I’m just unsure of what steps I should take.
I haven’t always been the closest with this girl, but we knew each other through mutual friends, and were chill with each other if we saw each other at parties. This year my friend group invited her to come to a multi day festival with us which I was excited to have a new person come along with us this year as this has almost become a yearly tradition for us.
but we went to a festival together and we hit it off quite well I’d say. I thought she was a cool person so I invited her to join my band that I was starting up. During the festival she also met my ex who was also there, a person I’m still friends with and we broke up on good terms.
One of the night of the festival we were all quite high (lol) and she and my ex \[M21\] were quite touchy. because I was coming up on drugs it made me feel quite overwhelmed, I talked to her about it and assured me that nothing was happening between them anyways and he was too young for her. She was really understanding and attached herself to one of the girls in our group instead.
Time goes on, festivals over, we start band rehearsals and things are going great. I’m the leader of this band, and I do a lot to make sure everything runs smoothly. I write all the songs and parts for this band. Guitar chord progression, basslines, melody and lyrics.
Our friend group has started to invite her to our hangouts, which was welcome because she’s always been fun to have around. But I noticed her and my ex being a lot closer than before, and I found out they were sleeping with each other over time, and one of the nights heard them sleeping with each other in another room.
I honestly at the time didn’t know how to process what was going on, but I would’ve liked her to talk to me about it. But I decided to talk to her about it and let her know she can do what she wants. She told me that he was just a man to her, and if I ever felt uncomfortable I should talk to her and she would stop in a heart beat.
And over time I did realised I cared, maybe 2 or 3 weeks later I decided to talk to her and let her know I don’t feel comfortable with her seeing my ex. I mentioned things like, I felt betrayed that she didn’t talk to me before she started to see him. And I said it felt weird to be in a band with someone who’s seeing my ex. Which with the context I had I thought she would apologise and just stop seeing him. But she took it as an ultimatum and kind of went radio silent on me for a couple days.
I talked to my bassist \[F23\] in the band about what was going on and the next day, she got back to me saying that drummer did nothing wrong and I was being hurtful towards her.
I guess through this conversation I gathered more context of what was really going on between them as I didn’t really have any idea of what was.
Me and drummer eventually talked, I told her I never intended to create drama, hurt her or even control her, I made a request based off the context that I had of what was going on, and what she had said to me in the past. basically we just said sorry to each other. She’s decided she’s going to continue seeing him as they have feeling for each other. And I am not here to control her at all and that’s her decision to make and not mine at all. I made my request based off having no context of what was going on between them and what she had said to me. But after being updated on it all i it’s not something I’m looking to dictate at all.
But again, the way I still feel about it stands, i don’t feel like I could be in a band with someone who is seeing my ex.
My Songwriting is a very personal thing to me, and music has always been my safe space and my emotional outlet. I’m unsure on what I should do next.. I feel like I want to leave this band. But at the same time I don’t want to seem like I’m throwing a tantrum about them seeing each other because that’s not my intention at all. Not only that, I wouldn’t want them to be using the songs I wrote in their band if they continued on with it. We also rehearse at my uni, I am a music student and I provide the studio we preform in. I also don’t see my guitarist staying in the band if I left as she is in it for me. I just don’t want to ruin the fun for everyone but it’s been taking a really big mental toll on me as well.
I haven’t been going to classes, or really leaving my house much as I’ve felt really depressed about everything. and during my exam stage of the trimester, it’s been messing with my ability to be able to get my assignments done. But at the same time part of me jsut wants to deal with it and get over it as i still really enjoy all the girls in the band. I invited them all personally because I think of them as friends to me.
My drummer is going to be leaving for a Europe trip for a couple months soon anyways, so there’s also that’s a factor for An answer for this issue that could be relevant.
I just am really unsure of what to do and it’s messing with me a lot mentally. Any suggestions would be really appreciated.
TLDR; invited girl to band, she starts sleeping with ex without talking to me about it, i approach her about it, she tells me she’d stop seeing him if it made me uncomfortable, a couple weeks later i tell her I am uncomfortable but things have changed by then and she still wants to see him.