Relationship advice wouldn’t let me post there, and they suggested posting here for some reason, so here I am.

I (M/31) am in a 5 year relationship with my girlfriend (F/31) and we’ve always had our ups and downs and so on, but we’ve always talked through things or have compromised in one way or another. But as time has passed in our relationship it just feels like our differences in how we view the world and people are becoming more apparent.

So to paint a picture, my girlfriend got divorced from a man who not only was physically and verbally abusive, but also had some “fruity” tendencies so to speak. He was an alcoholic, and he’d randomly end up at gay bars by himself. So a lot of people speculate he’s gay (he’s happily married to a woman now). My girlfriend’s mom cheated on her dad with a woman when she was younger, causing their divorce. My girlfriend’s best friend’s (F/32) dad turned out to be gay, and cheated on her mother, causing their divorce. We see a pattern right?

Ok so first she has a problem with my best friend (M/31) that I’ve known since we were 6 years old. He’s like a brother to me, like he knows more about me than my actual brothers (I have 3) and I probably do for him as well. We’ve been thick as thieves most of our lives except for the last few years since her and I have been together. To paint a picture, my friend and I are former fat kids. All through elementary and middle school in we were little fatties, like at 13 years old I was probably in the 200s and he was 315 lbs. We both had that early onset depression thing going on that kids can have, especially when no girls even look at you and you’re always just treated as the goofy fat kid. We made a pact to lose weight together and we both started hitting the ymca every single day for hours, making like a total 180 for the both of us. He lost 140 pounds as a teen just exercising, but the lasting effects of growing up a fat kid with low self esteem can linger for a very long time. That being said he’s always struggled with girls. Like being able to read when they’re into him, having the confidence to approach a girl in the first place, etc. But he’s never struggled to have platonic girl friends. He treats them like a sister, and there’s been instances where some are very clearly into him and he just doesn’t see it or will downplay it as to not “ruin the friendship” kinda thing, which I get, but it can get lonely and taxing after a while. He’s had relationships in which he was infatuated with these women and loved them deeply, but things would go left and toxic things would start happening on one or both sides and they’d split. So he’s often perpetually single, holding onto his standards, and looking for the right one, but I digress.

My girlfriend is convinced he’s gay, and that he’s specifically gay for me. Mind you he’s never done anything actually gay at all or suspicious really. The only questionable thing aside from his loneliness is the occasional gay joke, which is always only directed at me or another friend he’s known for a very long time. These things aren’t uncommon amongst white men, especially if you’ve known your buddy for almost 30 years. Sometimes you just say ridiculous shit to see how your friend will react and then you both just end up laughing hysterically about something. But he’s made a few of these jokes in the past around her and she takes it totally differently. One night he came over to our place to hang out, we’re smoking, drinking, whatever, it gets late and he lives like 45 mins away so we offer our couch to him. Fine. Next morning they both wake up before me, I guess they’re in the living room chatting, he asks if I’m still asleep, she says “yea,” and then he says “Alright I can go in there in try to tickle him says “Alright I can go in there in try to tickle him awake.” Which for me is just kind of a non issue. He has the energy of a golden retriever with sudden bouts of depression, plus he’s my best friend so I don’t think much of it.

After he leaves it becomes this big ordeal and she starts pointing out all these reasons why she thinks he’s gay, and that she thinks he’s disrespectful and wants to take me from her and all this stuff. But she’s not just having a conversation with me like “have you ever thought he’s gay?” (I don’t). No, she’s calling him a faggot and saying all these really harsh things to me, and I’m just trying to explain to her why that’s not the case and she won’t hear it. To take things further she keeps stating that she’s worried I’m gonna end up gay and leave her. Like to the point that she gets uncomfortable when I text him, if we try to hang out (which we rarely ever do anymore). I’m an outdoorsy guy, I like camping, backpacking/hiking, all that stuff. So does my best friend and a lot of my friends, and my friend and I have taken plenty of camping trips over the years in which no remotely gay stuff has happened at all. But she insists that if he and I took a camping trip, that it would be to do “gay shit” because “that’s where fags go to do gay shit.” And she doesn’t understand why I’d have to camp and hike with him and why we can’t just do anything else. And the fact of the matter is she gets upset if we literally do anything together, but I doing outdoors stuff is literally a passion of mine, and he loves it too, so why wouldn’t you share the things you love with the people you love? I do it with her, sometimes friends also just take trips together. She’s taken trips with her girl friend, why can’t I with my boy friend?

I state that if she truly feels I’m gay deep down, and all these other things, why are we even together and why are you talking about wanting to get married and have kids with me? She chalks it up to her just being deeply insecure, her seeking assurance, and me not giving it to her. Which it’s been quite hard to give assurance when 1. It feels like we’re just living in two different realities in how we are experiencing the world, and 2. It’s hard for me to continuously offer reassurance when this is a recurring issue and she talks in a very aggressive and explosive manner (a lot of name calling and yelling while I try to just have a normal conversation.) And it always just ends in this weird stalemate. The thing is, I can see her insecurities and why her anecdotal experience would make her feel a certain way, but also as adults we have to use discernment in how we view people and we also have to choose to trust the people we want to spend our lives with, and I simply don’t feel trusted and feel as if she sees me as someone completely opposite to who I am. I’ve tried explaining him and everything to her from all angles, my perspective, experiences, etc. Nothing. I’ve talked to my friend about it all and have even asked him to not avoid making jokes or speaking in a certain way if he comes around (which he never does anymore), and he understands how she could feel a certain way and even he has a more nuanced view of it all than she is willing to have. Like he’s in the process of working on a children’s coloring book he wants to publish we’ve been hashing ideas. And just the other day he even made the joke to me that “Him making a children’s coloring book probably doesn’t help his case for not being gay.” So he even has light humor about it. But it all just feels weird.

Now, separate topic, but adding into the toxicity. The other night my girlfriend and I are out having drinks, just the two of us. She flips her phone around and shows me a picture of a little girl sitting on her mom’s lap. She asks me “Do you think this girl is handicapped or just ugly?” Baffled and caught off guard I kinda laughed and just said “I don’t maybe both? By I don’t really understand why it matters or why you’re showing me?” And she starts talking about how the mom in the picture is someone she went to high school with, and that she saw that picture and sent it to her sister and they’re debating on whether or not this child has a mental disability or is just ugly. In the moment it was like my dick went inside of me and I could feel like an ounce of attraction to her leaving my body. It just seemed so gross, gossipy, and like middle school bullying to have a text thread debating the looks and mental capacity of a literal child. And so I’m telling her I disagree with her whole conversation and that it just feels wrong. She send the picture to her dad and he weighs in and it becomes this bigger thing. Suddenly she acts like I’m the asshole and I have no sense of humor. Mind you, we go to comedy shows like monthly, I like dark humor and I’m pretty open to jokes about fucked up things. But I see a difference between a Shane Gillis or a Mark Normand talking about how dudes with Down syndrome are the bros and how they love grilled cheese, verses just being down right mean and saying “This child is either ugly as fuck or retarded.” Like it would never even occur to me, as an adult man, to see a child and even think like that. I have nieces and nephews that are this little girl’s age, it all just feels so weird to think like that.

She often is very gossipy and judgmental of other people’s lives. Like constantly on Facebook, will call her best friend or sister to talk shit about someone else’s post, “Did you see what so and so posted?” “Did you see that so and so got engaged, he’s so ugly.” “So and so got really fat.” In the same conversation about the little girl, she starts ranting about this girl she went to high school with having a lot of kids and creating a gofundme to help her with some money to take care of her kids. She starts talking down about this girl in a manner of “You shouldn’t be working at Buffalo Wild Wings and having five kids. Maybe you should be more responsible and you wouldn’t be asking others for money.” All this stuff, and it’s just so gross feeling and is a giant turn off for me. Like I get the responsibility thing and what not, but I just don’t think we can make full judgments and comments on other people’s lives and situations when we don’t know their story. I grew up poor, in an abusive household, with a large family. My mom set aside her dignity a lot to get us the things we had, and in the midst of that my dad beat the shit out of everyone and was very verbally abusive. My girlfriend knows all this yet talks the way she does and it’s extremely judgmental and just feels off. We both come from troubled paths to differing degrees, but it often feels like our brains have taken the opposite approach to life in which I feel very open minded about a lot of things and reserve my judgment until I get as much information as possible, as I know what it’s like to be judged and be the insecure poor kid covering up bruises and stuff. Whereas she just feels something and has a knee jerk reaction, judges, and then leans into it whole heartedly.

She incessantly brings up marriage and our future and all these things and acts like she wants them soon. But we’re on in the best financial place, and on top of all that so much of our relationship feels toxic and like we’re polar opposite people. I love her to death, and I don’t necessarily want to break up, but I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’ve compartmentalized all these things I’ve witnessed and have kinda stuffed them down, but over time they’ve compounded and it’s hard to avoid them in my head. Have I held on for too long? I don’t know what to do, but my therapist and some others have told me to run. Problem is, don’t really have anywhere to go… what do I do? Has anyone else experienced something like this? What did you do and what do you suggest? And I guess, am I the asshole?