Partners and friends of the opposite sex

andygb

cjdavies wrote: »

Friends are for life, partners come and go.

Not if you are married and you take the relationship seriously.
There can be ups and downs, but if you are not friends and work together, then it won't succeed.

onomatopoeia99

heartbreak_star wrote: »

I was thinking LARP. It ties in almost exactly regarding descriptions haha!

Whereas pencil and paper D&D is more frequent, e.g. once a week, and when we were playing at the pub with an upstairs gaming (RPG, not gambling!) room, I saw only one woman in any of the groups that use the room. I know there are women that play RPGs (when I was playing EQ there were loads), but not so much playing tabletop round my way it seems.

euronorris

The relationship with your friend, given the context provided, sounds absolutely fine. I honestly can't see any reason for your gf to be getting jealous over it, and trying to insist on the end of the friendship.


Both DH and I have male and female friends, and neither of us have a problem with that. It probably helps that we've both made an effort to get to know the other people, and therefore are friends with them too.


DH's best female friend was amazing during our move from one country to another. She was still living in the other country, and gave him a place to stay after the rent contract had ended, but his work one continued on for a week or two longer.


Others may have had an issue with that, but I knew her well, she was also in a relationship (also now married) and trusted both her and my DH.


It was a tough time for us, especially financially, and she really helped us out.


So, I'm another one voting for the gf having to go. She's behaving unreasonably. More disturbingly, she's looking through old photos of a time you weren't together and getting jealous over them?? That's alarm bell central, right there!


I would usually say try encouraging her to befriend your friend, as it may help, but in this case I honestly don't think it will.

Loz01

She sounds too controlling, you should be able to have friends and that includes friends of the opposite sex!! Dating someone shouldn't have to mean cutting off all your mates for no good reason, thats ridiculous. Sounds like she needs to go back to high school.

rach_k

I wouldn't accept my partner telling me who I can be friends with, especially if I've done nothing wrong. My OH has friends I don't particularly like and I suppose there are some of them I'd prefer he wasn't friends with but I've just told him to see them without me!

If you want to stay with her, can you invite your girlfriend along to something with your friend and possibly her partner? Seeing the friend with her partner might be enough to convince her nothing is going on. It's not your fault she's being like this but most people suffer from irrationality at some point in their lives so it's worth trying to help her through it if you value the relationship.

Primrose

I always worry when I hear of jealous partners getting uptight with people having platonic friendships with members of the opposite sex because I suspect that longer term this display an insecure trait that can spill over into other parts of the relationship. I know some people do cheat, but there are an awful lot of people who genuinely don't and to have somebody who is continually mistrustful of you as a partner is not conducive to a calm long term relationship. It's also insulting of your integrity if you are a decent person.


If you KNOW there is nothing untoward in your platonic relationship I would stand firm and stick with it. Think about how your life together with your potential partner might move forward. What if your professional working life starts to involve needing a close relationship with members of the opposite sex?. What, for example, if it involved having to attend overnight work functions together? Or hobby away days/weekends? Do you really want them to be turned into a Spanish inquisition every time and be suspected of being unfaithful? How is this going to make you feel?


For many years my OH worked in a field which was heavily female orientated; his job also frequently mean travelling abroad. He often said to me it would have made his life impossible if on every trip I had put him through an inquisition of who he was travelling and working with. He still has many good female friends. I have a few good male friends. We just trust each other.


If this trust doesn't exist now with your girlfriend, I suspect it never will. It will just become a source of endless arguments and whatever hobbies you may later get involved in, your girlfriend will always be watching you like the secret police, suspecting some infidelity where it doesn't exist.


My advice is to break with your girlfriend now. Good friends of whatever sex are key to good emotional health and a source of support in difficult times. They often outlive romantic liaisons. Your girlfriend sounds very controlling and insecure. She doesn't own you. When somebody tries to exert this kind of pressure and emotional blackmail it almost always leads to ongoing resentment and arguments. AVOID !

bagpussbear

Issuing ultimatums is always a risky thing, but it is sometimes done out of fear, rather than being directly controlling etc.

The problem you have here is that your girlfriend doesn't trust in friendships with the opposite sex full stop, according to your first post. You could dump your friend, but would mean that potentially you would be faced with problems further down the line if you were friendly in any sense with another female.

Some people simply don't believe men and women can just be friends. And your girlfriend is quite entitled to believe that if she likes. She sees you as stepping over her boundaries on the matter.

Sadly, I can't see how this is going to work for you.

slashlover

There's also the chance that if you do stop seeing girl A, then girl B will take as 'proof' of guilt.

nettttie

Controlling coercive behaviour = red flags!
I have a unstable ex and now no friends, guess who didn't choose wisely?

getmore4less

something else was niggling me, just realised

Girl A also has a partner who I get on with and on the two meet ups this year he has attended.

Is this current GF(b) not into your hobby?

You could have pre empted this ultimatum by arranging to all go out together either to do the hobby or just as friends.