By Murky-Horror8368 • Score: 0 • April 10, 2025 9:23 PM
Reddit therapy session, but tell me if I'm the problem...
I got upset with my boyfriend for going out with friends and not telling me... My boyfriend and I have been dating for 6 months. Everything is mostly great. He is incredibly social and knows everyone. It's a trait I really like about him most of the time.
To frame this, we talk every day. A lot of texting after work and we almost always video call each other after work as well. Literally every night.
Around 7pm he didn't text me back. I didn't think too much of it, but after not getting a text till 9:30pn, around when I go to bed, I texted him again asking him why he wasn't texting. 30 minutes later, he texted me saying, "you're gonna be mad." I asked him why and he didn't text me back again for another 30 minutes.
So to add context... A lot of things went through my head. He has a ton of really close friends. A lot of those friends are women. He has a friend group that is very close hold. And in that friend group are 5 women. Over his 15 year friendship with all of them, he has had sex with every single one of them. All one night stand types of situations. 4 of 5 are incredibly nice and sweet to me. 3 of 5 are single.
Very early in our relationship, he told me he had slept with them because he had not told his previous ex girlfriend and it became a big issue in their relationship when it came out. I wasn't upset. He didn't know me, and he is a grown adult. I will admit it was a little uncomfortable the idea of meeting all these women who he calls his family but... whatever. Seriously, no hard feelings.
The hard feelings however did come when he mentioned that his girl friend, stopped by his apartment at 9pm just to have a drink and say hi. I told him I wasn't okay with it. I was super clear that for me, a relationship is based on trust and respect. I want a long term healthy relationship. I told him I trusted him, and I wouldn't be with him if I believed he would cheat on me, but it was a respect issue for me, having another woman, especially a woman he has slept with, being at his apartment alone. I asked him to set those boundaries with his friends not to drop by his apartment unannounced because he's now in a relationship. He was previously single for three years and I assumed he was just trying to acclimate to the subtle lifestyle changes of being in a relationship. He agreed. And I made it clear if it wasn't something he was willing to do, that I wouldn't be upset but that I simply wanted something different, I know myself and my comfort zone and that's just not it. A week later he texts me that he's getting ready to go get mini fried donuts and walk around the fair with one of his female former sex partner friends. It was 8:30pm. I told him no! It is just so disrespectful to me the idea that he would go alone with another woman and do what seems like an intimate date. He didn't go. About two months later we had a BBQ at his apartment. Of course all the friends are there. I genuinely like most of them. I fo painting with two of his girlfriends. Nothing is weird. But one of his friends in particular.... every single interaction that happened between them that day realllly bothered me. It started with her, setting her camera to take a selfie of everyone at the BBQ. He was sitting in a lounger and she literally laid across his lap, grabbed her leg and lifted it up. She was wearing leggings and she had a sizeable hole in her leggings in the crotch. I pointed to it and whispered to her to be discreet. She then proceeded to put her arm around my boyfriend and laugh and said, "I knooow. I have a hole!" He just laughed. Later that day, she was talking about how she never drinks water, only Coke Zero and my boyfriend responded, "well it's working for you, I mean, look at you." Clearly complimenting her body. Then later I was in the bathroom fixing my hair, (it's the only bathroom at his place) and he started knocking saying he had to pee. I let him in and he immediately closed the door behind him with me still in the bathroom and started peeing. I thought it was funny. I was laughing. All the sudden, the same friend is opening the door and saying she has to pee. I grabbed the door and closed it quickly, saying my boyfriend is in here! She laughed, kept pulling on the door with her body weight and said, "I don't care! Let me in!" He laughed and said, "we have no boundaries." I responded, snidely and honestly pretty rudely, "well you need to set some." Once everyone was gone, I confronted him about all those things that bothered me. I honestly felt disrespected. It was gross behavior. We are in our 30's. He apologized and said he wasn't thinking of it through my lense. That he and her have been friends for 20 years and it's just a close relationship. It was a little contentious but mostly a productive conversation. Two days ago his two female friends stopped by his apartment unannounced. He texted me right away. I was not upset they stopped by. I was annoyed because we had agreed to take a three week break from alcohol and I thought he had been drinking. He wasn't drinking and he told me it really bothered him that I didn't trust him. I apologized. I told him to enjoy his night and he called me late when they left. He made it clear earlier in our relationship that he wasn't going to turn his friends away from visiting him, but that he would tell them he wouldn't have just one girl over so he was true to his word and that's fair. Tonight we were texting at 7pm. He didn't respond to me which was really out of the ordinary. I waited two hours and texted him again asking why he didn't respond. He then responded, "you're gonna be mad." I asked him why and 30 minutes later he called me. He was blasted drunk. Like slurring his words drunk and told me he ran into his friend and her sister and went drinking with them. I was so upset. I asked him why he didn't just text me and he told me his phone died. I won't get into the minutia of it, but I caught him lying to me. He said his phone died and he was texting me to tell me but then he said his "you're gonna be mad" text was sent before his phone died which was literally 2 hours after he started drinking. I felt really hurt. He lied to me. And he didn't take my feelings into consideration. I think he didn't want to deal with what he thought would be a guilt trip if he told me so he decided not to text me at all. What bothers me is while he was trying to dig his way out of his lie, mind you he was really drunk, he called me jealous, possessive and obsessive. We ended the call and agreed to talk in the morning when he wasn't drunk. I started googling possessive, obsessive and jealous behavior. This is clearly aomething he has thought a lot about and to some degree must really feel that I am like that. I don't want to be that person. I don't want to nag or be questioning what he's doing. But I also don't want him to continue living his life like a bachelor. We both agreed our end goal in dating is a long term relationship. We both have aspirations of having kids and being married (someday). But his behavior literally makes me feel like he wants all the good parts of the relationship but wants to have the autonomy to act like a single guy. Am I crazy? Am I being possessive? I read something called, "13 signs your partner is possessive" and honestly, if I'm looking inward, I think I match three of them. They text you nonstop (but he texts me back. I never double text him) They get jealous (maybe it was jealousy but I was really disgusted with his friend at the BBQ and their behavior) They have unrealistic expectations (was it ok for me to be mad when he went out drinking with friends and didn't tell me?)
There's a quote about people who are crazy not knowing they are crazy. I just want a healthy, sustainable relationship. Am I crazy? Is this a me issue? Thanks in advance....
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