'I just found out my girlfriend's 'girl nights outs' included her friends' partners. I feel left out.' UPDATED

"My GFs 'girl nights outs' included her friends' SOs, I feel left out."

So, to make a long story short. My GF 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 btw). But yesterday while my gfs friend and her bf hung out at our place the BF 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 bfs along 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 gf 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 bfs.

I don't really know what to think or what to do.

The internet had a lot to say in response.

IsshinDZahul wrote:

I think you are entitled to feel bad, she has been masking going out with her friends under “girls night.” There is nothing wrong with her wanting to go out without you but the lying part makes it weird and borderline disrespectful. I don’t think this is an isolated incident, and you feel hurt because there have been other issues, right?

OP responded:

I don't really know.

I mean everyone has their preferences and their own character.

She's always been a bit more "cold" in the way she acts than my previous partners, but I never thought that she'd feel like she needed this much of a break from me and the relationship as a whole. As I said in my post, I wouldn't have had an issue at all if this was just a girls night out and if she did really need to have a bit of a break. But she was literally meeting up with her group of friends and their boyfriends.

I genuinely can't imagine going out with my extended friendgroup twice in a row without even asking my gf to be there with me. More often then not she comes with me. So I just don't really understand why she'd want to separate me from her side of friends like that. I just don't know how to feel right now.

IsshinDZahul responded:

You feel hurt, and that’s natural, there is nothing wrong with that. When you talk to her I’d suggest to focus on the “why”, why lie? Why keep you apart from the group? Why the need for a break? This issue overall can be the tip of an iceberg of something much bigger hurting your relationship. Sure it could be she is just an ass but in that case there is not much you can do.

oceanasabeing wrote:

Straight up just confront her with the why did I have to find this out. Why wasn’t I informed. Why did I have to probe about the “girls nights out” it could be nothing. Probably is but she needs to understand that’s not fair to you.

Make it clear that it’s not a fight and you just want to clear the air. She’s gonna get offended tho. People are so used to people being fake that speaking directly is seen as aggressive. I wish you luck fam and stay strong mah brotha and remember that YOU'RE the victim.

Don’t play the victim card but keep in mind that you did nothing wrong and you’re just wanting to know what you don’t know and this is where it could get hairy what’s most important is why it took so long for you to know these things. Oh hell nah dude I’m the jealous type and I would have made a scene. That’s probably why I’m single so you know take it with a grain of salt

OP responded:

Maybe I should have properly confronted her, it was already late so all we did was me asking it and her handwaiving me away more or less. I will talk to her again, this is really bothering me if I'm being honest.

I love her so much and I always try to include her and basically just spent more time with her, finding out that she has been keeping me away from these nights out for whatever reason has really hurt me. All I can think of is this, if she really needs such a break from me and the relationship (while her friends clearly don't), then is it even a relationship she's happy in?

Two days later, OP shared 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 ostraziced 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 s#$ttalked 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 f#$king side eyes I got when I would talk to any of them wasn't just in my imagination. I'd talk to my gf back then and she'd always say "it's just in your head".

Tbh 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 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.

TL;DR: we talked, found out there were no nights out, her friend group hate me and she tolerated and wouldn't even entertain the thought of changing anything about it, I broke up with her.

The internet continued to have OP's back.

CantEvenRemember wrote:

So I gotta ask, what was her reaction to being broken up with?

OP responded:

She cried and begged me not to, but as I said above, I asked her if anything at all would change. But even then she wouldn't budge. I was 99% sure I was going to end that talk broken up with her, but after seeing her (in-)action in the actual talk just solidified it so much more.

She left for her bffs apartment and hasn't messaged me yet. But tbh, there isn't really anything she could say to change my mind by now. I loved and still do love her a lot, but I'm still trying to process her friends more or less bullying me indirectly and her literally just being okay with it. This isn't the kind of person I thought she'd be, nor the kind of person I want in my life.

OverRipe-Cucumber wrote:

It isn't just her friends though, she wasn't just okay with it as an observer. SHE said all those terrible things about you to them. SHE made them think all this garbage. SHE was the one badmouthing you and making you the butt of the joke. Only after she had laid down all that ground work did she stop to think how things had become.

AND SHE LIED TO YOU MANY TIMES, AND KNOWINGLY GASLITE YOU! You deserve so much better. I hope you are able to find someone who is more respectful of you in the future! Her character flaws finally revealed themselves, and she was not a great partner to you, I am sorry.

Hollownix wrote:

I went through a similar thing in my first 'serious' relationship at around 18, my gf at the time would "get advice" from her friends, and then she'd use them as ammunition and tell me they thought I wasn't good enough for her. This lead to our breakup, and it eventually completely severed our friendship as well because I couldn't stomach being around her friends and family when I knew they hated me.

It's just not possible imo for a relationship to last long term when you're dividing the other significant people in your lives into "my friends" and "your friends" and letting them have bad opinions of each other, you should want your friends/family to like your partner.

It's a very juvenile behaviour to immediately run to tell everyone you know about minor problems like this, sad that OP's ex apparently hasn't grown out of it.