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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

New man and younger woman friend

156 replies

Jasmine89 · 16/12/2021 17:10

Sorry another post from me! Been seeing a new man for a couple of months now, he seems lovely and is attentive and caring. We’re both in our 50s and divorced. He has a much younger woman friend who he describes as beautiful and they spend quite a lot of time together. They met through their dogs and usually go dog walking but I know she spends time at his place too. She doesn’t have family so he’s having her round for Christmas dinner as he’s not visiting his family either (so just the two of them). He did ask me to go along to something she’s organising this weekend but I can’t make it. I can’t help feeling a bit uncomfortable about the older man/beautiful young woman friendship, although he’s been very open about it. Am I being unduly paranoid?

OP posts:
Original poster
Jasmine89 · 17/12/2021 14:06

“If someone I'd been dating for a couple of months told me they were upset about my long-standing friendship with another person, & that they'd rather I didn't spend a planned xmas day with them ... I'd finish with the datee immediately”
@ChargingBuck I didn’t say I was upset about his friendship. I’ve known about the friendship since we met although only found out she was beautiful recently! I told him I felt a bit uncomfortable about him spending Christmas Day alone with her; a much younger beautiful woman (although I didn’t mention the last but!). I didn’t say I was upset about the friendship or that I didn’t want him spending Christmas Day with her.

OP posts:
ChargingBuck · 17/12/2021 14:49

I didn’t say I was upset about his friendship. I’ve known about the friendship since we met although only found out she was beautiful recently!
So ... you're not upset about the friendship, but you are upset about her beauty?

I told him I felt a bit uncomfortable about him spending Christmas Day alone with her; a much younger beautiful woman (although I didn’t mention the last but!). I didn’t say I was upset about the friendship or that I didn’t want him spending Christmas Day with her.
Then what was the point of saying anything at all?
You've told him that you are "uncomfortable", but maintain that you are not "upset". How is he meant to gauge the difference?

Maybe you'd be better off dating a man who has no women friends.
You haven't even met this one, yet you feel she's a threat. That's ... not healthy.

iknowitisfun · 17/12/2021 15:26

It's a big decision op. Why not just meet the woman first and check out his interactions with her?

Bookworm20 · 17/12/2021 15:51

OP, some of this sounds a little too familiar. I know most likely not, but you could be describing my exH.

He has a friend who is I would say mid twenties, hard to tell. She lives nearby, has no family and often goes to his for dinner, to hang out etc. She is going to his for xmas dinner this year. He has described women to me before as 'striking'.
Only thing is, I think this young woman is just a friend. He is the sort that would take pity on someone who was on their own, as a friend, not to take advantage of though iyswim. So I do think its just an odd sort of companionship.

I am not so aware if he has a new GF, but no reason why I would know this. I think he was dating someone a good 6 months back or so. He is slightly older then you decribe though, but he looks younger and I know his last OLD profile he lied and said he was 10 years younger.

Does he have DC?

Zilla1 · 17/12/2021 16:42

@ChargingBuck and others. How dare you be the (unknowing) OW in emotional affairs with so many emotionally unfaithful men. Terrible. How can you look in the mirror in the morning?

Zilla1 · 17/12/2021 16:48

I've seen the trajectory of coercive, controlling behaviour start off with isolating the DP from friends then family then have the DP blame themselves for how their insecure partner feels. You made me feel uncomfortable ....

Presumably the ban might need to be for friends of both sexes given some men are bisexual or in the closet.

Am unsure about the weight being given to 'beautiful'. 'You can't see her (or him). But I might let you see them as they're not beautiful enough to make me feel insecure or uncomfortable. Wait, less beautiful people can still be sexually active and even attractive. I might need to rethink this. Ok, no friends of any age and neither sex'.

tenredthings · 17/12/2021 16:53

I would be fine with him having that friendship. Have confidence in yourself and the fact he wants a relationship with you. You can't police his friendships because of your insecurities.

Corbally · 17/12/2021 17:05

@gannett

Well that's good. But on balance of probability my point still stands. And why should the OP, who is worked up about it, waste her time on a man where this is even a possibility, when there are thousands of them who don't have these friendships? So many people try to convince people that they should be ok with things men do that they don't like. Its like men are an endangered species to hang onto at all costs.

Personally I want a partner who does have strong friendships. It's a good character trait imo. The idea that it's a negative is quite bizarre to me.

OP doesn't say she doesn't like this man as a person. She doesn't like this friendship, but that says nothing about the quality of his character.

But I agree she should leave the relationship for whatever reason she wants - whether that's a good reason (she doesn't like him as a person) or a bad (imo) reason (she gets het up about friendships).

Yes, exactly. A partner who has strong friendships that enrich his life is important to me — I would run a mile from the small but significant subset of Mumsnetters who say they don’t do friendships, as it involves far too much drama and other people always being users etc etc. A man with a close female friend or friends (like my DH), friends who are Very Important People in his life is an actively good thing as far as I’m concerned. I don’t get the ‘I want to be the Only Woman In His Life’ territory marking stuff, or the idea that you should retire all opposite-sex friendships when you enter a relationship — I think that would make you a crappy friend.

Absolutely the OP should, obviously, end things for any reason if she isn’t happy, but the general drawing aside of skirts at the idea of a man being close friends with a younger woman and spending Christmas Day with her is nothing at all negative for me.

cruisecrazy · 17/12/2021 17:08

Me thinks I have read this fairy story somewhere else.

ChargingBuck · 17/12/2021 17:11

[quote Zilla1]@ChargingBuck and others. How dare you be the (unknowing) OW in emotional affairs with so many emotionally unfaithful men. Terrible. How can you look in the mirror in the morning?[/quote]
Oh, I don't bother with mirrors, @Zilla1 - I just see myself reflected in the glorious lovelight of my male friends' eyes ...

Zilla1 · 17/12/2021 17:14
Grin
AncreneWisse · 17/12/2021 17:46

If I were the new BF I would think that you had just sent out a whole lot of red flags yourself. I’d be seriously reconsidering the relationship.

You don’t want him for Christmas because “it’s too soon”, but you don’t want him to spend it with his friend that he is completely open about? Will you be vetting his next choice of Christmas guest too, or would you just be happier if he spent it on his own?

SunshineCake1 · 17/12/2021 18:09

Years ago when I was 18 ish I was friends with someone I worked with who must have been in their 30s. Just friends and he named his child after me and made me and my then boyfriend Godparents. It was only later I heard people thought we were having an affair. I wasn't impressed.

Chattycatty · 17/12/2021 18:22

So he has to spend Christmas day alone?

slashlover · 17/12/2021 19:17

@Chattycatty

So he has to spend Christmas day alone?
No, he's allowed to spend it with an ugly female friend, just not a beautiful one.
OutbackQueen · 19/12/2021 21:46

Sorry have name changed. We met up with his younger female friend. Utterly gorgeous but friendly and vivacious and with a crowd of her friends. We (as in me and her friends) got on like a house on fire. But he sat in the corner of the pub glowering and not saying a single word. It made me feel so uncomfortable. Anyway we left and I asked him why he’d seemed so uncommunicative and didn’t seem as if he’d enjoyed himself. It’s “not his thing” apparently and he then accused me of being aggressive and confrontational and utterly refused to engage with me for having raised it. Feel very let down that really there’s no way forward for us if he wants to shut me down like this.

UserBot · 19/12/2021 22:03

Ah, now this woman met you and liked you, perhaps his fantasy that he can cheat on you with her seems less likely....

Or, he believed he had some special bond with her but you who just met her gòt on with her easily too. Maybe she just gets on with everybody and its nothing to do with him?!

UserBot · 19/12/2021 22:05

Perhaps he hoped she would be jealous of you?

Perhaps he hoped you'd be jealous of her!

Either way, he is acting weird and it'd be such a turn off

Squeezita · 19/12/2021 22:11

Just RTFT. It seems people were right to doubt him.

Dump this one back in the sea.

OutbackQueen · 19/12/2021 22:15

Yes such a turn off @UserBot. If he’d introduced us and actually tried to have a conversation instead of sitting in the corner glowering, I would have felt comfortable. But what with his weird behaviour and then calling me out when I tried to ask him about bit.....I’m done.

LoveGrooveDanceParty · 19/12/2021 22:16

Oh read flags all over that, and I think you know that, right OP.

Plenty more 🐟 in the 🌊

UserBot · 19/12/2021 22:19

Good decision. I think he's got some agenda that you've been drafted in to.

OutbackQueen · 19/12/2021 22:27

Yes all too fucking weird for my liking. Why suggest we meet up and then sit there like something had shat on him from a great height? And then lay into me for asking him why he seemed so disengaged? And she WAS striking and there was no way I could have stopped comparing myself to her and why should I do that to myself....

LoveGrooveDanceParty · 19/12/2021 22:48

…he then accused me of being aggressive and confrontational and utterly refused to engage with me for having raised it.

In other words, ‘don’t you dare ever have an issue with anything I do, and if you do, I will shut you down immediately’.

Really healthy and functional. Not.

OutbackQueen · 19/12/2021 23:19

Yes that’s how it felt @LoveGrooveDanceParty. Hardly the basis for a healthy relationship. And the way he wouldn’t stop and talk to me, just carried on walking. Sent chills down my spine. And this was the man who was going to take me shopping tomorrow to buy me a really expensive gift... I’m no spring chicken so thought this was likely to be my last chance at a relationship. But far better off in my own.

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