Dear Carolyn: My boyfriend came to our (hetero) relationship with a lot of female friends. I’m uncomfortable with my partners having close female friendships, based on a prior history of dating people who were emotionally unavailable to me and were super-close with a female friend. One of those exes went on to marry his bestie, which still stings.
I expressed my discomfort to my boyfriend. He wants me to be happy, so he adjusted his behavior and engages less with female friends one-on-one. Meanwhile, I’m really trying hard to get better when his friendships put him in one-on-one situations with female friends . . . but it still really bothers me.
Our relationship is good. I do not want to assume the worst of him because he is a man. I worry that expressing my feelings with the result of changing his behavior is controlling, and that he is missing out on friendships he used to be more present in.
