Hello,
Have been lurking a while, tentatively making first post and would appreciate some advice. Thank you for reading and sorry it's a bit long.
I'm a single mum of four - my first husband (and father of my boys) died and my second marriage (to a psychologically abusive narcissist) ended in divorce. I've been on my own for the past 5 years, really struggling with loneliness, and pretty traumatised by a shocking ten years, but this year I unexpectedly met someone and decided to give a relationship a go.
We were introduced by a friend of mine, someone I'd met via work but doesn't live in the UK, so we don't see each other socially on a regular basis. On a visit to this friend, she introduced me to her 'best friend', saying we'd be perfect for each other. I was sceptical, but actually she was right. In fact, it was pretty much love at first sight, on both parts. The problem was obviously that it was long distance, but we decided that seeing as the flight was only two hours, we could give it a go. That bit is working ok, if subject to the usual difficulties with LDRs.
The problem is my friend. To begin with I thought it was so great that my friend was his friend and so we already a kind of mutual social network. But the minute we got together, she became really territorial.Told me actually I could do better than him. Told him my awful relationship history and said that I'd be too damaged for him. She kisses him on the lips when they meet, won't let me use a shortened version of her name because he's the 'only one allowed to call her that.' She told me they are 'like twins' and know everything about each other. Then she told me to remove my pictures of the two of us from FB because 'it would not make everyone happy, and I shouldn't show my happiness there.' They message each other ALL the time, work together, and socialise together all the time. I told him that I'm just a bit uncomfortable with some of this, mostly with the way she introduces negativity and doubt between us that previously wasn't there, and he said that is just her way and she is a complicated person, and he's sorry she's like that, and he loves me.
I hate it though. I can't lie. I find her change of attitude really confusing. And the thing is, a similar thing happened in my second marriage, and I was trusting - and I was wrong to be. And after my first husband died, I learned that he has actually been planning to leave me for his 'work wife' but in the end couldn't get himself together enough to do it, and then he got sick so everything changed - which was devastating as it felt like my whole marriage was a lie. Even before I got married, my first boyfriend, who lived in a different city, was actually living with his ex the whole time we were together and I didn't know because we always met in a place mid-way between our two homes. So I feel like this is just history repeating itself and I'm worn out with relationships where another woman is always a lurking presence.
I simply don't want to be in a(nother) relationship with someone who has a way-too complicated female best friend thing going on. But I love this guy, and he's been nothing but wonderful to me, and he's actively looking at ways for us to live together, either in his country or in the UK. I'm absolutely not going to ask him to choose between us - the issue is mine, not with anything he personally has done - but would I be stupid to walk away from this potentially lovely thing, (esp after so much sadness in my life) because I know I can't deal with the intimacy of their friendship?