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Arkhan

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  1. I am a male who has been dating a female for 7 months, but I am having issues being comfortable with a close friendship she's maintaining with a male that was formerly her friend with benefits. She's known her friend for over a decade and has been very open about how he and she have converted the relationship to 'with benefits' a few times in the past and the most recent ended just a few months before she and I started dating. She explained that she felt he and she were basically dating because they spent nearly every weekend together, had sex often and planned special days together for their birthdays, but he apparently didn't want to commit to a relationship. In my past, I've had two girlfriends cheat on me, one with a fellow coworker of ours and the other with a former boyfriend she wasn't quite over. I noticed in both of those relationships that they'd become very one-sided with me being the only one who would offer to pay for a date or meal we shared together or with me seeming to only do the little thoughtful things for my girlfriend. In both of those cases, I had to catch them cheating on me because they still piled on the praise and how much they loved me in conversation. My current girlfriend is triggering those alarm bells for me because when we go out to a particularly nice dinner together, even though she offers to split the bill, she doesn't object when I say I'd actually like to treat her this time, but she also never offers to pay for another nice dinner later. She also didn't do anything really special for my birthday, bought me a subscription to a foreign language learning site and cooked a dinner with me like we often do. On Valentine's Day weekend, I spent a lot on flowers, gifts and an expensive dinner I picked out for us and she get or plan anything for me. She and I make very similar salaries, so I don't think it's because of financial reasons that she might be limited. I've had the sense in the past that her family doesn't really do much for holidays, so I've always chalked it up to it being that she's not very thoughtful around special occasions for that reason. I was giving her the benefit of the doubt on the birthday letdown when she mentioned the week later that her former friends with benefits had his birthday coming up and last year she planned such a cute day for him, going out to his favorite brewery and a few other activities, so she was trying to think of something to do for his next birthday coming up soon. He ended up having invited her to a birthday celebration with other friends of his, but my girlfriend and I were away on a trip and just getting back late that night. She ended up missing it, but telling him she'd take him out to brunch instead the following weekend - Valentine's Day weekend. I reminded her it was Valentine's Day weekend and hoped we could spend it together, but she said that she felt bad because she'd missed several of her friend's recent activities and felt like she was being a bad friend to him. So Valentine's Day weekend came and we spent the fun day together that I'd planned all on my own and had what she kept describing as the best sex she's ever had, but she still, for some reason, brought up how she once hooked up with a guy on a school trip as we're coming back from dinner. The next morning, I asked if she was still doing yoga class in the morning, like she does every Sunday, even though she had plans to take her friend out for brunch. She said, "Yes, he's ok with going later because he's well-aware of my yoga classes. I'm sure you can imagine why." When I didn't say anything, she added, "we used to spend every weekend together." I left shortly later, after she thanked me for the best Valentine's Day she ever had and mentioned how no one else has ever really done anything special for her on it, and just sent a text message about my cats a little later before she was going to pick him up. I didn't hear back from her until 6 pm and she said "Sorry my phone hasn't been working to send texts" when she responded. I really would like to be able to trust her at her word, but it's been very hard for me to be ok with it given my history. I'm not sure if I'm being 100% paranoid and feel guilty to discuss all the issues with her directly because it's basically saying the hard truth which is "I don't trust you" when I probably just have a hard time trusting women in general. I know she values her friendship with this guy very much, especially given how long she's known him, but I feel like there are still mixed feelings for her there. She's made comments in the past, describing what she and he were doing and saying, "We were basically dating, weren't we?" like she's still processing the fact that they weren't in a committed relationship. At that time, I asked her outright, "you seem like her were very taken by him and had this close friendship. If things were different and he had asked you to be his girlfriend, you would have, right?" and she guardedly said, "Yes." I don't think it's unreasonable of me to try to set some boundaries about her relationship with him now, but I'm just not sure what's going to work. Even if we were to agree to something, I'm not sure how I can be comfortable with her being out somewhere alone with him and not worry that she's just cheating on me like my past girlfriends were until I caught them. I just don't feel that that gives me the right to try to limit or end a relationship that she values, but maybe my thoughtfulness in that regard is just what the women of my past have counted on to take advantage of. I would greatly appreciate advice from people who have an outside perspective or have dealt with similar. Thank you in advance! -Steve
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