To not know if my expectations are realistic?

[DiddlyBiddly]

Please be gentle with me, I really don't know if I'm being fair here. I'll try to keep to the relevant stuff, but think it might be a long one...

I have two friends, let's call them Peter and Jane. Peter is the son of a very close family friend. He is a couple of years younger than me and we've grown up together, albeit at a distance as they live the thee side of the country. He is, to all intents and purposes, family.

Jane is one of my school friends. Weber never been the closest of our group, but she is a good friend.

About 2 years ago, Jane started on a grad scheme. Peter studied the same subject at uni, and back in the summer got offered a place on the same scheme. I put them in touch so he could ask Jane some questions about the scheme etc. he took the job and moved here in September. Since then they have worked together on some projects and became good friends.

Peter had a girlfriend from Ireland at uni, who had to move back for various reasons. TBH, their relationship was never great, at least not from our POV.

Peter knew nobody apart from me and my DP, and just about knew Jane when he moved here. We've been introducing him to various friends. I invited him to our traditional pre-Christmas piss up get together with my school friends (including Jane).

On the night it all came out that Peter and Jane had slept together. We were all very drunk and so it was a bit of a mess. Peter was still with Irish girlfriend at this point. Jane basically declared her love for him at this point, though she was really quite pissed. They then proceeded to spend the rest of the night dancing very closely and snogging each other's faces off right in front of me, to the extent that Jane seemed to be purposefully following me around when I tried to move away.

Peter has since broken up with his girlfriend, but it all got a bit messy and he was really quite upset by it (clearly not as upset as his girlfriend, who was devastated. He readily accepts that he's been a total bastard in cheating on her).

Since then Peter and Jane have spent pretty much every second together. He confided to me the other day that he has no idea how it will go, but is just going along with it because it's making him happy right now.

Now of course, I want them both to be happy. But I am really sad and worried that one or both of them is going to get hurt. Jane has been going through a really tough time lately, and was recently really hurt when someone else she was seeing told her he didn't want a proper relationship. She had a bit of a history for having casual relationships in which she then gets hurt when her much stronger feelings aren't reciprocated.

I also worry that this is becoming. A bit all-consuming for them, and that they're isolating themselves in this little pocket of life they've created for themselves. They're working, sleeping and practically living together. If it all goes tits up then that's everything, especially for Peter who still has very few other friends here.

I absolutely do not see a future for them. They are incredibly different people with different outlooks on life. I worry that they were both a bit vulnerable and their friendship became very intense.

How do I stay a good friend to both of them? They both know I'm struggling with it a bit, but are quite flaunting of being together. I arranged to meet up with Peter for a coffee, and when I got there Jane was there too. I went round to see Jane and a friend staying with her, and she invited him along.

AIBU to want to see each of them without the other? Or is that unfair?

Also, each of them keep trying to confide in me about the situation. AIBU to say I don't want to keep being dragged into it?

If they end up together and in love, fine, I'll accept that and get used to it, but as it is they are basically just sleeping together and I don't want to know!

And finally, AIBU to expect them to not be all over each other when I'm around? Even other friends who'd never met Peter before were commenting is was a bit grim

This really is helpful for sorting through it all in my head, btw. I pretty much knew I was being unreasonable but am so caught up in it all that things are blowing massively out of proportion and I've lost sight of what is realistic and reasonable.

I think your issue is that you feel like Peter's semi-sister and you also feel responsible for the relationship, because you're the reason the two of them know each other. But truly, OP, back off - they would probably have met without your intervention, being on the same grad scheme, so you can stop feeling like the whole thing (and what you see as the inevitable break-up) is your doing.

I think you're also massively over-playing your status as Friend of the Family with Peter, and Old School Friend of Jane, as if you know them better than they know themselves, and they should have asked your advice first. (And that remark about Peter's previous relationship being 'not great from our pov' is plain pompous.) The Irish woman's heartbreak is not your fault, and while a Peter behaved badly, it's not unusual in post-university LDLs.

You're entirely within in your rights to want to see them separately, of course, but you need to deal with the fact that this may distance you from both temporarily or permanently - at the moment, they are more important to one another than you are to either.

Sorry, that sounded more hostile than I intended! No one likes feeling superseded, so feeling sad about being sidelined isn't unreasonable.

Actually, Holy, I think you might have hit on something around me feeling like this is all my doing, and therefore feeling at like I'm partly responsible for him breaking up with his girlfriend and the hurt that it's caused for both of them. I think that might be making me almost take it out on them and their current/potential relationship. But that is basicallyu problem to get over, isn't it?

diddly just wanted to say, as I am about to go out, that you sound like such a lovely friend for wanting to get your head round this. I'm sure you'll sort it all out.

I have a friend of 25 years who has been single all that time. Although she knows, and gets on well with my parter and kids, we generally have only got together without them; just the two of us.

She recently had a whirlwind romance and married. A lovely bloke. After a period of adjustment, while we all tested each other out I suppose, we started to go out as a foursome or even with kids in tow too. It was different, but worked well. However, now the initial romance has worn off a bit for them, I find my friend suggesting again that just she and I meet up together, which Is also great.

Relationships can be very fluid and I do think you have to go with the flow.

I have a friend who lurches from one disaster to another....she jumps in with both feet....I really love this friend, she is like the sister I never had....she has given me sleepless nights with her antics...after a while I realized its not up to me to tell her how she should behave, live her life etc...to tell the truth I now listen with half an ear, actually tell her TMI!!....our relationship is still great, I still worry (lots sometimes) but have learnt to back away...she comes to me when she needs me...I am there for her...but have 'hardened' my heart IYSWIM...first thing...learn to say that you' don't want to hear this'...you can still have a good relationship with them...

This is a 22 year old friendship BTW and we are still friends...

Thanks Dean, I do want to be a good friend to them both, even if I'm being a bit of a prat rigt now

Firstly, if they're spending every spare minute together and don't socialise separately anymore then they are clearly not "just sleeping together". They are in a relationship. YOU might not feel they're suited to one another, but they may disagree and, not to be harsh but how you feel isn't really important here. They are clearly happy together and just because they're very different that doesn't mean it won't last. So if you want to maintain these friendships you need to find a way to be OK with it or you will find yourself losing two friends if it turns into something long term.

Secondly, you seem to be implying that Jane is rubbing her relationship with Peter in your face (words like " flaunting" etc) in an attempt to wind you up, which is clearly working. Have you considered why she might feel a need to do this? I can only assume that either a.) Jane is insecure and feels threatened by your longstanding friendship with Peter or b.) you have made it very obvious that you aren't happy for them and she has interpreted this as sexual jealousy. Either of these could lead to her feeling that she has to mark her territory. If you can try to relax about the whole thing then the OTT displays of affection might well stop.

There is also a possibility that she isn't "flaunting" anything, that they are behaving in a way that is perfectly normal for a couple in a new relationship and you are just finding it hard to stomach because you are jealous. Only you can say if that's the case.

The flaunting comment was particularly (in my head) around the Christmas do, where they were very much all over each other, and it was very new news to me. They were very much close dancing/snogging (he was, at this point, still in a relationship). I was uncomfortable and kept trying to move away a little, dancing with my DP, turning slightly so they weren't right in my eye line. Every time I moved they would reappear right next to me. At one point Jane danced backwards physically between me and my DP so that she and Peter were in between us Looking at it now I can see that perhaps Jane knew I was a bit WTF about it all and wanted me to be ok with it all but was drunk and a bit OTT.

So in that context I think thy were being a bit in my face, but then again none of us were in a particularly for state to be sensible about it all! That said I can see how I'm probably now being unfair by still seeing it as flaunting when they're together now, though other friends who were with us the one night were making 'get a room' type comments, so I'm possibly not entirely unreasonable.

I think you're right in that by bein uptight about it I'm probably contributing to the OTT displays and if I can step back a bit then it might calm down.