Partner and close female friend

[coalbucketblues]

So they’re friends for years. Both mid fifties . She’s unhappily married , he’s divorced and seeing me for the last eight months .
He’s attentive, affectionate, consistent and loving. It’s what I’ve always wanted and never had.
He is so outgoing, chatty, popular.. you know the type .. everyone loves him .
i get it .
serve been away last weekend with his hobby group of which she is part.
She approached him three times in our company, hugged him, touching his arm
amd
leg while they spoke, arms around him
for photos and then finally leaned so far into his face to talk about something, their noses nearly
touched.
He was affectionate and demonstrative towards me all weekend.. holding hands, touching my leg and stayed nearby as I didn’t know anyone.
His friend and he organised the hobby activity and it took months of planning. They meet every week and have done a couple of times.
He says he feels sorry for her as she has a hard life but cannot leave. He is kind and supportive.
I got upset after their last interaction and he genuinely has absolutely no idea what he’s done wrong . He is so apologetic for hurting me but he cannot see the flirting, inappropriate space between them etc and major issue is that he’s never shut it down.
Again, I have no doubt that he cherishes me. He’s been consistent from the get go . But I’m not willing to tolerate this disrespect as I see it.
What are your thoughts here?
PS She’s been incredibly nice and friendly towards me but I just feel that this has potential for emotional affair territory if not more although I don’t think he is romantically interested in her .
Am I being utterly ridiculous here ?
PS I’ve been incredibly hurt by infidelity in the past so my vigilance is always high and my stomach dropped when
i I saw the last interaction.

Sounds like you’re the only one deciding what’s appropriate or not in terms of platonic friendship.

But @Franxi.. do you behave like that with your male friends whether partnered or not ? Or are you happy with your partners female/ male friends behaving like that with them if they did?

Well yes @Franxi, these are my
boundaries. They protect me and my feelings and expectations going forward

I wouldn't like that OP. I think they sound closer than I'd like a partner of mine to be with their friends.
Is he that touchy feeley with his male friends or only with the woman with marital issues?

I wouldn't ask him to choose. I'd tell him that I wasn't interested in playing games.
It's disrespectful.

I have very close female and male friends. I have no issues with how I act around them and neither does my husband. Like you say, it’s all down to personal boundaries and yours don’t match up with his. Neither of you are wrong, it’s just different boundaries, hence I think you’ll both be happier finding other people whose boundaries reflect that.

If he’s not shutting it down, it’s encouraging her. He should be more respectful of you. She should too, but you aren’t in the relationship with her. If your partner is dismissing your feelings (I don’t believe he genuinely can’t see why it’s inappropriate) then I’d walk away from him.

He isnt
dismissing my feelings . It’s just the way she is and he’s never thought any more about it but then again im
his first girlfriend since divorce . I understand her loneliness and need for physical connection but I fear she’s mistakem
his warmth and kindness for romantic interest or attraction? As I said, when the other man touched her bum
a couple of times, she didn’t flinch

Hmmmm, but are you respecting his feelings?

He's told you there's nothing going on and been apologetic for the situation that occurred upsetting you - if the roles were reversed and he was going beyond that to say " and from now on this is how you'll behave, this is what is allowed, this is not, you must do this else you are not respecting my feelings"........ honestly would you just say "Yes dear of course" or would you say "I've told you the truth, you don't get to police my interactions with friends to that degree" He sounds lovely, don't punish him for previous partners failings.

Thanks but in fairness, he doesn’t behave or enable that behaviour with any other friend or family member… male or female . He is or has only ever been that way with me and enabled it with his friend . I think that’s shit actually

If he’s enabling it, he’s dismissing your feelings. That’s what I meant. Ok he might not be actually encouraging it, but he’s not making moves to stop it either. That’s disrespectful to you imo. I know I wouldn’t cope in a relationship like that, so would be done.

Yanbu. Make your boundaries clear and be prepared to leave if he doesn't respect them

I'm not surprised you are upset by the visible display of their closeness OP. Her behaviour sounds actually quite performative as if she wants everyone to be aware how close she is to him - possibly it gives her some validation to compensate for what she isn't getting in her marriage.

Unfortunately I think.you would be best to walk away from your relationship with him because I think their close friendship will continue to come between you and him.

It's always fine to set boundaries in relationships

Absolutely, both ways.

@coalbucketblues it’s probably the case that she doesn’t actually want him, but she also doesn’t want anyone else to have him. Their relationship is likely built on this platonic flirting and will be hard to break. She thrives off his attention and likes the ego boost of thinking she could have him anytime she wants, whether this is true or not is besides the point, he allows this intimacy between them so she gets to think whatever she wants and show you whatever she wants. It’s embarrassing really.

This isn’t going to stop anytime soon as he’ll not tell her. Even if he did you’ll just be seen as the jealous gf. Only once he’s been dumped several times for the same reason may he start to fix the issue.

Time to walk away and leave them to it.

Thanks.
They had an even this evening as a group. I was invited but chose not to go for this reason and we still haven’t discussed this properly Before he left he said he wanted to think about it all and also give me
space. I told him I respected that but would rather meet and discuss this and get things sorted. He didn’t respond and hasn’t contacted me since. I am upset
by this now .Hes been out for an event all evening in her/ their company and despite being upset and apologetic, he did not respond to that request knowing how upset I am and wanting to speak sooner rather than later .

You say you don't want to make him choose but then, instead of going along with him to the event, you tell him you don't want to go, you want him there with you instead to discuss this. You're coming across as rather dramatic and needy here.
He's rightly gone to his event, and the fact he's asked for time to think either and give you space tells me he's pretty fed up with you.
You either trust him or you don't. If it's the latter, then call it off now for both your sakes.

After 8 months I would be ending any relationship that tried to police my touching or hugging my best friend @coalbucketblues. We have been friends since we were children, not teenagers - children. We are like siblings, except we have never fought. His children are as much my niece and nephew as my sister's children are.

I had an ex who had a female ‘friend’ like this. He didn’t shut down the inappropriate closeness either. They don’t because it feeds their ego. It’s disrespectful to you. Listen to your instincts. It’s weird and it’s inappropriate. People who say it’s harmless have maybe not experienced this. Turns out my ex was cheating on me with multiple women and I think this overfamiliar friendship was all part of his egocentricity. I’d walk away.

I wouldn’t like that either. I think it sounds like this woman is warning you off almost. At the very least making sure you know she’s his bestie & I think she’s jealous of you being with him. I would expect him to be friends with her but not tolerate the leg touching or almost nose touching. If she’s leaning in, he should be leaning back! If it continued without him putting these boundaries in place, I’d be gone. I wouldn’t compete, I think more of myself.

This. Men do what they want in my opinion.. what I mean by that is that they rarely do things that don’t serve themselves; he’s not doing it out of charity for her.

Doesn’t matter - it’s not an excuse to behave inappropriately and cross boundaries. It’s wierd that you feel this matters ‘above all else’ . It’s definitely feeding your ego even though you’ll deny it.

Utter bollocks

The thing is OP, you can’t make him do (or want to do) anything about this. You know how you feel, you’ve let him know that it makes you uncomfortable - you now have a choice to make. You can either accept things as they are, wait for him to change the dynamic between them (without mentioning it again, remember you have already said it makes you feel uncomfortable) or let the relationship go. If I were in your shoes and feeling like this, I’d be asking for some space myself so that I could remove the emotional ‘noise’ and have a think about things. Good luck ❤️

Ask him how he’d feel if the roles reversed and a man was touching your legs and leaning in so close to your face your noses touched. The guy is dim if he can’t see an issue. Would a male friend touch his leg?