Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think I am not an idiot and people should keep their mouths shut/noses out

101 replies

AbandonedIron · 12/09/2016 00:18

NC because my other username is quite identifying and I'd rather this wasn't attached.

I've been seeing a guy for several months, officially "in a relationship" for a month or so now.

We have a happy relationship, very open with each other, I love him and trust him completely. He has a close female friend who lives at the other end of the country, she is planning to come and stay with him for a few days next month. He lives with his cousin and her family who have a spare room but sometimes their mother has to stay with them too to help with childcare and so she uses the spare room.

If his mother is staying whilst the friend visits she will need to sleep in his room. Several of my friends have said I'm stupid for letting this happen and that I shouldn't be ok about it. I was fine with it before they said this and now worry that I'm being a mug.

This friend is important to him, they have shared rooms while on holiday together before he met me and nothing happened. I want to meet her and like her not end up resenting her because I've been talked into being suspicious/ jealous.

AIBU to think that my friends shouldnt be warning me not to trust my boyfriend and basically saying he wont stay faithful because his friend happens to be female?

Friend is slightly younger than us and an attractive looking girl, if that is relevant.

OP posts:
coffeetasteslikeshit · 12/09/2016 01:25

I'd trust him, there's no point in being with him if you don't.

coffeetasteslikeshit · 12/09/2016 01:25

Perfectly put Orchids!

Bogeyface · 12/09/2016 01:25

If they are genuinely just friends then no problem, however I have been the girlfriend in this situation and my boyfriend was only friends with her because he had been in love with her for years and it was friends or nothing. We split because he was always only available for me if she didnt want to go out for a "platonic" date.

They never did get together because she didnt see him that way, although she never actually said as much and he kept hanging on in the hope she would eventually start seeing him as she had hinted she would. She got married to someone else in the end and he was all over the place. Shame because he was a nice man, but just couldnt see what he didnt want to see, and she liked having her back up whenever she wasnt seeing someone.

I would want to read the interaction between them, you will be able to tell pretty quickly if it is anything more than friendship. And yes, I am projecting!

oldlaundbooth · 12/09/2016 01:31

Weird how they are always attractive young women, never some decrepid old bloke.

GreatFuckability · 12/09/2016 01:34

well if it was a bloke, then the issue would be moot, surely booth?!

I think orchids put it very well. sharing a bed isn't going to make them suddenly realise they are desperately in love.

if YOU trust him, then go with your instinct.

Original poster
AbandonedIron · 12/09/2016 01:38

Orchids that's exactly how I see it. He has never given me any reason not to trust him. I'll be miles away for the majority of her visit, whether they happen to sleep in the same room at night time wont make a difference either way and until my friends started to comment I didn't really think twice about it.

I don't want my friends comments to niggle at me until I end up feeling suspicious and resenting her/ accusing him of not being trustworthy.

OP posts:
Original poster
AbandonedIron · 12/09/2016 01:40

If it was a bloke then my friends wouldn't have said anything, given that my boyfriend is straight and hardly likely to change his sexuality overnight.

OP posts:
ButtMuncher · 12/09/2016 02:07

If you trust him - which you appear to - that's great - it's perfectly possible to have a male/female friendship that doesn't need to transcend the friendship 'zone'. It's kind of your friends to be looking out for you, but it's actual just causing you more concern.

I had a similar thing - when I first met my DP he was about 6 months out of a split with his ex who he has a son with - he lived not far from me, so a good 30 miles away from his old family home. Once or twice a week he would go and stop over in his old home for the night to spend time with his son - he was renting a room temporarily so it wasn't really feasible for his son to stay with him - not to mention the distance, so he would drive round to his exes after work, she would go out and DP would sleep on the sofa and take his son to school in the morning.

I knew this v early on, had absolutely no issue with it whatsoever and carried on as normally. Until I was warned by my friends that he could be effectively having his cake and eating it. Which made no sense, as he was missing his son desperately and was only doing it to see him more - it was clear it was not particularly good boundaries but needs must. In the end, I ended up feeling insecure about something I had absolutely no need to and hadn't done until my friend mentioned it. DP carried on doing this for a few months but eventually got a flat and the stopovers ceased, and I hated myself for being relieved.

AbyssinianBanana · 12/09/2016 02:08

And he will have no issues if you share a bed with a man he's never met before, right? Because you're in a long distance relationship and either he trusts you or doesn't. I suspect he'd tell you it's about respecting him as your boyfriend Hmm

Tibblesthecat · 12/09/2016 02:23

I dated a man many years ago. He had worked briefly in Germany and had made some female friends, two of which visited him when he returned home. While I was seeing him, they visited him one time and he later told me they thought it was very strange that he didn't sleep with them (both?!) while they were staying with him.

He told me in a way that was supposed to tell me that they (both?) fancied him yet he didn't fall into bed with them (presumably as he had done on previous occasions).

It turned out that man did cheat on me. Perhaps not with them but with anyone else who would agree to sleep with him. He broke my heart. Literally. But that is another story for another day.

Original poster
AbandonedIron · 12/09/2016 02:26

I'll have met her, albeit briefly, before she has spent the night as I'm going with him to the bus station to pick her up.

I never thought of it being the other way around to be honest, I'm not sure what his reaction would be- I do have a few male friends who I see fairly often. I suppose the same goes for me- we live far enough away and move in more or less completely separate social circles that even if a male friend wasn't staying over at my house I could still cheat and be unlikely to be caught if the notion took me. If he hasn't mentioned any concerns I'd assume he trusts me as well?

OP posts:
OwlinaTree · 12/09/2016 02:39

Well if they've been friend for years surely if they were going to be together they would be by now?

Atenco · 12/09/2016 03:36

I like what Orchids says. Either you trust him or you don't and if you didn't trust him, it would be hell on earth policing him.

Enjoy the trust, if it is misplaced, he would be the one at fault, not you.

I don't think I have ever been in a relationship where I didn't trust my partner, at least in that, but I have been ones where my partner didn't trust me and I hated it. If you say you love me, you should know that I am a person who wouldn't cheat.

Original poster
AbandonedIron · 12/09/2016 03:52

That's the thing, I have had my trust broken in the past in a vaguely similar situation. An ex-boyfriend would go out with a large group of his friends, tell me female friend had stayed over but nothing happened. Had my suspicions and later found out he had slept with her a few times when this was happening.

I had my suspicions anyway and didn't fully trust him to begin with but with my current partner I feel completely different.

OP posts:
onemorecupofcoffeefortheroad · 12/09/2016 04:17

If they wanted to be together then surely they'd have got together a long time ago before you were ever on the scene.
If there was something untoward going on surely he just wouldn't tell you about their sleeping arrangements as he wouldn't want to raise your suspicions.
If he's going to cheat on you he'll cheat and there's little you can do.

I would trust that what he says is true and that he is being honest with you.

Original poster
AbandonedIron · 12/09/2016 04:36

Thankyou onemore, I suppose they may not necessarily be together if they were that way inclined because she lives at the opposite end of the country. I did ask if they had ever hooked up in the past and he said no, I believe him.

You are right about the sleeping arrangements, if he wanted to cheat he'd be trying to cover something like that up. He genuinely seems keen for me to meet her and I think it's because she is important to him

OP posts:
Original poster
AbandonedIron · 12/09/2016 04:38

Oops, pressed post too early.

... I think it's because she is important to him in the same way as meeting a family member might be.

I was looking forward to meeting her and I'm going to try and keep that at the forefront of my mind. I don't want this to become a sore point for me just because my friends have planted seeds of doubt.

OP posts:
Welshrainbow · 12/09/2016 05:50

Honestly wouldn't bother me at all, they're freiends that's all. Unless when you meet her you think either of them would be interested in more if the other wanted it. Other than that though it wouldn't bother me.

TheDowagerCuntess · 12/09/2016 06:14

You clearly have no spidey, tingly weirdness about this, so I'd just trust him.

If he wanted to be with her, he would by now. And neither of them are likely to want to jeopardise their friendship by adding sex into the equation, at this late stage of events.

It sounds perfectly plausible - if you felt like something was up, that would be different, but you don't.

Idefix · 12/09/2016 06:35

How do your friends know about the sleeping arrangements? Is his because you told them or are they his friends also?

I ask because if they are your friends then you telling them suggests that in your mind there is a niggle of 'what if' and if they are his friends I would maybe take it as a heads up.

They don't have to be in a relationship to have sex it may be a thing in this relationship to have sex when they see each other and then again they may not. I am guessing that the intention for them to have a sleeping bag on the floor/camp bed.

KayTee87 · 12/09/2016 06:43

I have a close male friend, almost like a brother. We've shared a bed in the past and not thought anything of it. Men and woman can just be friends. Likewise my husband has a couple of good female friends.

OnionKnight · 12/09/2016 06:47

I agree with OrchidsAndLace, trying to police this would be mentally exhausting, you cannot stop anybody from cheating, they will find a way if they want to.

Laineymc7 · 12/09/2016 06:50

Don't let anyone make you paranoid. If there was anything going on or they wanted to be together they would be. They also would have had ample opportunity before you came along. They don't and are just friends hence why you two are together. Please don't worry. I'd get a bit of the green eyesd monster too as its natural but I don't think you've got anything to worry about.

wheresthel1ght · 12/09/2016 06:50

I haven't read the responses but if you trusted him over this before your "friends" started talking crap then why are you doubting him?

twirlywoo69 · 12/09/2016 06:54

How would he feel if you had a male friend who you shared a bedroom with?