Boyfriend has lots of female friends

"If he had written to me, I would have advised him to say no to you, and to say that he really cared about you and wanted to see where your relationship would go, but he wouldn’t change himself to make that happen."

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August 26, 2020 - 9:24 AM

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.

Carolyn HaxCourtesy photo

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.

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