I feel toxic for feeling so insecure and jealous.
Right off the bat, I admit my feelings towards male-female friendships have been warped thanks to my previous bad experiences, the guys I tried to befriend always got feelings. This makes me insecure since sometimes I can’t help but assume that my bf also gets feelings for these girls he befriends and talks to.
Idk what to do really, for now I’m just trying to open myself up more towards having guy friends and hope that our relationship will feel more balanced. It does feel a bit unbalanced right now, considering he does have a lot of female friends and has no issues talking to women, while I don’t have any guy friends and sometimes even avoid talking to other guys because it feels “wrong”.
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**tl;dr**: I feel like our relationship is unbalanced because my boyfriend has no issues befriending women, but I find it hard to let myself befriend men.
6 comments
it seems you’re aware this is a problem YOU have not a problem with your boyfriend.
Obviously you are under no obligation to befriend men or “balance out” the types of relationships your boyfriend has. But if you’re looking to develop a healthier mindset toward men after negative experiences in the past, perhaps therapy can help you heal.
First of all, the word ‘toxic’ has been adopted to describe almost anything slightly different than ‘normal’. You are not toxic, you are insecure. Let’s address that instead of labeling ourselves.
Yes, make-female friendships can get out of hand. Same goes for the opposite if you view them that strictly. It all boils down to your partner’s actions and your trust. I, for one have a few female friends. Do I want to get with them? No. They are my friends who happen to be women. They have even their own partners. If their partner gets jealous and I know about it, I back away. But I am not any player. Everyone knows where they stand with me.
Do you think your BF is a player who would easily trade you for someone else? If not, you have you answer to the question you did not raise. It is also about boundaries. If you feel uncomfortable with your BF meeting other girls one-on-one, communicate with him how you feel about that. (There is actually no way to know if this is the case)
I don’t think “balance” is necessary – it just feels like that’s what you need, but it won’t actually change anything. I’m a guy with a few female friends of 2+ decades standing, my wife doesn’t really have any male friends, it doesn’t affect anything. Friends are friends, gender is largely irrelevant. Sure, someone *might* develop feelings for a friend, but it’s hardly inevitable! Your experience sucks, but it doesn’t make for a universal truth.
You either trust him or you don’t. If you don’t, you need to figure out if that’s because of him or because of you. If because of him…you can’t do much about that, except date someone else who’s trustworthy. If it’s because of you, and it seems like you feel it is, you need to work on changing your attitude. It’s all within you. Making external changes like “befriending more guys” won’t fix the core problem.
>sometimes I can’t help but assume that my bf also gets feelings for these girls he befriends and talks to.
But you *can* help it. You can trust him, if you think he’s truly deserving of that trust. You can remind yourself that he isn’t the guys you tried to befriend. You can recognise that if he’s just a naturally friendly/talkative person, this is just…how he is. Have you talked to him about this? Because that’s worth doing too. Simply letting him know that you feel a bit insecure/jealous/anxious, and that’s it’s your issue not his. Let him reassure you, rather than you trying to magically improve things by yourself. Approach this issue together.
I’ve been in a very similar position. It can be very tough to trust (straight male) partners with close, or a lot of, female friends. It can be even tougher to trust someone if you have personal experience, like I do, where several exes have cheated on you with their female friends.
This is what I can suggest to you:
1. Fully accept that this is a toxic mindset, and you want to change. Go to therapy, read books on the subject, and work as hard as you can to reframe your mindset. Consider learning how to make more male friends.
2. Accept that this is what makes you uncomfortable, and be confident and self-assured about maintaining your boundaries. This means not being afraid to end/leave relationships where someone isn’t willing to budge on their stances.
I have done both paths. Initially, I also believed that this was toxic, and I should work hard to become more accepting. I tried, I really did, for years, but it personally didn’t work for me. I kept running into partners who had, what I felt, too close of a friendship with certain women. It was a constant struggle trying to convince myself that I was just being jealous, paranoid, and insecure.
Unfortunately for me, those men ended up consistently putting their female friends over me, with a couple of them even cheating on me with those friends. I couldn’t do it anymore, and finally decided to take option 2, and work on feeling more comfortable that this is a hard, non-negotiable boundary for me.
I’ve also tried to make more male friends in hopes of being able to empathize with my partners who had a lot of female friends. It personally didn’t end that well for me either. I was successful in maintaining a close male best friendship, but he ended up sexually assaulting me, and became violent when I rejected further advances. I’ll be acquaintances with men, but I feel too traumatized to make another close friendship with a man.
I personally feel happier and more secure in accepting that close opposite gender friendships make me uncomfortable, and that I won’t settle for partners who violate/push this boundary. That’s fine. I’m willing to leave a relationship if a partner wants to choose his friends over me.
Your circumstances are probably not like mine, so I would recommend you just go for the option you strongly connect with.
I dont think you are wrong in not having male friends. Ive read hundreds of cheating stories on here that begins with “he/she is just a friend!”. Im a guy and I see no reason whatsoever why men should have “girlfriends”. I promise you he is gonna sound a lot different if you get a guy friend that you start hanging out with.
My husband has several very close female friends, and I don’t really have close male friends (although I have in the past). One thing that really helps this is that he is really transparent about all his friendships. Sometimes he wants to hang out with them one on one, but he’s also super happy if I want to come along. It’s the same way with my male friends. Sometimes we might hang out one on one, but I’m very happy to include him. I’ve never felt like I’ve had to follow up with him, because he’s transparent about everything.