I'm in a bit of a pickle. Any suggestions?

[AndSoPeacefulUntil]

I have a fwb. I don't know if he has ever had one before but I feel some lines are being blurred. We used to date and I ended it because I found him to be emotionally repressed but we were still attracted to each other and picked up again as fwb.

We get on really well as friends now. We spend weekends together, we've spent time together with his friends and my friends. We've become really good friends tbh. But we were quite incompatible together.

I've just been away for the weekend with him and some of his friends. While we were away, one of them referred to me as his girlfriend. Now OK I wouldn't necessarily expect him to explain the ins and outs of his personal life to them - he's not really close to them - they do a hobby together just the 6 of them. But I realised that he is inviting me to things where I'm being taken/welcomed as his gf but wouldn't have been included otherwise.

We were with his 2 oldest friends a few weeks ago - men he's known for 50 years since primary school. These are the friends who know his innermost thoughts, his flaws, his life. They share openly. Except I went somewhere with one of them and we were mistaken for partners. He put them straight but in doing so revealed that he also thought his friend and I are 'together'.

I feel a bit weird about it and I couldn't put finger on it. But I think it’s that his friends are engaging with me as his girlfriend/partner and he is letting them. And we're not. Would his friends be spending time with me if they weren't making an effort with their oldest friend's girlfriend? Would I be being welcomed by his other friends on a weekend away? Probably not.

This isn't me hoping that it will become something more. I'm happy with the friendship we have and we didn't and wouldn't work as a couple. But we are close. There is a lot of fondness for each other there and we care about each other a lot.

I need to talk to him about it but I don't know how. When we were together, we never talked about 'us' and any time I tried, he just shut it down because he felt uncomfortable with it. It took us several months to even have the conversation about why we had split up.

Any suggestions on how I can bring it up or what I should say? Like I say, there's tenderness, care and affection there. I dont want to upset him or things. Thanks.

I don't know if I want a long term committed relationship. I'm not very good at relationships. I've tried but I find them stifling. Obviously, if I were in one, I wouldn't go on the odd date with anyone else or flirt with anyone else

You are in a relationship, though!

It’s not an exclusive committed ‘I love you with all my heart’ type of deal, but it is reasonably long-term, and if you usually find commuted relationships stifling then this also seems like a good relationship for you.

But as others have said, you need to decide your own requirements and boundaries and focus on them. All this angst over his emotional state seems strange when presumably you ‘split up’ in order not to have to worry about his emotional state.

You're in a relationship op.

You're in an open relationship, you just don't admit it.

They're being mislead because he's being mislead by you. If you don't want a relationship with him, you need to be crystal clear about your intentions, because clearly he thinks the FWB suggestion wasn't serious.

He was the one who said he wanted fwb and no more. Not me. I haven't misled him I've stuck by the original arrangement.

It wasn't ever a just calling up for sex thing we were just friends. He made the move for it to be more.

Next time I'd just make a point of saying 'I'm not his girlfriend, we're friends. Good friends. But not in a relationship'.

I found all too often with fwb the guy starts acting like you are together and if you don't put him straight, guarantee that at some point down the line, he will turn round and accuse you of being the one who is acting as if you are in a relationship.

Tbh though, you probably shouldn't be hanging out with his friends. It sends all the wrong signals.

@AndSoPeacefulUntil

They're being mislead because he's being mislead by you. If you don't want a relationship with him, you need to be crystal clear about your intentions, because clearly he thinks the FWB suggestion wasn't serious.

He was the one who said he wanted fwb and no more. Not me. I haven't misled him I've stuck by the original arrangement.

It wasn't ever a just calling up for sex thing we were just friends. He made the move for it to be more.

I've had three longterm FWB situations -- one was in fact also an ex, the others were friends of mine with whom (at different points in my life) I had regular sex when we weren't in relationships.

In none of the three situations (which were all fond, affectionate and respectful and I'm still on very good terms with two of the three, and contact with the other has mostly fallen off because he moved to the other side of the world) did I make a habit of spending entire weekends with them, going away with their friends, and in none of them did anyone ever mistake us for a couple. We wouldn't have been kissing in public, though we sometimes went out for dinner or to a gig or a film but I don't think anyone encountering us while out would have assumed we were together.

I think this situation sounds very confused, but the key thing is that, even though you aren't in a relationship with him and you're apparently happy with things as they are, you feel you can't talk to him about why his friends appear to think he's your girlfriend.

I wouldn't be shagging someone I couldn't talk to.