Too jealous in my relationship -affecting my mental health. Help?

[KatDubs261]

A few months ago I discovered my boyfriend was having close online friendships with two women. not flirtatious as such, but flattering their egos and taking too much time away from the relationship. After talking to him my boyfriend spoke to one of the women and said he had to distance himself from her and she accepted it. We put in place boundaries where he was no longer treating them like online pseudo girlfriends.

Three months later things have improved a lot. He has kept his word on not continuing with the close friendships but one remains, his 'best friend' as he once called her.

she phones at strange times, having interrupted our time together more than once and texts him frequently. she is single and very reliant on my boyfriend for attention I find. they have been friends for 8 years.

i feel I am starting to go mad complaining about these calls and know he loves/is committed to me. They used to phone each other a lot before I came along and I think she wants to continue as normal. I know he loves me and yet the constant jealousy is plaguing us. What can I do?

What do you want to happen? Do you want him to have no more to do with her?

Would you have a problem if it was a male best friend calling or texting him frequently?

no the friendship is valuable to him and I don't want that. But the fact she messages him a lot and phones him too bothers me. As I said she is single and reliant on him.

I'm not saying I want him to do anything, I'm just saying I feel really jealous and want advice on how to work on these feelings.

an example is calling him at 11.30 on a Friday nigh

I'm not 100% sure on what you should do but you need to accept that he has friends and to keep friends you need to talk/interact with them. It is very unreasonable if you were to expect him to stop contact with her given that he has given you no indication that it's any more than friendship on his part.

You cannot be the only person in his life. If you accept this (easier said than done) then things should get better.

he told me he had feelings for her about 5 years ago. that didn't help!

yes but he had just attended a 4 day wedding with her and other friends 3 days before (I couldn't attend) so it seems over the top seeing as they had days to catch up?

Maybe it's a bit much for you. But lots of people have friends the message every day or call every day. Me personally I couldn't maintain that level of contact I'd feel suffocated bum I'm an introvert but I know many of my friends text each other multiple times a day. It's not uncommon.

4-day wedding???? WTF is one of those???

*but not bum haha

my boyfriend is definitely an extrovert. i am probably more introverted but also really social and outgoing too.

What I am looking for is ways to overcome these green eyed emotions.

in multiple past relationships I was screwed over by the female friend so I know where it comes from...

He either wants to sleep with her or already has (perhaps at the wedding you couldn't attend). Hope this helps.

How long have you been together? Have you met her?

You weren't screwed over by the female friend, you were screwed over by your ex.

If you don't trust your bf, end it. It's no way to live. He's had the opportunity to set boundaries that would suit you better, but hasn't. So.

We've been together for 1 1/2 years. I haven't met her as she lives on the other side of the world.

I'm finding it hard to draw the line at 'reasonable boundary' and 'unreasonable jealousy'. I don't actually think he'd cheat on me but I do feel threatened by the constant presence of other women.

I can relate to this with my dh. He has a mate who would meet up with him and I wasn't allowed which was fine as she gets on my nerves a bit. But she used to expect to come before me and dd. This came to a head when she started to do this with all the men in our group and even text one girlfriend how much of a lovely time they were having while she was at home with kids in bed. Talk to him about how you feel and tell him you know it's silly. Might help

How can she be reliant on him if she lives on the other side of the world? Sounds a weird set up to me.

Wombofonesown- how can you say that! I have two really close male friends, one single, one engaged. We've been together many times and not once , have we slept together.
We work together and phone each other at any time of day if needed. Sad views to have.

I know where you are coming from op. I wouldn't mind my dp having female friends but I would find it difficult if a female friend was that close, especially him calling her his best friend. Luckily my dp tells me I'm his best friend which imo when you're in a committed, loving relationship your partner should feel like your best friend.

@katdubs261

As much as I hate to admit it, in a similar predicament. My h is part of a friends circle which consists of a bunch of siblings and another couple. All friends well before we got together. Two of them are women but not single and they run the friendship. They all have whatsapp group which I'm not part of and it all just feels a little exclusive. H is oblivious to it and I've not raised at as I maintain my own friendships but when we all get together, there's a lot comes out that I've never known about and some of it as H's wife and it's to do with him, I feel he should have told me. I don't like to think that I'm jealous but truth is it makes me feel not accepted. Not a lot I can do about it. I maintain a friendship with a close male friend and I wouldn't expect H to object and he hasn't but I know he doesn't like it.

I can only say that your bloke seems to be committed to you so try and concentrate on that.

I wouldn't like this Op. It's one thing having female friends but if he's putting her first by answering calls when youre on a date etc it's not cool

If I had a male friend with a partner I'd make a point of befriending her too so she could see I'm not a threat or at least not be calling him late at night etc. It's disrespectful and obviously going to make partner uncomfortable.

I think it's obnoxious to continually call a male friend when you know he has a partner. she's quite gushy about posting photos of them together on Facebook as well.

he doesn't answer when she calls when we're together. I think she's been used to being the main woman in his life for a long time.

She isn't the problem and there was no 'we' in putting boundaries in place with regards to his other 'friendship'. Your insecure with this man because his boundaries with other women aren't as clear as you'd like them to be.

At the end of the day if your bf doesn't have an issue with his boundaries, there's little you can do. For your relationship to work you kinda have to be on the same page and you will drive yourself crazy faking it.