"I want a gf who let's me have female friends."

[RLEOM]

2 years ago, I met someone like no other. He literally took my breath away because I'd never met someone so well matched.

At the start of the relationship, he said he wanted to be with someone who let him have female friends. No problem with that, right?

We fell in love, both 100% certain of our future together - we'd both never met such a perfect partner. The relationship was great, amazing in fact, bar one thing: his female friends. The first one I had a gut instinct about. They'd clearly slept together but he denied this time and time again, even when I found evidence. He tried to force her friendship on me. He then went on holiday with her and her family. I'd just fallen pregnant and sadly miscarried early due to the stress of him being away with her. He eventually cut her off. (I found out at the end that he had been sleeping with her before we met.)

Female friend 2: I fell pregnant again. He went on holiday with his other female friend. Luckily, I didn't miscarry as I was confident their friendship was platonic. I trusted them together.

We had a break a few weeks before baby was born (hormones, stress - totally my fault). He started hanging out with her.

Had baby and both decided we wanted to make it work. His friend visited us in hospital and she visited us every weekend after that. She'd make the odd snidy comment but I brushed it off. I started to realise she liked him and had to tell him to not let her come round every weekend as we were meant to be getting our relationship back on track. But it was too late. We had no time to build up what we had.

During all this, I had discovered he had a porn addiction, I had PND, self esteem was a mess, and 9 weeks after baby was born, on the 2nd anniversary of my mum's death, I couldn't handle it all and had a mental breakdown. I walked. I wanted to work things out the next day but he never spoke to me about it and still hasn't months down the line.

As soon as I left, she was with him at every moment possible. Now they are official and she gets to have the family she wanted with him - my family.

He said he wanted female friends and I trusted him. I can't believe I accepted her into our home when all along she just wanted to steal what I had.

I can't believe how someone who wanted a future with me could treat me so poorly. Has anyone else been in a similar situation?

The last few guys I've dated have all had female friends, and I have been totally cool with it. But in the end they've ended up either actually having a thing with the friend behind my back, or they just put that friend before me/talked about them all the time/essentially had an emotional affair with them. I have said to myself I wouldn't have a guy who has a female (best) friend again. Each to their own...I know a LOT of people on here are fine with it.

What I will say is that right now it hurts, right now you see them living the life you believe you are owed. However this guy has never been great to you. So each time you've fallen pregnant he's run off with another woman on holiday? He has a porn addiction? He lied multiple times to you? Aside from a connection/history together you really have nothing to mourn. Even what you had with him is not that great, and trust me in time he will do exactly the same to her.

You said yourself he treated you so poorly, so you need to remember that when you have weak moments and miss him. Write a list of all the crap things he's done to you...all of them. Every time you feel sad write those things down. Work on your self esteem, and really think about what you want in a guy. There are so many people out there...and you're pining over a guy who was clearly treating on you, has a porn addiction and ran off with another girl he was most likely sleeping with whilst with you? Oh no my dear...you deserve FAR better than that.

If you're a mother now put yourself as though you were your own child...if your child was in this situation what would you want the outcome to be for them? I highly doubt you'd be telling them they missed out and should do everything in their power to get this person back.

cheating not treating!*

I think its a bit much to blame a miscarriage on this!

My husband has female friends, but everything is 'public.' He might bump into them at parties, or chat to them on Facebook on a timeline. He encourages me to be friends with them. There is nothing secret or intimate.

I do chat to a couple of male friends on Messenger now and then but there is nothing I would be afraid of my husband reading. I don't really have any male friends I see socially apart from one very dear colleague who happens to be gay.

I have limited enotional energy to bestow. I try to give the best of it to.my husband and our kids, and sprinkle the rest among my friends. Close male friendships? Nah, not interested these days. I know it's perfectly possible to have a platonic relaationship, but the awkwardness if feelings did develop is just something I don't want to risk dealing with, if that makes sense.

I do like bantering with my male colleagues at work but none of them are FB friends or have my personal number.

The dear colleague is an ex colleague I should say. I never socialise with current colleagues. Hate it.

I find it odd that with all that was clearly wrong with your relationship - on both sides - you are fixating on the fact he had female friends? Do you imagine that if he hadn't had them your life would be different? She didn't 'steal' him - you and he ended, and he chose to start going out with her.

It is always hard when your ex moves on and gets with someone else. I understand your mourning the life that never was, but you need to start looking for your own future now.

I don't think it sounds like he ever wanted a relationship with you, sorry.

He was pretty honest about needing other close female relationships in his life, and flaunted his ex in front of you right from the start.

Sorry it’s turned out that way OP but you seem to make a lot of things about blame.

You blamed him for your miscarriage- what was that going to do for your relationship? Imagine if you’d miscarried and he’d blamed you for losing the baby? You just can’t do that to someone.

Then you said you had a break which was your fault.

Why do things have to be blamed on one of you? You were supposed to be a team.

Making it a blame game is not healthy- I think personally you both had a lucky escape.

I would have seen "I want someone who lets me have female friends" as a red flag at the very beginning tbh. Because it shouldn't even need to be an issue. I'm sure you (or anyone else sensible) would have no issue with him having female friends if the friendships were conducted similarly to those of his male friends. You wouldn't say "I need someone who won't beat seven shades of shit out of me" because that is obviously despicable behaviour that you shouldn't need to point out. So what he ACTUALLY means is "I want someone who will let me bugger off with other women when I feel like it, but I'm going to call them 'friends' so I can make out it's you being unreasonable if you have a problem with it". I'd bet my last Rolo on him having been dumped before for his behaviour with "friends" and he likes to play the wounded party, saying it's not his fault his exes have been so jealous etc etc.

Keep strong OP, you absolutely do not need this loser in your life.

As soon as I left, she was with him at every moment possible. Now they are official and she gets to have the family she wanted with him - my family.

No she hasn’t, sweetheart. She’s just another woman he will shit on. You got out relatively early, instead of wasting years on this asshole. She may stay for years, but at what cost to herself. He’ll still sleep with other women, while she sits at home waiting for him.

He’s not monogamous.

She certainly didn't win any prize. An irresponsible, cheating, porn addict.

Next time take your time getting to know someone. It takes a good while to find out if a guy is full of shit or not.

I have a male friend who im very close with, however there has never been nor never will be anything there.
This doesn’t really sound like you ever really had a proper relationship.
This girl hasn’t stolen him from you.
Concentrate on you and your child now.
You’ll find someone deserving.

OP - What do you mean by “she get the family? Do you have custody of your baby? If not, you need to get a solicitor ASAP

Your problems here are this man is an arsehole and treated you badly not his female friends.

Not your issue here but this:

At the start of the relationship, he said he wanted to be with someone who let him have female friends. No problem with that, right?

to me is one hell of a red flag. Not because a man shouldn't be entitled to female friends at all, but because at the start of the relationship he said he wanted to be with someone WHO LET HM HAVE female friends.

There are so many things wrong with that, it's hard to know where to start.

At a minimum, when you are starting out on a relationship it should be all easy, honeymoon period focussing on each other. Someone laying down demands from the get go about something that has not yet happened is very odd. Try this - if at the start of a relationship a man said "I want to be with someone who let's me go to strip clubs" or "I want to be with someone who let's me have sex with the neighbour" what would you think? You'd think - he's had trouble with this before and there's a reason why! You'd be right.

The use of the word "LET" is also highly dodgy as it indicates a very unhealthy attitude to relationships. No adult needs to be "LET" to do anything even if they are married. Adults can actually do what every they like BUT a decent adult in a relationship would take into account their partners wishes and impact on them.

"LET" suggests partner's wishes don't come into it. It means I want to be allowed freedom to do whatever I like without consequence and irrespective of how much it upsets you.

The very fact he is mentioning it means there is trouble here and you should have clocked it at the time. If he just had simple actual friendships (nothing more) with women he wouldn't have needed to mention it. He did need to mention it because he was sleeping with a bunch of them.

Sometimes we over look huge big flashing red flags because we really want to believe in something.

He was a arsehole. The bloody women coming to visit you was an arsehole and they deserve each other. Your eventually well rid. He will 100% do the same shit to her.

Try not to spend time in the past letting it consume you. Look forward in to the present and future to build up your new life and make changes to yourself that never allow this to happen again.

If I was you I’d be speaking to a solicitor to secure he doesn’t go for custody. Protect yourself here OP you owe this man nothing.

I hope he is paying you CM

The shoulda woulda coulda posts are really unhelpful.

The fact that he opened with that is a pretty clear indicator that previous girlfriends have had issues or broken up with him over it. You weren't the first one he did this too, and the new one will get it as well (or militantly police him as much as possible until he leaves her over it)

I don't understand the bit about how she gets your family.

All she gets is your lying, porn addicted ex, surely?

My main concern is the baby. Do you have the baby or does he? How are you feeling now?

He's an ass. I have been the girlfriend and the female friend in this situation. He has kept her hanging on while you were together. He has played both of yours emotions.

Concentrate on the baby. Either settling with him/her or getting him/her back to you

Thank you so much for your replies. Although I know he's a twat and has treated me badly, it's very hard to not mourn for the relationship and family unit we had.

To answer some questions:

Both holidays with his "friends" were booked prior to us being together.

I was prone to miscarrying anyway, but my body produces high levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, and as I was under so much stress from him being away with friend 1, I had a very painful early miscarriage.

I have full custody of baby. Dad has been good with her, pays CM and has her EOW. However, I am petrified that he might try and get full custody if things progress well with his new girl"friend" as he was determined to be a full time dad from the start (I don't think he realised you've got to be fully committed to your partner in order to achieve that!).

I'm feeling OK. Very up and down with my emotions. We split in January, so I've been trying to get over that and was nearly there until he became official with her a few weeks ago.

I do wish him the best but feel so upset over how she wormed her way in. I thought she had my daughter's best interests at heart but it turns out she couldn't care if DD's mum and dad are together, she just cared about being with him (I think she was upset that he was with me and had had a child with me).

He didn't know she liked him because he's completely blind to subtle hints (he's on the spectrum). The only way he knows if someone likes him is if they're explicit. I could see it from a mile off, he blindly thought she was just a friend. He also has very low self esteem so does not think people would fancy him etc.

He never cheated on me. That's never been the case. Our relationship was a good one for 90% of it, hence the confusion and heartache over it all.

No, I didn't fixate on him having female friends. It's never bothered me in past relationships. However, I was bothered by the first friend as my gut instinct told me something wasn't right with them (e.g. old pictures of them holding hands whilst cuddled up on the sofa, despite her having a bf at the time, pictures of her around his flat).

I can hold my hands up and say that I wasn't perfect (never cheated or anything along those lines). I failed to move in with him after having a baby, which hurt him a lot, but I couldn't after finding out about the porn addiction, especially as he wouldn't discuss it with me. I had all this pent up hurt, anger and felt bloody ugly because of it (and yes, I have no problem with a partner - or myself for that matter- watching porn, first time experiencing a partner with a porn addiction). I called a break 6 weeks before DD was born which absolutely crushed him. I had my part to play.

I have a good support network and am slowly getting there. It's very refreshing to hear everyone's views - I really appreciate it. I just want my brain to let me move on.

@LilouBlue funny you should mention about him playing the wounded party. The biggest red flag should've been when he went on and on about his "psycho ex." I always used to say to him that there's two sides to every story and that he must've done something wrong. According to him, he had been a good partner.

He told me a story about him and his ex going to a pub and how she made him sit at a table and told him she was going to talk to a group of men and that he wasn't to come over. He loved playing the victim. But now it all makes sense as to why she would do something like that. Playing him at his own game, I guess?

It took me a while to realise he was a compulsive liar... silly me! You wouldn't think we're both in our 30's.

"They'd clearly slept together but he denied this time and time again, even when I found evidence. He tried to force her friendship on me."
"However, I was bothered by the first friend as my gut instinct told me something wasn't right with them (e.g. old pictures of them holding hands whilst cuddled up on the sofa, despite her having a bf at the time, pictures of her around his flat)."

He lied about this to your face more than once. It's tempting to believe the narrative of "hes on the spectrum, he didnt realise, he was hurt when I didnt do what he wanted" but at the end of the day he deceived you multiple times about at least one big thing.

I don't think he's quite as blameless as he's convinced you he is.

@Femalebornandbreed

The shoulda woulda coulda posts are really unhelpful.

Disagree actually if they contain warnings or advice - OP may find herself in the same situation again so its good to have warning signs she missed pointed out and also it may help other posters in similar situations in future.

You've been strong and smart-not moving in with him and ending the relationship.

You've got the baby, you don't need the man. He is irrelevant. Focus on you and your child and give less thought and energy to your ex and his new gf.