My friend and I are very close having known each other since primary school. She moved away at 18 to a city around 6 hours from our home town, so we don’t see each other as often as we’d like but we still talk on the phone each week, always texting each other, and have maintained a strong friendship despite the distance.
My friend has always had a strong individual style, and is fiercely independent. She would never let a man hold a door open for her or accept help from a man. She’s always been very self-reliant and viewed women who relied on men as weak (this is relevant).
She met a lovely man around 10 years ago and seemed very happy and in love, and I was relieved that she had settled down with someone as nice as him (after a few disastrous relationships). She has always been very against marriage and had told him years ago that she would never get married and she didn’t want children, which he wasn’t happy about but he loved my friend so ultimately decided that he loved her more than the children that they didn’t have yet. They always seemed happy together and had a lovely life.
At the start of the first lockdown she announced that she’d ended their relationship because it wasn’t what she wanted anymore but she seemed very confused and couldn’t really explain why she felt that way.
At the start of September she accidentally sent me a photo on whatsapp of her and a lady kissing. She then rang me in a panic saying that this woman was just a friend and they’d been mucking around taking silly photos. After a little probing, she admitted that she was in a relationship with this woman, was very much in love, but she was worried that I would view her negatively because she was in a same sex relationship. I reassured her and told her that I would never judge her or think badly of her over who she loved and we ended the phone all in a very good place.
However, over the last few months I’ve been getting a worried feeling about this relationship and I’m not sure whether it’s justified or not.
1 Every time I speak on the phone with my friend she puts me on loud speaker or FaceTime so that her girlfriend can hear the conversation. She seems pretty friendly, always says hello and a bit of small talk, but then disappears just off screen so I think she’s gone but then she’ll answer questions that I ask my friend (Me: Friend, how was work this week. New girlfriend: She’s had a good week. She managed to finish xyz). My friend is now increasingly letting this woman speak for her.
2 Her girlfriend has text me off my friend’s phone on a number of occasions and has now started intercepting my texts and responding to them. I’m not sure my friend even sees these texts that I send as I only get a response from the girlfriend. She doesn’t reply to all of them, but it’s increasing week by week.
3 My friend has changed the way she styles and colours her hair because her girlfriend prefers it longer and a different colour.
4 She’s changed the way she dresses- her girlfriend buys her clothes to wear now and has verbally discouraged her from wearing certain items in her wardrobe.
5 Her girlfriend doesn’t like my friend’s name. She says that it’s too ugly for her so she’s chosen a new name for her and refers to her by this name.
6 She keeps buying my friend incredibly expensive gifts- for example, buying three or four pieces of expensive jewellery in one week. Then designer shoes the following week. Then three designer bags the next week. This woman doesn’t have a particularly well paid job so I’m not sure how she affords these gifts.
7 The girlfriend wants to buy me a very expensive present for my upcoming birthday. I’ve said to my friend that there is no need (besides I have never met this woman so it feels ott and makes me feel uncomfortable) but whenever it’s brought up my friend says “oh she’s very stubborn...it’s easier just to let her have her own way rather than refuse”.
8 She has huge opinions on everything and thinks she’s always right. She once disagreed with me about something I was factually right about and wouldn’t let it go until I backed down. I only backed down because I didn’t want an argument or to make things difficult for my friend.
These are just a few examples of things that are concerning me. I can’t say she seems unpleasant as she’s perfectly pleasant when we’ve spoken on FaceTime, but the 8 points above, plus the huge change in my friend are concerning me. My friend is now saying that they are planning to get married and have a baby together. My friend just doesn’t seem like the same person anymore, and has become a stranger to me in only a few months. I don’t recognise her as the person I’ve known my whole life.
On the one hand I think, maybe everything about my friend before this woman was a front- she was always so independent, she would never rely on a man, her opinion was that women who married were giving their control over to men etc. Maybe she’s finally found what she has secretly always been looking for and is now content and happy to live a more conventional married life?
On the other hand, I feel like there are wanting signs here but maybe I’m overreacting?
What do you all think?