'AITA for telling my BF I'm leaving him as long as his female BFF is in the picture?'
"AITA for telling my boyfriend of 3 years I won't be with him anymore as long as his girl best friend is in the picture?"
I (34F) have been dating my boyfriend (32M) for almost 3 years. From day one, he told me he had a girl best friend. I was actually excited at first — he made it sound great. He talked about bonfires, going to the lake, sleepovers. I thought it’d be cool to have another girl around to hang out with.
But things quickly got weird. He invited her to do stuff with us, and she always made excuses not to. One time we had a bonfire without telling her, and she called him drunk, cussing him out for not inviting her even though she had turned down every prior invitation. She didn’t really speak to him for several months after that.
I just thought that it was odd that they apparently had hung out every day before I came into the picture but then all of a sudden she stopped coming around.
When she finally did reach out, it was in the middle of an argument my boyfriend and I were having. He vented to her and said some really hurtful things about me. I didnt even find out about this until he told me about it two months later as I had left the house to get some space. I told him that was a huge boundary for me — I don’t want our relationship issues shared with others. He promised it wouldn’t happen again.
But 5 months later, we argued again, and he went to her house and spent 4 hours trash-talking me. We broke up for a bit after that. He admitted he crossed a line, but he never really took accountability — just kept trying to justify it.
Other red flags:
When they text, it’s always with flirty/cutesy emojis
He visits her Facebook more than anyone else’s
He changed his profile pic once (to just him), and she texted him 5 minutes later prying to see if we were on the outs
Eventually I told him I felt really uncomfortable with their dynamic. I asked that he not hang out with her one-on-one, especially if her boyfriend isn’t home (she has a live-in boyfriend, even though her facebook says shes single?).
She's an alcoholic and is always drunk so I felt like that was a fair ask anyway. He agreed, and even suggested a double date so I could get to know her too. I was open to that. I even told him I thought it was be cool to have another couple to hang out with, play cards with, etc.
Then two days ago, while I was at work, he texted her about coming over. She told him sure and also let him know her boyfriend wasn’t home. He turned off his location on Life360 (we downloaded life360 because of HIS trust issues and I ironically wanted him to feel secure), lied to me and said he was going home — and went to her house for over an hour. He’s never lied to me before.
So to me, he crossed two major boundaries:
1.) He went to her house when her boyfriend wasn’t there (which he promised he wouldn’t), and
2.) He lied to me and turned off his location to hide it
His excuse? “I knew you’d be upset.”
I told him I can’t be in a relationship with him if she’s going to stay in the picture. Now he says I’m overreacting, being controlling, and trying to isolate him from his friends.
AITA for drawing that line? Or is this a sign I should just walk away completely?
What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:
Cute-Profession9983 said:
You're only TA because you stuck around so long. He's shady AF
Repulsive-Attitude-5 said:
NTA - was a strange dynamic to begin with. The fact your bfs friend refused to meet you for months when you first started dating makes me think she has feelings for your bf.
Do they have a history? If he's not willing to respect the reasonable boundaries you've set then I think you need to consider walking away.
JD054 said:
NTA….you set a boundary for yourself and stuck with it. You can’t control others but you can control how you respond
CulturedPhilistine said:
NTA. Your boyfriend is the issue. If your boyfriend's first response to you two having an argument is to trash you to others, you have bigger problems. If he he's going to lie about his whereabouts, that's on him, not her. His behavior is suspect, female best friend or not.
And PersonalityWinter442 said:
Stop being the AH to yourself, and leave already. How many more reasons do you need?