Man learns that GF never had 'girls nights,' all her friends just hate him. AITA? + UPDATE
"My GF's 'girl nights outs' included her friends SOs, I feel left out."
So, to make a long story short. My girlfriend of nearly 3 years has always had her "girl nights" out, every 2-3 weeks or so. Which is perfectly fine because I also had nights where I did stuff with my friends as well. (We're all in our mid to late 20s, by the way.)
But yesterday, while my girlfriend's friend and her boyfriend hung out at our place, the boyfriend referenced something that happened on Saturday, which was her last night out.
I was confused and, after a bit of probing, found out that not only is he a regular on these nights outs, but her other two friends bring their own boyfriends along on these nights as well.
It's just me who has never been asked, nor even informed that these girl nights out weren't the "just need to be with my girls for a bit" relaxing nights as she used to claim. Literally a few weeks ago we talked about her upcoming night out with them and she told me something like "sometimes I just really need to be just with the girls".
Of course I asked her once we were alone why she's never brought it up or why I have never been invited, but she just kept claiming that "the guys weren't always invited, and most of the time they just tagged along".
Honestly, I feel pretty alone and disrespected right now. Plus even now, almost 3 years later I feel like I am barely "in" her friend group. I feel like if they were all meeting up anyway, I could have been there and maybe have become friends with them as well. Unlike her, I do invite my girlfriend around to do stuff with my own set of friends a lot.
Now it feels like it wasn't just the girls she wanted to see, but rather that she just really didn't want to spent that time with me, while her friends had no problems spending their time together with their boyfriends. I don't really know what to think or what to do.
Two days later, the OP returned with an update.
Hey, so first of all thank you all for your comments, I couldn't reply to them all due to the thread being locked. I read through them all and I did what I probably should have done directly when it first happened, I went and talked to her.
To make a long story short, there were never any girls nights out. These were always simple nights out with her friend group. So why wasn't I invited? Because they all hate my guts due to her own fault, according to her.
My gf said back when we started dating she'd always vent to them about me, all these small issues we fixed between her nights out and literally never talked about again was all her friends group knew about me.
Issue after issue, but never how we fixed it together as well. She realized that as well and stopped venting about me but at that point it was, according to her, too late. They'd always joke about me behind their backs.
The feeling I had of being ostracized on the rare occasions where one of her friends would hang out at our place wasn't just a feeling after all. They do really hate me. I simply wanted to know why she was ok with that and why she wouldn't stand up for our relationship.
She said she wasn't ok with that but what could she do? Her friends would have trash talked her if she said anything. Not only that but her friends have me as the butt of all their jokes. In their minds I'm an incompetent, impotent buffoon.
All these freaking side eyes I got when I would talk to any of them wasn't just in my imagination. I'd talk to my girlfriend back then and she'd always say "it's just in your head".
To be honest, it made me mad that she was trying to be the victim in this situation and idk why but finding out that they despise me and my supposed to be gf is tolerating it and wouldn't defend me made me really, really upset.
If I'm being honest at this point I kind of mentally checked out and I already knew that I won't allow this disrespect and that this relationship is already through. Yet there is so much I just don't understand.
So I asked her simply, why? Why would you be ok with any of that and why wouldn't you either stop being friends or literally demanding them to stop talking like that about us and about me? All she said was something like "you know how I am, I don't really like being the center of attention, I just kept quiet...".
Finally I just asked her if anything would change going forward and she said she could try talking to them individually but she said it in such a timid way that I don't think for a second she actually meant it.
Anyway long story short, I broke up with her. It sucks and I feel really badly about myself right now, I've always tried very hard to be the best version of myself in this relationship.
But knowing that there is a whole group of people out there who literally hate me, and the one person who is supposed to love and defend me no matter what, yet didn't, kind of sucks.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP's update:
Reminds me of that BoRU where the woman let her friends think her husband was physically abusive and walked out with them when they confronted her husband. Breaking up with her was definitely the right thing to do, but I gotta wonder what story she spun for her friends.
Hype up your friends and SO's. Talk about them in the way you'd want them to talk about you.
I bet that ex is never going to admit what she did and never going to correct her friends once they start calling OP a monster and that she deserved better and it’s hard to blame the friend group for that.
She poisoned the well just fine on her own. Even as a shoulder to cry on, it’s hard to judge when to be sympathetic and let your friend run the frustrations out or when to tell them to look at a mirror.
Oh, hey, an actual case of gaslighting where she told him it was all in his head that her friends hated him. We got one!
"She said she wasn't ok with that but what could she do?"
I don't know maybe, and I know is a wild suggestion, talk to your friends about how you don't like how they talk about your partner.
If your partner can't even stand up for you, then they were never your true lover in the very first place.
I read a tip a long time ago about not airing your relationship dirty laundry with your friends because they’ll never forget it, and that really stuck with me. I work my problems out with my husband, and vent to my therapist if I need to.
Okay fine, she realized she only vented and didn’t talk about the good things and that her friends only had a negative view of him. Why not start talking about the good things to try and at least balance things out instead of just letting them trash talk someone you care about for 3 years? At least try something, anything to try and make things right.
I feel so bad for OP. Had to spend 3 years with someone who’d happily throw him to the wolves if it meant she didn’t get caught with egg on her face. And her friends are POS as well. You’d think after 3 years of them being together, one of them would’ve realized he’s not that bad.
Let’s not kid ourselves, she wasn’t just letting it happen, she was actively participating. There’s no way they were cracking jokes and talking trash for years if she was sitting there stone faced and silent. She was laughing and joining in as her own BF was being run into the ground. That’s not just weird and disrespectful, it’s straight up sick.