to get slightly irked by DP's close female pal?

[racetobed]

DP and I get on great, we love each other, are moving in together shortly. I am very happy and I trust him. Currently we spend 3 nights a week together. However, i tend to be in on my own the other 4 nights as I have dc (whom, incidentally, he adores). I don't have many friends here myself, as I moved back home to be near my parents when i became lone parent.

My issue is that DP's best friend is female. I have met her, and find her agreeable enough, just a tad overbearing. She has a boyfriend. I know nothing will ever happen between them, but still, it hurts when I am spending Friday night alone with a sleeping dc and he is out for a meal with her (they tend to go out for food, rather than the pub as she's teetotal and he's not a big drinker either).

Once we live together, it will be easier for us to all hang out together, but until then, it gets on my nerves. The fact is, I wouldn't feel like this if he was out with another bloke. It irks me that he has to hang out once a week with another woman - albeit an attached one. Yet as I say, i trust him, I feel very secure in his love for me and happy in our relationship. I am hoping to make more friends myself once we live together as he lives in a bigger city where there's more to do, but i wonder - would he like it if i was hanging round with another bloke? I do have male friends, but truth be told there's always been some sexual shenanigans at some point. Perhaps he's just more mature than me. ANyway. Given his reassurance and all-round greatness, adn the fact she's got a boyfriend anyway, i'm BU, aren't I?

[M0naLisa]

Does he know how you feel?

[MrsMushroom]

Why does he choose Friday nights with her? I'd be a bit too as Friday's are a sort of celebratory night....for partners as well as friends.

[BumBiscuits]

I had a best male friend who I used to meet up with once a week. There was no harm in it. He had a girlfriend and I had a boyfriend. We met up every Thursday without fail. Sometimes there were other mates there too. Our respective DPs sometimes joined us but weren't encouraged.

We celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary this year.

[OHforDUCKScake]

That must be hard.

But if its always been that way, then no way can you change it. Not even when you move in IMO.

I have platonic male friendships who I meet on their own, they are not single, they are friends and absolutely no threat. DP wouldnt ask me to stop it (been together 13 years so I guess time is on our side) and I dont think you can.

I know you will say 'I wont ask him to stop it! Just maybe tell him how I feel.' Its pointless, otherwise why tell him at all?

Keep quiet, you need to deal with it. But I can see it must be hard.

[RillaBlythe]

I think YABU but you will get plenty of posters who agree with you. I think it's bonkers to suggest that just because you & this friend are both female, he has no need to be friends with her anymore as you fulfil all his female needs.

One of DP's best friends is female. I know that they did kiss drunkenly once or twice at uni, but never since. She is godmother to DD1 & a brilliant person. In fact I think it speaks volumes for DP that she is friends with him.

As to Friday nights being for partners - really?!

[racetobed]

We've talked about it once or twice. He told me the friendship caused him massive problems with his ex-girlf. I said that I was cool with male-female friendships as long as he made an effort to involve me in their socialising and didn't expect it to be exclusive (ie, maybe invite her round to ours for dinner once we're living together if we don't have a babysitter for my dc). I also said I wouldn't be happy if he prioritised seeing her over me. (MrsMushroom - it's not every Friday, but we always spend Saturdays and Sundays together as I work Saturdays mornings. So that's why he's with her tonight). We rowed about it once when I had been ill and after 3 days of being on my own ill with a toddler he couldn't understand why I was so upset when he arranged to see her instead of coming to see me. He apologised for being insensitive and not intuitive enough, cancelled her and came round to see me.

I should also say she brought xmas presents for me adn my dc, so she is definitely making an effort to be nice to me. Its not her herself that pisses me off, it's their mutual dedication to their friendship.

[RillaBlythe]

would you be pissed off if there was mutual dedication in a same sex friendship?

[racetobed]

no, rilla, that's the thing, I know I'm being unreasonable! I'm ashamed of myself. I think you're right - it would be bonkers to presume I fulfil all his female needs or he can't be friends with her bc he now has me. I know I'm being a dick and it's not worth making an issue out of. Like ducksake says, I really have to keep quiet and deal with it.

[TallyGrenshall]

Why would you be pissed off they are 'mutually dedicated to their friendship'? Are you not mutually dedicated to your friends? Or either sex? Or would you be perfectly happy to drop any friend, even your best friend because DP didn't like them for no reason?

[RillaBlythe]

to me, it's ignoring the fact that you are different people. You have one thing in common - you are both women (okay you might have more in common but that's all I have to go on now!). But you are not interchangeable!

[TallyGrenshall]

x-posted

Just try to relax about it, I'm sure you will meet her soon. It doesn't sound like he is keeping you seperate on purpose, it's just a distance thing

[racetobed]

No, Tally! I wouldn't drop my friends. I guess I just needed to be told. I am actually quite embarrassed now about this thread (and a total hypocrite, as I am very good friends with some of my exes, while he only has a strictly platonic past with his female pal. So he would have much more cause for jealousy than me, if I were to meet up with them.)

I think perhaps the deeper issue is my sadness about leaving London and all my mates when I had my dc. The truth is I feel very lonely here and need to be careful that I don't become overly-dependent on him. And it would be utterly churlish to make my lovely dp give up his friends to compensate for my losses.

Thanks for the straight talking! :)

[whateveritakes]

I think you might also be just as pissed off with him if he had a bestest male buddy that he spent Friday nights with whilst you were stuck at home.

I had a ex like this and his total devotion to his mate did grow wearing TBH. I wouldn't have minded if he was just really social generally but it was just the one mate and it just got annoying.

[FreePeaceSweet]

I had a man best friend. It was purely platonic. When we went out we'd crash in each others bed and nothing ever happened. We always vowed we'd be friends forever (he'd make me promise when we were pissed.) When I got with dh everything was fine. We obviously stopped the bed thing but everything else was great and carried on as normal. Dh was absolutely fine with it and never said a word about it because he trusts me. Then he (my friend) gets a girlfriend and I'm history. I'm not blaming her entirely if he ever noticed tension he'd do his best to ease it but ultimately something had to go and it was me. If he wanted to continue the friendship then I'm sure he'd have stood up to her. She was always so nice to my face but with her friends she'd stand at the bar looking at me and talking to her friends and then start laughing or doing that bursting out laughing snort while saying "I know!" She was trying to make me paranoid and make me look like a weirdo. It was so obvious what she was doing but I never said a word about her to him because I wouldn't give her the satisfaction. I was no threat to her. She was taller and slimmer than me, gorgeous, and not heavily pregnant. Plus I was married.

A couple of years ago I saw their wedding pictures on fb. There were friends at the wedding that he only knew through me. I won't lie but I was devastated. They have kids now too. I'm happy that he got everything he wanted. He made no secret of the fact that he wanted to be a dad and in love with his babies.

I haven't seen or heard from him in 7 years. My only crime is that I wasn't a male.

[TallyGrenshall]

Pfft, everybody gets irrational about something

OH's best friends are both female, and I'll admit to having a bit of a wobble about it until I met them One of them is now a very close friend of mine as well.

Like I said, just relax and get to know her.

Good luck with your move

[ImperialBlether]

Am I the only person that would really hate this? Of course it makes a difference that she's female! I would hate to be sitting at home while he's out for a meal with another woman. And when you're living together, how's it going to be - "Oh don't wait up for me, I'm out for the night with MsFriend"?

Would the rest of you really be so tolerant and accepting or have you just never been put into this position?

[jessjessjess]

Hmm. Two of my close friends are male. There have never been any shenanigans, you don't have to fancy someone to be friends with them.

[racetobed]

:( Sad for you, Freepeace. THat's a really horrible story. I promise I won't be such a dick. Sorry you lost a good friend.

[TallyGrenshall]

Tolerant of friendships? Yes.

To me it makes no difference if that friend is a male or a female. Like I said, OH's best friends are both female, I had a brief wobble when he told me and then met them, mainly because my previous bf's didn;t really have female friends.

OH has been on nights out with them without me, he has been to gigs with them without me and stayed overnight at their houses without me. I have done the same with my male friends.

Trust is trust regardless of gender

[FreePeaceSweet]

I'm sure you won't race. Try not to make a big deal out of it because its never nice for the person who loses. It would most likely be her but some blokes do odd things when pressured. I always wonder what I did wrong but deep down I know I did nothing wrong. Of course it was her over me, he loves her, she loves him. The sad thing is, if he ever got in contact I'd love that. I'd forget being cast aside. I'd just be happy to have my friend back. I know that would never happen though. I'm well and truly old news. I wouldn't care but he used to bitch about people who did that to friends.

[Jelly15]

I would not have been happy for my DH to have had a best female friend and he would not have liked it if my best friend was male. Other than family I am the only woman in his life that he loves and if that makes me insecure then there you go. It would have been her or me in the beginning and if he chose her then he wouldn't have been the man for me and I would have moved on.

[flurp]

Make an effort to befriend her - you might like her and become friends yourself.
I met one of my closest friends when she was dating a male friend of mine. They have since split up and I lost touch with him but she is now a friend for life.

[QuacksForDoughnuts]

YANBU to be irked. YWBU, however, to actually try to put a stop to the friendship or issue an ultimatum, unless she does something spectacularly nasty to you. (Your OP doesn't suggest that she has) What do you mean when you call her overbearing? Is she overbearing with you, with him or just generally? If there's any hint of a power struggle, I'm afraid you're likely to be the one to rise above it. However, there's no harm in setting boundaries - if their friendship is constantly exclusive and consumes a large proportion of his time that is unavailable to you, it's fine to try to alter this and question it. You, not her, have dibs on alone time and physical affection with him. (I should say, the absence of alcohol in the equation seems like a good thing, no drunkenly falling into each other's arms/other bodily regions!) And absolutely make your own friends - meetup.com is good for finding people with similar interests.

[kiwimumof2boys]

When i first met DH he had an extremely good female friend who i also became friends with. I knew there was absolutely no way ever that anything would happen between them, and she was great, backed off a bit (not at my suggestion) but I was jealous that he told her things and confided stuff in her he never did with me - ie stuff about his ex gf and stuff that I think he didn't want to hurt me or make me jealous. I guess it was an emotional affair. we (me and DH) moved in together, and gradually she slipped out of our lives - still mates on FB but have different priorites now (we have DC's, she still single in the city etc).
Your DP does sound great, I wouldn't worry TBH. How long have they known each other ?

[NorthernLurker]

My dh has a female best friend. She is also my best friend. I trust both of them absolutely. In the past, when she was single dh has stayed over night with her when he was nearby. i have never thought twice about it. i think its been very sad that some women insist on being the only woman in their man's lie. yes it is insecure. very insecure!