I cannot stand moralistic folks who claim to be pious and pure but whose worldviews are seething with lascivious doubts. People who proscribe only the most very proper behavior, not because they themselves are pure, but because they see a glistening erection throbbing behind every pair of pants.
There is nothing right or superior or “just normal” about her views. She’s deeply insecure and you need to take care of her feelings. You sound willing and able to do so. But you came here to ask if her demands were reasonable, and I’m agreeing with everyone who says they absolutely are not. Believe me, you haven’t heard the last of this issue. Soon it will be suspicions about you and some woman you work with. Or suspicions about you and one of her female friends.
Trust is definitely lacking in the relationship, which you probably bear at least some responsibility for. Explore that question and you’ll make progress where it counts. No female friends is just a red herring. posted by scarabic at PM on [1 favorite]
I think this is less a question of the semantics of “should opposite-sex friends be okay in a relationship,” and more an issue of doing the introspection if this female friend is exciting in that New Love way
Before dismissing her as Crazy-Ass-Crazy, take a minute to consider her worries. It doesn’t sound like a pattern for her (once in 4 years), and I’m inclined to agree with lovesdir that something, perhaps non-verbal, triggered her defensiveness.
It’s reasonable to be informed about the male OR female friends of your bf/gf. If you met a new guy friend and began hanging out with him and speaking on the phone, is that the kind of thing you would discuss with your gf? If it is, ask yourself why you didn’t discuss your new female friend that very day. Why was your gf surprised? Why did it take a few months and an external event (SHE called YOU during couple time) before the reveal?
Keeping little secrets is a good self-evaluation tool that there is perhaps more there. While not every secret friendship becomes something more, most “something mores” started as a secret friendship.
If there is an inkling of special feelings, and you are happy with your gf, the disciplined thing to do is to restrict your access to the new friend.
If you honestly find there are no feelings there, endeavor to be very honest with your gf regarding your friends, be patient with her while she tries to heal from this hurt, and ask from her that she work on overcoming her suspicions. posted by degrees_of_freedom at 9:39 AM on
Two of my male friends have https://getbride.org/tr/sicak-koreli-kadinlar/ had exes who have checked their text messages and emails, given them curfews, and more besides. It’s horrible. You didn’t state that your girlfriend has done any of these things (yet), but these are future possibilities.
While I don’t personally subscribe to the following, my college roommate’s take on it is that people don’t just whoops! fall into affairs. Affairs often begin as friendships with members of the opposite sex. Once she and her husband got engaged, they decided that making new couple friends would be fine, and hanging out within a group would be fine, and hanging out with a single acquaintance (the two of them as a couple) would be fine, and hey – even spending time one on one with old MOS friends would be fine – but not developing new friendships with new MOS.
Yeah, you screwed up. You’re a guy without female friends who, after over 4 years, decides to befriend a new girl and get her phone number. There’s nothing wrong with this but you didn’t bring this up to your girlfriend. In fact, your girlfriend probably sees it as if you went behind her back and got a number from a girl without her knowing. Even if that’s not what you did, that’s how it feels to her. You weren’t above board with your girlfriend. You had to get this new girl’s number even though there’s a good chance you knew your girlfriend wouldn’t like it? It doesn’t matter if your girlfriend was wrong to begin with – you just waited too long to deal with it. And it blew up. And your girlfriend is upset about it.
Sounds pretty unreasonable as it is here, but like a few others above, it sounds like maybe something from the story is incomplete. People are rarely that crazy.
How did you meet this other girl? Perhaps it was too sudden or in a way that makes your girlfriend question or be jealous.
And you’ve been with your girlfriend for 4 years – you’re not at the point in your relationship where you can ask if something would bother her?
Ah, grasshopper, you will soon learn that those who issue ultimatums forcing you to choose between them and just about anything else, really leave you no choice at all.
Whoah. So because your particular boyfriend broke up with you for another girl, you decided to generalize that to all men, and all friendships with women? That’s as nutty and wrong as anonymous’s girlfriend is. posted by ook at 8:02 PM on [14 favorites]
2) It is UNREASONABLE for your gf to demand that you can never have any female friends now that you are seeing her.
What bothers me about her rule against your having female friends is this: it’s completely Taliban. The belief that men and women cannot interact without it being a sexual act underlies all the societies in the world where women are oppressed. Why make her wear a veil? So no other men can look at her. Why can’t she have a job? Because she might talk to men. Why can’t she leave the house? Well. she’d fuck someone, right? Because inside we’re all just dirty, dirty fuck machines, incapable of thinking about anything else, incapable of commitment, totally untrustworthy and interested in only one thing.