriend and her didn't drop you off first as that part struck me as a bit odd, too, given that I'm sure this was fueling her insecurities behind the scenes. But people like her will always be controlling, manipulative, and insecure--to me it's like a form of mental illness and until they're ready to acknowledge it, nothing will change.

 

The boyfriend has to put on his big boy pants and grow a set of balls. His inability to establish healthy boundaries with her is his lesson to learn, and it's not your job to try to protect him or tell him what to do. I know you were just trying to stand up for him or hear him vent, but it's best to keep to yourself when someone is involved with someone crazy. Chalk this up as a lesson learned.

 

Also, if you are friends with someone first and then get to know their partner relatively recently, I think your actions should remain in line with the person you knew first. Not that you condone her behavior but are thinking of how inappropriate it would be in the context of your friendship. As in, when someone's partner tries to talk to you about issues in their relationship, suggest that you don't feel you're the right audience, as you've known the person for X amount of time.

 

In the future, just stay as far as you can away from other people's dramatic relationship issues. Who knows what the boyfriend's intentions were for you, perhaps he is attracted to you and the girlfriend sensed this and targeted you in particular. I would cut off the friends who backstabbed you and just try to cultivate other relationships. Write some letters with the things you wish you could say to everyone and then burn them so you can get this out of your system.