I have been with my partner for a couple of years now, and he has several high school friends who visited from out of state recently who I got to finally meet. He and I are both sort of lazy about social events and don’t go hang with friends much, mostly just our families and each others families.
His best friend has a sister who lives in our area, who met up with us as well for lunch and came with his whole crew and us to the bar afterwards. I was sitting between him and her at lunch, and the vibe got really flirty between them. He got sort of giggly and lit up while talking to her, asking her questions about her life, just seeming way too interested. It felt like I wasn’t even there.
On the way to the bar he and I rode together. I tried to ask him about it and he insisted he had not flirted with her and we got in a pretty big fight on the way to the bar. So it was tense between us for the rest of the outing which was several hours. The same vibe came up with the two of them at the bar, he seemed very interested in talking to her and not to me.
I again brought up the flirty behavior between him and her about a week later, and finally got it out of him-he admitted that he has had a crush on her since high school, that she gives him butterflies, and that they made out one time a few years back but that he never went any further with her. When I asked why it never became more, he said that he doesn’t think he ever really could have and he never had the confidence to ask for more from her, and he would not want to mess up a lifelong friendship with his best friend by dating his sister.
Ever since this incident, I feel betrayed that he never told me about her. They are friends on Facebook and comment/like on each other’s stuff quite a bit, she is listed as single, and when I brought up again to him that this bothers me he said he won’t do anything about it, and that it would be crazy of me to think he would unfriend his best friends’ sister and that he feels scrutinized by his every action online by me. I did agree(verbally) that it wouldn’t be right of me to ask him to unfriend her, but it makes me feel so disrespected knowing he has a thing for her. He then did some weird privacy setting changes such as hiding his friends list that was previously visible.
Is it wrong of me to be so hurt by this? I really wish he cared about my feelings enough to unfriend her. I am also disappointed because his friends group from high school is so large, some still live around, and I felt so uncomfortable around the group with all their old stories and inside jokes which I can also see a lot of online. I wanted to be more of a part of his life by now.
He is very sweet to me most of the time until he feels accused of something such as in this situation. In private he does make me feel special. He does tell me he loves me a lot and gets flowers for me and texts me good morning almost every morning. Am I crazy? Isn’t having a lifelong crush on a woman who he plans to keep in his life a huge thing that he should have mentioned to me a long time ago?
He has a few ex girlfriends, some who didn’t even go to high school with his crew, who are friends with him and with all his friends on Facebook as well. I’m jealous that his exes seemed to have been invited into his life and his friends group and none of his friends has even tried to request me as a friend on there even after they know I’ve been with him for a while now and it’s been a few months since this outing where I met them all now. Is this a sign they didn’t like me, or am I just being paranoid? I know it’s just social media, but it’s such a big part of life now that it really matters to me that I don’t feel included. I had an impression before this that he and I were really close. Now I’ve become this jealous crazy person.
Dear FLO,
I kept the moniker you wrote in with, but really I think that “feeling left out” is only one part of this situation. Yes, I agree that it would be nice for you to be more a part of his friend group after years of being together, and it would be flattering if they reached out to include you, on social media and in real life. But the bigger red flag to me is your boyfriend’s behavior with his friend’s sister, and in general. He reminds me of this guy who didn’t want to take his girlfriend to work events.
Your boyfriend does not sound like he wants you to be part of his general social life. We can see the reason why after learning about his crush on his friend’s sister. While it is healthy not to merge completely in an intimate relationship, and to have your own friends, it is quite risky to the relationship to maintain a private relationship with a person that you have had a crush on for your whole life and can’t even help yourself from flirting with in front of your partner.
I am particularly concerned with the present tense of your boyfriend’s crush. She “gives” him butterflies currently; this is not feeling rooted in the past. If this woman, who is single and flirted with him in front of his girlfriend, decided to text him late night or outright kissed him one night, would he reject her? Even if he did the “right thing” and did in fact reject her, would he be at peace with that decision?
Long term relationships are hard enough without adding into the mix a lifelong unrequited crush on someone you continue to see socially. I also encourage you to think deeply about why you may be settling for less than you deserve in this relationship and I would guess previous ones as well. While your boyfriend sounds like he can be romantic, he is also closed off and defensive. I would imagine that your self-esteem is not high enough to assert yourself in relationships, and therapy can help with this.
Best of luck, and till we meet again, I remain, The Blogapist Who Says, Find Someone Who Feels About You As He Does About Her.