Hi everybody.
TL.DR : Bf didn’t like the idea of me hanging out with our mutual male friends without him both in the day time or night time unless there were conditions.
My bf (20sM) and I (20sF) have been in a relationship for 7 months. We have been best friends previously for nearly 2 years and it was a gradual development into a relationship. It is my first relationship while he is a little bit more experienced in this, and for the most part things have been going smoothly with minimal arguments (and resolving) until we came to this situation.
We have a mutual friend group who we met with in university and slowly over the course of the years, there have been people who have joined the group. It should be noted that these are friends my boyfriend and I knew before ever knowing each other, after knowing each other and knew way before we ever established a relationship of any kind. At the moment, there are 6 boys and 2 girls (including myself). We are all well acquainted and out of the 8 people, I’m the closest to 3 boys (including my boyfriend) with an already established friendship. These boys are also my boyfriend’s friends which is a key thing to note here.
In recent events that occurred, my boyfriend has expressed to me that he does not like me hanging out with this group of friends when he is not present. Moreover, as the group is at a higher male to women ratio, there are some complications that arose with his comfortability level. After some back and forth, he put forth his boundaries which were the following.
1. I can go out with them during the day time (until 6pm) provided that there is at least one girl present.
2. I can’t hang out if it’s all boys and I’m the only girl (day time and night time – after 7pm).
3. I can hang out with them one on one if an occasion is present (like some of us live closeby so we casually meet up if the time permits) during the daytime.
4. I can’t hang out with them in the night unless there are more girls than boys in the group setting.
5. The above 5 are not taken into consideration if he is present.
(He didn’t word it in a way that was giving me permission like I have mentioned here but he just told it to me in a way that illustrated the same point).
A note to add is that this particular friend group is not aware of our relationship so often times they do make plans that can be mutually exclusive within the group depending on common interests. My bf also lives quite far away so there are times that he cannot make it to certain group hangouts that occur much later in the night. This is why this problem rose as now, I have to limit my time with them because my bf is not present as well. He doesn’t trust them to be alone with me, and despite all my compromises like me always updating him and going to safe places, not drinking etc., he was not satisfied.
All reasonable boundaries and I respected them entirely. But one issue stood out to me. These are both his and my friends. I don’t like hanging out with strangers, for one and I certainly would never hang out with unknown people or coworkers late night. He was firm that he was not comfortable with me hanging out alone when he was not there with any guy, even if they are mutual friends.
To me, this sparked some controlling issues and something that may or may not grow into something bigger in the future. I understand his boundaries but these are our friends! Not anyone we don’t know. His reasonings were that in his experience, these types of things lead to many relationship risks such as cheating, distrust and unwanted issues. I pointed out that the trust lies in me and what I do or instigate with other men and he said he didn’t want to take the risk. I told him that I felt that he didn’t trust me and he reaffirmed that it was not because he didn’t trust me but it was because he was scared and did not want to take a risk. He was worried about external parties ruining the relationship (including our own friends).
I didn’t like that there was this type of control so after a long thought process and back and forth (where he attempted to break up with me to save trouble due to the inability to move forward and deciding to stay), I decided to break up. However, this did not sit well with him and he pleaded to compromise on the situation.
I know he loves me and I love him and he has several issues with friends backstabbing him in the past but he cannot really control me like this, can he? In his words, he said it is not controlling, he was putting forth a boundary and that by deciding to break up, that all the effort he put into the relationship and the changes he went through is not enough and that I couldn’t respect this one little boundary.
Currently he has agreed to be open-minded and see how it aids in working the relationship out by not making such demands and letting me use the freedom I have to control what happens with external situations. We have decided to work things out but I wanted to know whether I was right in my decision to leave initially or if I had reacted impulsively and he has a point? Is it selfish of me to hang out with our mutual guy friends like this knowing that it makes him uncomfortable?
Any insight regarding this would be very much appreciated! Thank you!
12 comments
That list is ridiculous, either he trusts you or he doesn’t. Why don’t your friends know you’re dating?
Pass on that dude. He’s supposed to be your partner not your dad.
I would have simply said, “You can not like it, but I am not going to stop being friends with my friends because I am in a relationship. I will hang out with them the same ways I always did. You can accept that or we are not compatible.” If it’s platonic hang-outs, I am not going to limit them for a relationship.
I’ll give you a short version.
girl makes friends with boy, they develop feelings over time and now dating.
he doesn’t want you spending alone time with other guy friends…still wondering why? unless you became a robot after you became a couple, you may very well develop feelings for another guy friend.
not saying you would, but you are not a robot and no guy in his right mind would want to take the chances. This is the price for getting into a relationship, they expect to have you to themselves and don’t want to risk loosing you emotionally or physically. Or are you saying you would be ok with him spending a night over at a female friends house to watch a movie with her, with just the two of them alone?
The rules are weird and fit along what I said in a very, trying to be pleasing kind of way. But he just hasn’t developed a hard stance yet until he gets burned.
You can call it controlling, but I would be even worse myself, asking the girl to not hang out with any guy at all unless i’m with her. I wouldn’t demand it but I would simply not be with her if she had a problem with that.
You broke up with him, but “that didn’t sit well with him”? It doesn’t MATTER if it sits well with him. He doesn’t get a vote on whether *you* break up with *him*.
More controlling behavior.
>I didn’t like that there was this type of control so after a long
thought process and back and forth (where he attempted to break up with
me to save trouble due to the inability to move forward and deciding to
stay), I decided to break up. However, this did not sit well with him
and he pleaded to compromise on the situation.
So he issued an ultimatum for you to stop hanging out with friends that pre-dated your relationship. I’m not saying he’s an abusive person, but this *is* something that abusers do. You were right to walk away.
The problem I see is that to your point, this issue isn’t over: He’s still going to try and manipulate and control you into hanging out with the people that *he* approves of, *when* he approves of it. Bottom line is that he does not want you to have any close male friends. Can you accept that?
I absolutely wouldn’t tolerate that for a moment. These sorts of threads make me so, so glad my boyfriend is a sane and rational human being. My male friends are my friends, not potential fuck buddies, and I’d be insulted to my core if someone tried to keep me from seeing them.
You keep using the word “boundaries”. I do not think it means what you think it means. A boundary is something you set for yourself, to protect yourself. “I will not put myself in an uncomfortable situation”. What’s happening here is a rule, or an agreement if you’re being generous – it’s still about *his* feelings, but *you’re* the one modifying your behaviour. This means he never needs to do the work of actually managing his feelings of jealousy and insecurity, because you’re doing all the work of making sure he never has to confront them.
This isn’t sustainable. Part of being in an adult relationship is learning to deal with difficult feelings in a healthy way. Avoiding and burying them is not healthy. He needs to learn to trust you, and he needs to start doing the work on himself to work out where these feelings are coming from.
Well you are choosing to be in a secret and controlling relationship and he’s being controlling, idk why you are surprised.
Yes he’s being immature.
Yes it means that he doesn’t trust you/them.
Yes it will continue like this.
Is he aware people can do sketchy stuff before sunset? The whole curfew thing is insane to me. I mean all of this is insane but for some reason that jumped out at me. Anyway, have fun being with someone controlling and insecure. Sounds like a hoot.
Those aren’t boundaries, they’re rules. Your bf is defective & you are right to be wary, not selfish.
Please stop dating this insecure controlling man