Hating his female best friend normal?

[Clueless1978]

Blimey where to start, BF has a female best friend a married lady I’ve never met been together for 3 years. It’s always Maggie this or that.

Im pretty jealous of this lady soley for the fact that my partner has a deep emotional connection with her. She happens to be a therapist for a living so listens unlike me! I’ve tried changing myself, spending hours listening without giving advice and give so my empathy until I feel empty and drained.

small things started to happen at the start, he would tell me he met up with her for coffee (I had no issues with that I’m in early 50’s) thought no problem known each other few years long than me. Even stupidly encouraged it when he felt down!

however, small things were feedback, we went to this place she pretended I was her toy boy… she speaks about her sex life with her hubby saying it’s so important in relationships brings people together, her son thinks it would be wonderful as he is so much fun to be around if he moved it (this is when she was having rough patch with her husband, my BF is so loveable! Really pissed me off I hope understandably or maybe I’m petty.

she knew we was on a night out together- he gets a love heart emoji sent to him. I go mad and he implies I’m nutty and have nothing to worry about

month later, his phone on the table I love you so much my dear friend is received out of no where… WTF he said friends tell each other they love each other all the time. Sort of making out I’m crazy again. I was too embarrassed to actually ask my friends if this was normal, convinced myself she must be a hippy type of person ha! And must be normal just I’ve not experienced that. Maybe with my BF of years same sex.

anyway, I blew up and said I’m find it disrespectful and uncomfortable please stop encouraging her or allowing her to think all this stuff is ok and that your partner basically doesn’t like it - he went into you’ve got nothing to worry about. I’m not telling her to stop as we are only friends we have no problem it’s only me that does and I need to grow up!

finished! Slowly got back together and her name wasn’t mentioned for a while and then all started again. He had continued seeing her and nothing any different. I said how her husband would feel if he read all their messages and I’m not being crazy (you ladies might tell me I am though) I said if you’ve got nothing to hide, can I see the context of your message No they are private between us and you obviously don’t trust me. This is a never ending battle

it’s caused so many problems in our relationship and because of it he has told me I should speak to a relationship counsellor as that’s what he was off to do. To make our relationship better, he spoke to someone twice. He said I calmly and implied it was to bring us closer. I went off to google relationship counselling, so many to choose from. I asked him how did you find the person you’ve been talking too. Low and behold Maggie recommended someone! So must have been talking about our relationship to her which the thought of I hate!!! Am I nutty or being totally disrespected

Maggie is and will always be number one

to be blunt but you and your relationship are not his priority he is and his relationship with Maggie is

move on don’t waste your time with couples therapy he thinks you need to change not himself as he is enjoying being in the middle and I suspect Maggie enjoys being his priority over whatever partner he has

Bin him, he's taking the piss and probably banging her!

He is manipulating you and 100% has something to hide ! How you don't see that ?? He disrespecting you daily even insulting and gaslighting you . Making you believe you are crazy it's nothing there.

You are his partner , if you worry about something , what partners do is reassure their loved one , show their phones , talk to them , listen what worries they have . The partners who cares and love each other .
Shady , toxic partner deny and making you feel like you are crazy ,doubting your self . You are not crazy !!!! Your worries 100% valid , and his behaviour towards when you voice your worries or big red flag . Go and find where the woman are. Most likely they having an affair

You are who you are no matter what other people say about bring jealous or insecure about this "friendship" you will never be content with this situation.
The only thing you can do for your own mental health is end this relationship.
Leave them get on with it - he can offload to her how he has been dumped and she can " support him emotionally". They should be very happy together.
When he comes crawling back, close the door on him

I'd never be with a man who has best female friends because I don't believe in platonic friendships where sexual orientation allows attraction. His friendship is specifically creepy because of the sexual tones of their interactions and the fact he mentions her a lot and you haven't even met her. Dump him already!

He makes you feel second. He's disrespectful. He talks about everything you say to her. Sounds like she is undermining your relationship, the love you hearts on nights out...

He's not worth it. He's a bit options kept open by the way they talk about 'them'

Time to call it a day before you develop mental health issues, as you are constantly on guard, and it is not good for you!

Why are you putting yourself through this? Why are you agreeing to play second fiddle to her.

Don’t waste your energy hating her- just walk away with your dignity intact. You don’t owe him any explanation, or that much respect really.
You are not where his heart lies, you are OK for now, because he can’t have who he really wants.

Just Walk Away

I think I understand, my best friend and I are very close (both women). She became a lesbian later in life, about 7 years ago. I'm heterosexual but was known to float a bit when I was younger. We talk about absolutely everything, we have a strong emotional connection and love each other very much. Her partner finds this exceptionally uncomfortable, she is not my greatest fan. However there is absolutely nothing between us other than a close friendship. There are things she can tell me that she feels she cannot speak to her partner about, but that is largely down to the way her partner behaves/speaks/reacts to things my friend says. I have ditched men who are jealous and behave badly over my friendship with her. So I guess my point is, it is that it probably completely platonic, and it really depends how much you trust your partner but the friendship is there to stay. If you can't accept it, you're probably better out of it.

I used to have a close male friend until I got with my bf,in my eyes he wasn't my type at all but we was just good friends and had been for years,I used to help him with relationship advice etc,nothing init at all but didn't want my bf feeling how u did so eventually parted ways with my mate out of respect, respect is all anyone deserves n if he can't respect you now then he never will,your feelings should come first for him,but as I say I had a close male friend and we spoke about everything and I mean everything,this could be all there doing but it is hard I get it,I wouldn't like it and I'd probs of said something to her by now so your doing very well I wouldn't of been able to keep so cool for so long,is your relationship worth u feeling like this?

If you don't like the situation you will need to walk away because he isn't going to change. You either accept it or, if you can't, go.

From what you have said, it sounds like a very close friendship rather than an affair. If he had a close friendship with another man instead, and discussed your marriage issues etc., would you still be jealous? If so, I think part of the problem lies with you because you're going to be jealous of closeness of any sort. Surely, if it was the other way round, you wouldn't want your partner telling you who you should be friends with? Or if you had a close female friend with whom you discussed your marriage issues, you wouldn't expect your partner to dictate what you did or didn't talk about?

But you will get a mixed response on here. There are some who believe that a partner is the one and only source of closeness and that men and women can't have good, close non-sexual friendships ever.
And there are others of us - I'm one of them - who think that men-female friendships can be loyal and close without it having any bearing on a marriage or monogamous partnership. I have a close male friend who is married but is happy to send 'love and hugs' on messages. I also belong to a volunteering group, mixed male and female, who send endless WhatsApp messages backwards and forwards everyday with xxx'x and hearts and so forth, all perfectly non romantic.

You need to decide what you can cope with and act accordingly, you will not change your partner.

Call it a day. I'm not sure what his motivations are and they're not worth unpicking but he isn't making you happy and Maggie's presence is part of that

You're not nutty at all! Although I do believe some male/female friendships can work it depends on the dynamic and this seems way off. I had a male best friend whi I had known for 18 years and when I went to his wedding my boyfriend at the time didn't feel comfortable with it, and I chose to stop being friends with him. Me and my boyfriend are getting married this year and I feel that you SO should be above all others and if something makes them uncomfortable you shouldn't do it.

This woman clearly has a strong bond with your husband and you SHOULD be worried especially because he won't let you read the messages between them.

I'd give him an ultimatum. Either let me see all the messages or leave!! It's not worth carrying on when she's basically there on the back burner.

Men don’t have platonic female friends. Well, they may say they do, may even think they do, and may not ever go to bed with them. But somewhere deep down, they’d like more.

You can either live with that, or not. And as your BF sounds like an uncaring arse into the bargain, I’d move on sharpish.

So, you or he have labelled yourself as jealous, maybe objectively (if that's even possible) you are but maybe you are just not, but it makes you in a strange way start being critical of your own behaviour rather than his. If he calls you this it's gas lighting.
I am not sure where you live but I have never had a straight man in his 50s in England say "I love you" in a platonic friendship. I have close male friends for 35 years, and we will say "I really value our friendship" - beyond that would feel a bit creepy.
I had an ex like this, had a "very close friend" messaged every day, spoke most days...never met her. And that's the odd thing, why haven't you met ? My guess is because there'll be something in their interactions that isn't quite right. It's playing mind games with you. Leave - he will start making you feel irrational, anxious on edge.

This. Whatever the status of Maggie in his life, its making you upset, so there's no point continuing.

I think they both enjoy the drama of making you jealous. The fact you’re asking on a forum about the jealousy you feel means you don’t like this about yourself. Never, ever stay with someone who makes you not like yourself. Get rid of him.

Part of me is interested in if their friendship would survive not having someone to wind up for the drama.

No, you're definitely not. Neither have any respect for you.

One of my close friends is male. He's married and so am I. Our respective partners know where good friends and meet up for lunch. I'm female. I have upmost respect for my husband and our relationship. I also have upmost respect for my male friend and his wife.

What they're doing to you is horrid and will cause you so much turmoil. If they can't back off making you feel like the 3rd person go find someone who puts your relationship first. All this is not worth it, this.man isn't worth it.

Very good point

That simply isn’t true. I have close male friends. Some of those friendships go back over 30 years and there were opportunities in the early days to make them sexual and neither of us wanted that. It’s bizarre to define sex as “more”. Sexual relationships are different. If my bloke had tried to demand that I gave up on those friendships he’d have been out the door.

I'm married and have a male best friend who works with me and I've known for 20+ years. I do talk a lot about him to my husband (his opinion on things, advice, etc) mainly because we do spend quite a lot of time together... but he has no reason to be jealous as I don't keep them apart! They know each other, we are invited to dinner very often to his house, etc etc. How come you don't know this Maggie person? That's the main thing I find weird. Why don't you ask to meet her?

Regardless of their gender, if I’d been in a relationship with someone for three years and hadn’t met their best friend something is off and wrong.

I feel this so much! I'm in a similar situationship myself except mine has been on for 14 years now. I'm a shell of my old self. Please don't do that to yourself. I'm 53 and have severe health issues and no other options but to stay. I was previously with my husband who passed away in 2007, who never treated me the way I feel treated now. I say this as a long distance friend that doesn't know you but there's nothing wrong with you, you are an amazing loving person and deserve to feel that way. I'd love to give you a long distance virtual bear hug and just squeeze you tight and tell you to just let go, things will be ok. I don't normally comment on anything, but I just felt compelled to tell you that. I hope your appt came back with some positive news.

My best friend is a man. We have been friends for years Any bloke that tried to come between us would be sent packing frankly.

Should he not mention his friend? Keep her a secret?
Why haven't you met her? That's the only thing I would question

I feel this so much! I'm in a similar situationship myself except mine has been on for 14 years now. I'm a shell of my old self. Please don't do that to yourself. I'm 53 and have severe health issues and no other options but to stay. I was previously with my husband who passed away in 2007, who never treated me the way I feel treated now. I say this as a long distance friend that doesn't know you but there's nothing wrong with you, you are an amazing loving person and deserve to feel that way. I'd love to give you a long distance virtual bear hug and just squeeze you tight and tell you to just let go, things will be ok. I don't normally comment on anything, but I just felt compelled to tell you that. I hope your appt came back with some positive news