Female friend and Girlfriend

Barny1979

If you haven't spoken since Wednesday night, I'd suggest the relationship may not last. There appears there may be a trend, are you stubborn or do you make moves to build bridges as you say you and your friend didn't speak for 6 months and now you are 4 days in to not speaking to your gf.

raven83

MBenz wrote: »

I don't see that I deliberately did anything wrong. I didn't tell my girlfriend about communicating with the friend because I know how uneasy she feels about her. I am just trying to reach a happy medium and hang on to the woman I love - my girlfriend, without hurting my friend. This is distressing because my girlfriend and I haven't spoken since we argued on Wednesday night.

But see how it looks to her, by keeping it quiet makes it look as if you have something to hide. It is always a tricky one when you have a best friend of the opposite sex and a partner. I think you need to sit down with your girlfriend and have a long chat with her and I think you need to gently explain to your friend that you still value your friendship but need to put your girlfriend first.

Kynthia

Usually I dont like it when people get funny about their partner having a long term friend of the opposite sex. However your friendship doesn't sound platonic as there's flirting and signs of attraction and romantic feelings as you appreciated your friend's bikini clad body, which she clearly wanted you to do, plus she was extremely upset by not getting a hug from you and probably didn't like you having a girlfriend. So your girlfriend is not being unreasonable by suspecting this isn't a plain old friendship. Then to top it off you are dishonest and hide the fact the friendship has resumed. So your girlfriend now thinks that this adds more weight to the belief that there is more to this friendship, and that you are happy to be dishonest with her if it makes your life easier. Not great really.

You need to be honest with both of them. Then you need to rebuild trust with your girlfriend and be very platonic with your friend. I suspect that your friend has feelings for you and your friendship won't survive you being strictly platonic, but there's nothing you can do about that if you don't want to date her.

MBenz

I guess I can be stubborn because I don't feel I'm in the wrong because I try to keep everyone happy. I have had lots of conversations with my girlfriend, early on in our relationship about my friend, but last week she accused me of 'emotionally' cheating on her and just went on and on about the text message.


I feel she's being unreasonable as she knows how I feel about her, that she's important to me. She was very angry and we both said some unkind things during the argument which is why we're having this cooling off period. I'm reluctant to call her because I know she'll bring it up again and I'm not sure what to do next.

marvin

I have a very similar issue with my wife and a friend of mine, I lived in a very female world for a long time and most of my friends are female.

My wife and I would probably not be together at all if it was not for this friend (this is the only one of my female friends she objects to) but despite this my wife hates me communicating with them even if this is only via FB and text.

She explains it very clearly it is a a jealousy thing and it won't change. I like you tend to keep it as quiet as I can and I am tying my best to let the friendship wither on the vine rather than say I can't.

You have a choice to make what matters more, the GF or the friend if one objects to the other it never can be both. If push came to shove and the wife said me or them my wife would win no contest.

System

I thin k with friendships, mostly opposite ones though could be same sex if you were that way inclined, there needs to be boundaries. Although between you and your friend the text may have seen innocent enough, it did boarder on flirting a bit. One of my best friends is male (lol also an ex...that is a can of worms) and i can't imagine ever saying anything like that to him (not that he'd be wearing a bikini but you get my drift), so i can see why your gf may be uncomfortable with it.

I think you need to do 2 things. You need a frank and honest conversation with your girlfriend, you need to be honest about your friendship, and apologise for keeping it secret, i know you didnt want to upset her, but hiding it hasn't exactly made things any better.

You also need to talk to your friend and make sure the boundaries are clear going forward.

Choosing between the two may end up as the unfortunate result. Personally if someone asked me to chose, if it were a new relationship, i'd choose my friend. I've known him over 10 years and he knows me better than anyone and has been there for me 100%. However if the relationship were serious, i'd have to have a long hard think. Thankfully its never been an issue. Boyfriends know there is no romantic interest (as it happens he has a gf, who's expecting, who i get on amazingly well with) and have always gotten on with him when they've met. But i've always been honest about our friendship and history.

MBenz

Thank you all for taking the time to offer me such good advice and for the frank and open comments. It's especially good to hear the other side of the story - her side and what she must be feeling. She has actually told me all that but I just felt it was her being overly jealous.
Thanks Marvin for your honesty about your own experience. I'm with you...I'd choose my girl every time. Although I dated my friend 15 years ago, I have no intention of ever dating her again. I was even married for 6 years, which was a mistake and a disaster and she helped me through that, so I feel kind of obliged to support her because she has been so supportive of me. My girlfriend says that's her role now, but I'm finding it hard to tell my friend this.

bluenoseam

I think there's a couple of things at play here. I don't particularly feel like you've done much wrong, possibly shouldn't have fired off the joke in a text, but I'll be honest, that's mountain & molehill stuff right there. Problem is I think there's an element that maybe your friend might want a little more than she's letting on and I get the feeling you're probably one of the last people to find that out. Sounds at the very least like that's what your OH is sensing as well.

Either way it goes you have a problem and ultimately it's going to have to be the case that you'll have to be significantly more open in the future. Major problem is the fact your OH sounds VERY jealous of the platonic friend, sounds like a secondary might be that said platonic friend perhaps doesn't see things like that. There's not a dang thing that you'll be able to do short of telling your friend that you'll need to let things slide until such times as your OH can accept that you're not cheating but do have a close female friend.

duchy

I'd wonder why you hadn't told me you had made up with your sulking friend.

That would lead me to wonder if it was harmless what else you hadn't told me.

If you then accused me of being overly jealous on top

You'd be history.

seven-day-weekend

I would also wonder why the friend was so hurt about you not hugging her at a party.

I certainly would not like the flirty texts, either from her or you, they are inappropriate when you have a partner who you are hoping to move in with.

I think the friend still hopes for more from you than you are willing to give and that you are sending out entirely the wrong signals.