Boyfriend meeting an old flame for dinner.

[Fuminggirlfriend]

My boyfriend has a good female friend, one which he has a sexual past with. The sexual relationship occurred around 7 years ago, and they have remained just friends since.

At the beginning of our relationship, he mentioned that his ex girlfriend had taken issue to him having such a friendly relationship with said girl. They frequently went for dinners, on holidays, on nights out to the theatre etc. He asked how I felt about maintaining this sort of relationship with this female friend.

I was open and honest and told him it made me feel uncomfortable that they would go out for dinners and to gigs and the theatre, given their history. I asked him what he’d think if it was the other way round. He said he wouldn’t be happy with me maintaining this level of friendship with someone I had a sexual past with. So we both agreed that the surface friendship with her we are both happy with, but he would not have the same level of intimacy eg. Dinners etc.

Tonight we all went out for a drink and said female friend was present. She mentioned that a couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend and her had gone for dinner and drinks after work. Suffice to say I was not happy. When I confronted him afterwards he said he genuinely ‘forgot the conversation’ and ‘didn’t even think about it.’ It’s more the lying and deceit than anything else. If he had an open and frank conversation and expressed how keen he was to continue this level of friendship, we could have tried to reach a scenario that we were happy with. I am incredibly annoyed that we’ve had a conversation at the beginning of our relationship, where he said he appreciated my honesty and agreed he wouldn’t be happy the other way round, yet continued to do it anyway?!

AIBU to think this is absolute bullshit.

But it's part of adult life to drift away fron friendships IME. It's ages and stages. I had a lot of male friends at uni when I was happily single. Now? Not really.. a bit of FB banter. I'm too busy for more.

If he is loved up, settles down, does up a house, starts a family, there is limited time for him to spend on socialising and he might well prefer a bit of masculine company... the way I walk don't run to see my girls whenever I escape work & family!

I don't see having close male friends as a symptom of immaturity or singleness, or something to be drifted away from in my post-student yars I'm mid-40s and my closest male friend is early 50s, both of us married, working FT, with children and while, like most people, I have limited time for socialising, I don't allocate that limited time on gender grounds.

Don't you? I do. I want to get shitfaced and laugh like hags at men.

Why does he still want to spend time with her though? Did she finish the relationship? It sounds like he still wants to be around her and will put your relationship with him in jeopardy to do so. Most men would not do this. When it's over, it's over.

Ah right, now he 'forgot' about your conversation as 'he's having a hard time'

Hahaha.

Oh gawd OP, a year? I'm so sorry but DUMP. You will though, I think, so good.

Don't you? I do. I want to get shitfaced and laugh like hags at men.

Dump for having dinner with a close friend he has relied on for support for the last 7 years?

The lying is bad. But seems like you also manipulated your bf into stopping his maybe much needed support with a friend.

I have male friends that wouldn't be able to be open to their other male friends like they are with their close girl friends.

I would have very little respect for someone who binned a longterm close friendship because his new girlfriend was insecure or had weird ideas about opposite-sex friendships. Fortunately neither my DH nor my male best friend's wife hail from the 1850s and imagine my friend and I are ripping one another's clothes off in Caffe Nero.

Yeah I know, but they are now engaged so look what can you do? I have moved 2 hours away so it may not have worked out anyway. She never even met me, maybe if she had she would not have been as worried! lol

OP: you sound level-headed and sensible but I'd question whether a relationship was 'open and honest' if one party was found to be lying. That's the very definition of dishonest, and I'm afraid it would cause me to question what else he was lying about. Shaky trust is no basis for a relationship. And I agree with you that it's the lying that is the real problem here. Because, IME, people who are not pathological liars in the first place don't lie about things like this unless they're hiding something. Why bother, otherwise?

Thinking this through from the other woman's perspective, I've also had male friends, some of whom were exes. But if a man for whom I had no romantic feelings invested this degree of confidence in me, I'd gently break away. For one thing, I wouldn't have the time or emotional energy to devote to this level of neediness; nor would I be at all happy if said friend's own romantic relationships kept floundering because of my presence. Quite frankly, these are all complications to my life that I really don't need - unless, of course, there was some underlying emotion that was driving me.

It may well be that there is no continuation of their physical relationship. But what undeniably does exist is a very unhealthy level of emotional co-dependency between these two people that has no place in either of their other romantic relationships. Unfortunately, it very much sounds as if this man has unfinished business with his ex: to the extent that it's already cost him one relationship and he seems to be showing scant concern that it's now threatening the integrity of another. I also suspect that unless he makes a clean break from this woman and does so of his own accord, it's a pattern that's set to continue.

Don't settle for being anyone's second best, OP. You deserve better than that.

DH has several good female friends from school days - one he even went backpacking with, and all of whom he remains close with to this day.

I met them all early on, liked them all, and became friends with them myself, to the extent that I went on girls's holidays with them. They're all fab.

So although he went (platonically) traveling with one of them back in their single days, and genuinely really cares about them all, RiversDisguise is absolutely right - the friendships have changed over the years, since significant partners, children and family life has come along.

To be fair, DH doesn't go out for dinner, shows, drinks alone with his male friends, either - so not doing it (alone) with one female friend isn't exactly some hardship.

I think some people - as ever on here - just enjoy being obtuse.

Taking a break is a good idea. Because of his secrets and lies, there is a power imbalance in your relationship.

As a result of the initial conversation, you trusted that he would respect your boundaries regarding this woman. He agreed, but was likely only paying lip service, in which case that was his first lie.

It sounds like she is his priority. He treated you with contempt when he went to dinner and drinks with her, lied by omission, and lied further about ‘forgetting’ your agreement and by claiming the dinner was spur of the moment. He has possibly had other 1:1’s with her.

I could not be with such an unethical man.