My friend thinks her boyfriend is cheating on her with his ex

[advicegirl]

My friend has a boyfriend that lives somewhere else, quite a ways a way of where she lives. His best friend is his ex girlfriend and my friend gets worried that he might be cheating on her with his ex girlfriend. She did ask him one night and he got mad and he said he wasn't going to stop being friends with his ex girlfriend. Do you have any advice that I can give my friend? She asks me but I am running out of ideas.

advicegirl

[ziggue]

I wouldn't like it if my boyfriend (if I had one) was best friends with his ex girlfriend. Especially if he did live a bit out of the way. Where you could'nt keep an eye on him. Especially if they spend a lot of time together. Anyone would hate that feeling.

 

I would only except the guy being friends/speaking to his ex if he spoke to his ex only because they had kids together and that was the only thing that they had to do with eachother.

 

Maybe she could secretly look at his mobile phone (if he has one) when he's not around and look at the messages the ex may be sending. To ease her mind. That's the only idea I can think of. Even though it would be invading somebodys privacy! . Do as much detective work as you can. . If you can deal with the consequences. If you get caught out.

[EnigmaXOXO]

I'm glad your friend at least expressed her concern to her boyfriend. He knows she's uncomfortable with it, and has made the choice not to compromise his friendship with the ex for their relationship. At least she now knows where his priorities are.

 

Your friend has two choices: she can either remain in this relationship and accept that this ex girlfriend will always be a constant factor...or she can walk now and save herself the time, energy and undo stress of forever worrying about it.

 

We can not demand that people behave in a certain way or treat us in the manner we feel we deserve. The only real control we have in a relationship is over how ‘we’ behave and how ‘we’ respond to someone else's behavior (good or bad). And whether we are aware of it or not, we inadvertently ‘teach’ other people how we wish to be treated by what we tolerate --- and what we do not.

 

If a relationship with the ex-girlfriend isn’t something your friend is willing to accept, then she should remove herself from the situation. The power to control her own happiness and well-being is all hers, but *she* must be the one to let go of someone…rather than requesting it from him.

[cdn]

And whether we are aware of it or not, we inadvertently ‘teach’ other people how we wish to be treated by what we tolerate --- and what we do not.

 

This is so true. Thanks for making this point, Enigma.

 

Also, I think that women and men have differing views of what "tolerate" means and, in some cases, this leads to those break-ups where one party is totally bewildered. For instance, a woman will think she is not tolerating an issue by freqent attempts to discuss it (or complain about it) with her bf. The bf assumes, based on her behavior (she's still in the relationship, doing all the standard gf things) that it's not such a big deal. Time passes and the gf becomes more upset while the bf is more complacent. Then, she asks for time and space and starts backing out of the relationship. When pressed, she offers the original issue or his lack of attentiveness as a reason. He doesn't understand or belatedly comes to the realization that a change is needed. Typically, she's gone at this point.

 

In general, if your words say one thing but your actions something else, you are "teaching" the other person with your actions.

[midori]

I agree with Enigma & cdn. I will add this: sometimes a relationship might be a great thing, two people really have chemistry, etc. But other circumstances make the relationship untentable. Speaking from experience, I can say that long-distance is a real headache, one which can lead to heartache. Sometimes it's better to just admit that you've met someone who's compatible with you but it's just not going to work because of the distance.

 

The friendship with his ex would have a very different feel if your friend were there in the same place. It's not necessarily the friendship itself that is problematic, it's the friendship in combination with the circumstances of your friend's long-distance romance.

 

I was in a long-distance relationship for a few years. It ended very painfully, and a lot of the pain was generated because my ex was unwilling/unable to admit to himself that the separation was too painful for him to bear any longer; he needed a girlfriend on-hand, not one half-way around the world (the separation existed because of his job). He had to fabricate other reasons as to why our relationship wasn't right. I'm not saying that your friend is looking for other reasons to find fault with the relationship; I'm sure her misgivings about his friendship with his ex are real. And maybe she has good reason to be worried. But I'd argue that the bigger issue is the distance.

 

At the end of the day, trust is either there or it isn't. When we were together, I implicitly trusted my long-distance boyfriend. Despite his track record of cheating on previous girlfriends, I never had the sense that he was cheating on me, and conversations with some of his friends seemed to back that up. Who knows, maybe he was cheating and I was just duped. But actually I think that was part of what made the separation so difficult for him, so I think I was right to trust him. Anyway, if your friend doesn't trust her boyfriend, then she shouldn't be in the relationship. A long-distance relationship is hard enough; a long-distance relationship without trust is simply torture. What's the point?

[advicegirl]

THANKS!!!!!

[sarah12]

Wow, this is a post that I have truly learned from. Thanks everyone! You did a great job!

[Vivid_29]

Originally posted by advicegirl

My friend has a boyfriend that lives somewhere else, quite a ways a way of where she lives. His best friend is his ex girlfriend and my friend gets worried that he might be cheating on her with his ex girlfriend. She did ask him one night and he got mad and he said he wasn't going to stop being friends with his ex girlfriend. Do you have any advice that I can give my friend? She asks me but I am running out of ideas.

advicegirl

 

You know, LDR's are very tough and the distance can make us fonder.................for someone else. I know, cause about 5 years ago, I was in an LDR and I ended up cheating with my ex.

 

If he got all defensive, he probably still feels something for her and is screwing around.

 

Do you know what made your friend suspicious?

 

~V