A bit of context here: I (Adam, 27M) have been living with my girlfriend (Stacy, 24F) for three years. We moved into my apartment after dating for one year, and we have a pretty good relationship despite a few ups and downs. We had placed some boundaries about my female friends and her male friends, and we always respected them.
I work as a sales manager at a small company. Stacy works as a customer service agent at a real estate company. Recently, she became friends with her co-worker David (the gay friend) and has been hanging out with him after work quite often. She said since he is gay, he is an exception to our boundaries. At first, I didn't care.
One day, when we were on a dinner date, we saw David at the same restaurant. She called out his name and asked him to join us. I was uncomfortable with a person I didn't know joining our dinner date, but I didn't want to embarrass her, so I kept quiet. However, here is the thing: nothing about his attitude or talking style felt like he was gay.
He was complimenting her dress, talking about her hair, making remarks about her weight loss, and how she looked even more beautiful. It genuinely felt like he was flirting, and it was making me very uncomfortable. The worst part was Stacy saw my reaction but didn't care and continued to talk with him. It felt like those two were on a date, and I was the third wheel.
After the date, I told Stacy how I felt, and she laughed it off, saying, "Oh baby, c'mon, he is gay. He wasn't flirting with me. Don't be so jealous." She told me there is nothing to worry about. Now, I trust her, but here is the thing: most guys can detect another guy's intention easily. My gut feeling was telling me David wasn't gay and was trying to sleep with Stacy.
His remarks, his eyes—all were very flirtatious. Despite my protests, Stacy continued to hang out with David and text with him. A few days later, when Stacy was in the shower, I saw a text on her phone. My inner voice won, and I opened the conversation. To summarize, there was no sign of her cheating, but the texts from David were again very flirtatious, and Stacy was encouraging him.
I confronted her about the texts, and she screamed at me for touching her phone, even though she always goes through mine and I never complain. A few weeks went by, and we became a bit distant. Our intimacy had dropped to 1-2 times a week, and we barely talked or went out.
I talked to a friend about it, and he said David was probably acting gay to sleep with her. It could be the same old "I never felt like this with a woman before" method. One weekend, Stacy was busy getting ready to go shopping with her friends, and another text from David arrived, saying, "Meet you there in 30 mins." My doubt took over me, and I started following her.
She arrived at a mall and met only David, no one else. I started following them on foot. They were shopping normally for a while, and I started to feel bad for not believing her and following her. I felt like an insecure boyfriend. But it all went away when they entered the undergarments section. She chose a couple of bras and panties, and they both approached the changing area.
She entered the changing room, and he stood at the front of it. She was trying on the underwear and showing him how they looked. The girl I loved was in her underwear, showing her body to another guy and asking him how they looked on her. At that moment, I started shaking and wanted to confront both of them, but I kept my cool and didn't want to cause a scene in a public area.
When Stacy arrived later, I confronted her about it, and she started to scream at me, calling me insecure, lame, petty, and pathetic, and saying I never loved her and such. I didn't scream back and simply said, "I cannot accept another guy looking at you almost naked. It doesn't matter if he is gay; that is never acceptable behavior. It doesn't matter how close you are to him.
You cannot show your half-naked body to him while you are in a relationship with me." She started screaming more, saying vile things and insulting me. I asked her to leave my apartment. She refused and kept screaming. I told her she needed to pack her things and leave within 48 hours, or I would call the cops, and I left the apartment for the time being.
My phone is now blowing up with her texts and calls. She is saying I should stop acting like a child and stop being insecure. She never once said sorry for her behavior or wanted to talk things out. I am not replying to any of those and kept the phone on silent. I am currently staying with a friend now, and I am not planning to go back to her. AITAH?
Academic-Dare1354 said:
Haha if my husband let his NEW lesbian bestie who was sending him inappropriate text messages see him in his underwear and ask for her opinion(after I expressed my discomfort) I would leave him in a hot second.
KaleidoscopeThin8561 said:
You mean the female friends she said she was going to meet but lied about? There’s definitely something going on.
Bloodystupidjohnson3 said:
NTA. You expressed a concern, and she ignored you. She wants access to your phone, but you cannot see hers. All I’m seeing is her treating poorly. I think the situation with Dave is just the point when you realized that she doesn’t respect you.
And UndisputedNonsense said:
Whether or not he is actually gay, the fact she threw your concerns to the wind is the problem. If you became really close with a lesbain I'm sure she wouldn't like you doing the same things she is.
Update 1 : A lot of people are calling me a bigot. It was never my intent to stereotype or disrespect LGBTQ+ people. Things that raised concern with me are that he always sends flirtatious texts to her. It's either flirting or compliments or directly saying things like "If I wasn't into men I would definitely steal you from him.
Or I would've been head over heels for you" or texts about our love life, And never once I saw a text of him talking about his love life. And showing your half-naked body in underwear is not something that usually happens in a platonic friendship. And it's not like I was the only one who placed boundaries the same boundaries were placed by her as well which I always respected.
Yet somehow I am the one to blame for asking her to respect mine. Also, it's not like I didn't try to talk to her. The only time she talked about this matter normally was after our dinner date. after that, it was always screaming or insults and calling me insecure. She never even tried to talk just screamed at me. And the insults continued on texts after I left.
Update 2: No I do not have the right or authority to allow anyone to do anything. Some of you are mentioning bikinis. I really really hope you understand the difference between wearing a bikini in a public place and privately showing off your underwear to a specific person in a changing room.
Big update 3: At first I want to thank everyone for your support and kind words. First, To answer a couple of the comments: Spending quality time with her was never an issue in the 4 years of our relationship. I make decent money and my dad also paid for college so I had zero debt. we always travel once a year. Gone on road trips every couple of months and weekend dates were very common.
Watching her favorite shows, and movies, I loved spending time with her. And I always prefer talking about things. I always tried my best to communicate with her how she feels or what she wants. And I never got any indication from her that she may be unsatisfied.
it's been almost 1 and a half days since I posted and a lot has happened since then. She contacted her friend group ranting about me and tried to talk them into forcing me and guilt me into taking her back. But her friends were decent people, One of her friends Layla contacted me and asked me to meet them at a bar to hear my side of the story.
I told them what had happened, how it started, and what happened at the mall. They were shocked because Stacy told them a completely different story and purposely left out the part where she screamed at me every time I tried to talk to her about David and she also left out the Underwear trial part.
She told them she was shopping with David and I followed them and threw a tantrum when she returned home. But since they met me before they were doubtful and wanted to know my side of the story. A couple of things also came to light after talking with them, apparently Stacy never introduced David to the friend's group also she rarely hung out with them in the last couple of weeks.
So basically I suspect she was spending time with David. After the conversation with her friends, Her texts calmed down. Her friends confronted her about the half-story and refused to help her.
She just called me once and asked me to return home and talk with her in an angry voice, I refused and told her she lost her chance of talking things out, I simply don't want to continue this relationship and she should move out as soon as possible. We had a joint bank account that we used to put small amounts of money in to spend during our trips.
It had around a total of 6k left, 2k of her money, and 4k mine I told her she could empty that account and use that to find another place to live and then Hung up my phone. I haven't received any texts from her after that. The money is still there and I didn't get any notification of withdrawal yet. I just hope she understands and simply leaves but if anything happens I will update here.