Can someone tell me if I need to leave my relationship. Be brutally honest on if I'm crazy.

[whathappenstomenow]

As brief as I can possibly be I dated my girlfriend for about a year before I found out she had a male friend from the gym.   To be completely clear they do not hangout outside the gym, there has been no infidelity on her part 

 He started bringing her desserts and candies a lot. He had made some sexual comments to her and a couple other gym members about being unhappy in his marriage because his wife never put out and saying he needed to get some - things of that sort. My girlfriend told me this.

Then he heard from another gym member girlfriend of hers that my gf had a sick relative. He started reaching out and asking if she needed anything and if there was anything he could do and was regularly checking on her. 

I started feeling uncomfortable given everything I had heard.    I brought it up to my girlfriend and after a discussion she said that she thought the way it was going was a bit inappropriate as well, and that she had been in a similar situation before and she was uncomfortable with it.   She told me she was going to pull him aside and let him know that she appreciates his friendship but that she feels the texting and the gift giving has to end

Fast-forward two months and she comes to me and says she made a mistake and she no longer thinks what they were doing was inappropriate . She says she thought it at the time but after thinking about it friends check on each other, friends bring each other snacks, and whatnot . Basically that she made a mistake thinking it was inappropriate and telling him they need to stop texting.  So we agreed she could do what she wanted and I would trust her . 

The real issue is this : in a bizarre coincidence , after we had the talk where she let out how she really felt, he texted her 2 days later.  

So the position now is that she pulled this guy aside at the gym and told him that both her and her boyfriend thought their texting and gift giving etc were inappropriate . And before anything changed or they ever spoke again about texting, he texts her. (He said something like hey, how has work been going )   

He completely violated what she told him. She showed a lot of maturity and care for him as a friend by pulling him aside and confiding some personal history and letting him know truthfully and straight to his face that she thought it was inappropriate. And I feel like he kind of spit right in both our faces by texting her again.     My girlfriend said because I got back on board with her being friends with him that I should be fine with it. My whole point is that before he even knew anything other than what she told him about not texting any more he texted her, completely disrespecting her wishes that she went out of her way to tell him

I feel we are at a complete stand still and we have had a couple conversations but not much is happening.   Can someone tell me I'm just being too much, or I need to leave her for her sake as well as mine since we seem to have fundamental differences in this.   I feel it was so disrespectful to me, her , and our relationship for him to continue texting her and she doesn't seem to care much. She said she will make some joke to him like " hey f***er I told you not to text me, you got me in trouble"

And I thought that made it even worse, because it's like she doesn't even think it's a big deal.  Please tell me straight up what your opinion on this situation is. Am I crazy ? Am I wrong ? Do you think It sounds inappropriate? Is it not very disrespectful that he continued texting ?

Edited 21 hours ago by a LoveShack.org Moderator
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[Gebidozo]

I think everyone can agree that he is being disrespectful. He is literally trying to “get some” from your girlfriend or other women because his wife won’t “put out”.

The question is whether your girlfriend is being disrespectful to you and herself by continuing to be “friends” with someone who has openly announced his lewd intentions.

In my opinion, yes, continuing to have a close connection with that creepy person would be disrespectful to your relationship.

Perhaps you could gently ask her to revert back to the stage where you both decided that she shouldn’t be friends with him.

[Acacia98]

5 hours ago, whathappenstomenow said:

Please tell me straight up what your opinion on this situation is. Am I crazy ? Am I wrong ? Do you think It sounds inappropriate? Is it not very disrespectful that he continued texting ?

I think that your girlfriend is either too much of a people-pleaser or, at some level, is enjoying the attention.

I say this because, after you tell someone where your boundaries lie, if they violate them (especially in this kind of situation), you don't keep having talks with them to emphasize where the boundaries lie. And you certainly don't adjust your boundaries to accommodate them. You shut the door. Yet here she is having repeated talks with this fellow about boundaries and then shifting hers to accommodate him.

I think there's a fundamental discrepancy in values between you and her. So the way she's handling this issue is going to make you uncomfortable going forward. And it should. But, beyond telling her that you're not comfortable with it, there isn't much else you can do without coming across as a jealous control freak. So give her the leeway to act as she chooses and start preparing yourself mentally for the inevitable break-up. 

Edited 17 hours ago by Acacia98

[glows]

I agree with the posts above but would personally find my interest waning drastically in your gf as a partner and wouldn’t see a future with her. In my experience it’s difficult to revert the loss of respect for someone once they breach boundaries or make it explicit their views are as fundamentally different as you say - to the point of feeling disrespected and unsafe/uncomfortable with a situation. 

Id remain tactful about the differences but also wouldn’t find any reason to discuss further. I wouldn’t let it go on much further. 

[whathappenstomenow]

2 hours ago, glows said:

I agree with the posts above but would personally find my interest waning drastically in your gf as a partner and wouldn’t see a future with her. In my experience it’s difficult to revert the loss of respect for someone once they breach boundaries or make it explicit their views are as fundamentally different as you say - to the point of feeling disrespected and unsafe/uncomfortable with a situation. 

Id remain tactful about the differences but also wouldn’t find any reason to discuss further. I wouldn’t let it go on much further. 

Thank you that was so well put.

 

I fear I'm already at the point where I've lost enough respect that the future looks very uncertain

[whathappenstomenow]

4 hours ago, Gebidozo said:

I think everyone can agree that he is being disrespectful. He is literally trying to “get some” from your girlfriend or other women because his wife won’t “put out”.

The question is whether your girlfriend is being disrespectful to you and herself by continuing to be “friends” with someone who has openly announced his lewd intentions.

In my opinion, yes, continuing to have a close connection with that creepy person would be disrespectful to your relationship.

Perhaps you could gently ask her to revert back to the stage where you both decided that she shouldn’t be friends with him.

I already suggested something like that, now citing that not only do/did the interactions seems inappropriate, but now he has absolutely disrespected you, me, and our relationship by ignoring your earnest request for him to stop communications. 

 

Her response was that if I wouldn't have said it was inappropriate in the first place and "made her" stop talking to him ( we had an extremely calm, mature conversation about the nature of their interactions and communication when I first started hearing all the details about his behavior and she was in COMPLETE agreement with me that it was inappropriate)

then he never would have had to stop texting her which means we wouldn't now be in the situation where he had to ignore her request and text her when she asked him not to...because she never would've had to ask him not to. Hope that made sense.. basically 

 

It's my fault they stopped talking 

 

If she never "had" to tell him it was inappropriate he never would've stopped texting her

 

If he was never told it was inappropriate and not to do it, he couldn't subsequently violate what she told him. If I hadn't supported a restriction , there wouldn't have been any restriction for him to disrespect/ignore

[Acacia98]

I had to laugh at that. Sorry, but it sounds like such a ridiculous response. It's something I would expect from a child being scolded by their parent. I hope you didn't try to use logic to make her see sense. 

[Gebidozo]

7 hours ago, whathappenstomenow said:

If he was never told it was inappropriate and not to do it, he couldn't subsequently violate what she told him. If I hadn't supported a restriction , there wouldn't have been any restriction for him to disrespect/ignore

This sounds like the speech of a crooked lawyer in court grotesquely distorting reality in a desperate attempt to prove the innocence of a clearly guilty person.

 

 

[glows]

9 hours ago, whathappenstomenow said:

I already suggested something like that, now citing that not only do/did the interactions seems inappropriate, but now he has absolutely disrespected you, me, and our relationship by ignoring your earnest request for him to stop communications. 

 

Her response was that if I wouldn't have said it was inappropriate in the first place and "made her" stop talking to him ( we had an extremely calm, mature conversation about the nature of their interactions and communication when I first started hearing all the details about his behavior and she was in COMPLETE agreement with me that it was inappropriate)

then he never would have had to stop texting her which means we wouldn't now be in the situation where he had to ignore her request and text her when she asked him not to...because she never would've had to ask him not to. Hope that made sense.. basically 

 

It's my fault they stopped talking 

 

If she never "had" to tell him it was inappropriate he never would've stopped texting her

 

If he was never told it was inappropriate and not to do it, he couldn't subsequently violate what she told him. If I hadn't supported a restriction , there wouldn't have been any restriction for him to disrespect/ignore

She’s gaslighting you into being the problem. This is manipulator 101 but at the kindergarten level given the situation. I agree with the others - laughable at best. She’s attempting to make you out to be the crazy one but unfortunately it’s backfiring.

The second and possibly greater concern is that she’s behaving this way regarding a rather petty and insignificant issue. Couples go through life and death together, bringing children into the world, witnessing the loss of loved ones and usually support one another during tough times. She chose instead to not just manipulate you and put you in a difficult situation, she also chose to do it for a married man who is unhappy in his own marriage. To me this is lacking so many levels of intellect and empathy it’s shocking. Would you be prepared to navigate the ups and downs of life with her as a partner? 

[Lotsgoingon]

Hmmmm ... You're getting deep into the details and I say that because in situations like this, you can get lost in the details. I have many times gotten lost in processing what was going on in my relationships because I got pulled into too many details. 

So I realize simplifying is so hard--especially when you're the person in the relationship. Still I want to simplify this whole situation, or try to simplify it, to see if it helps with more clarity.

First of all, it sounds like your gf has a boundaries problem. She doesn't have a gut sense for when someone (in this case someone of the opposite sex) is coming too close to her. I know relationships between men and women are changing. I'm a testament to that in that I have a number of close women friends and I share about my dating life with them and they will even share about their marriage lives. But we didn't get to talking about their marriages until really late into our friendships. The red flag is your gf not pulling back when this guy mentioned his marital sex life. She needed to have a radar go off right then. 

Also, when he started to offer favors. Like offering to help her deal with having a sick relative. I don 't think this guy was close enough (in a neutral way) with your gf to offer that kind of favor. Red flag that she didn't object to this. Dude is married. Hasn't he got enough on his plate?! Him checking in on her--that's what you do after a longer period of settled friendship. Note--as a friend, I look for what I can do that complements what my women friends' husbands already do. 

Another red flag--she didn't tell you about this guy.  I'm pretty good friends with the husbands of my close women friends. I'll just take one friend who lives a thousand miles away. She has invited me to visit her and her husband and they have come here to visit me. No secrets. 

Shift your gaze from this guy--and instead focus on your gf. She is the problem here. BTW: I once dated a woman with weak boundaries. It was a pain: she was always scheduling with other people who expressed an interest in her even if she wasn't all that into them. She had trouble saying no. If you're with someone who has trouble saying "no" to people, you, the partner, will absolutely suffer in that relationship.

Bigger picture: there is a boundaries problem or a relationship problem when you don't feel reassured by your partner. Period!

Don't expect to persuade her to change. Sorry--the kind of change your gf needs to make can take a decade and some people never make the change, never learn how to set the appropriate distance and limits on friendships or even acquaintance relationships. 

Yes, I think you want to dump her and move on. 

 

 

[whathappenstomenow]

2 hours ago, Lotsgoingon said:

Hmmmm ... You're getting deep into the details and I say that because in situations like this, you can get lost in the details. I have many times gotten lost in processing what was going on in my relationships because I got pulled into too many details. 

So I realize simplifying is so hard--especially when you're the person in the relationship. Still I want to simplify this whole situation, or try to simplify it, to see if it helps with more clarity.

First of all, it sounds like your gf has a boundaries problem. She doesn't have a gut sense for when someone (in this case someone of the opposite sex) is coming too close to her. I know relationships between men and women are changing. I'm a testament to that in that I have a number of close women friends and I share about my dating life with them and they will even share about their marriage lives. But we didn't get to talking about their marriages until really late into our friendships. The red flag is your gf not pulling back when this guy mentioned his marital sex life. She needed to have a radar go off right then. 

Also, when he started to offer favors. Like offering to help her deal with having a sick relative. I don 't think this guy was close enough (in a neutral way) with your gf to offer that kind of favor. Red flag that she didn't object to this. Dude is married. Hasn't he got enough on his plate?! Him checking in on her--that's what you do after a longer period of settled friendship. Note--as a friend, I look for what I can do that complements what my women friends' husbands already do. 

Another red flag--she didn't tell you about this guy.  I'm pretty good friends with the husbands of my close women friends. I'll just take one friend who lives a thousand miles away. She has invited me to visit her and her husband and they have come here to visit me. No secrets. 

Shift your gaze from this guy--and instead focus on your gf. She is the problem here. BTW: I once dated a woman with weak boundaries. It was a pain: she was always scheduling with other people who expressed an interest in her even if she wasn't all that into them. She had trouble saying no. If you're with someone who has trouble saying "no" to people, you, the partner, will absolutely suffer in that relationship.

Bigger picture: there is a boundaries problem or a relationship problem when you don't feel reassured by your partner. Period!

Don't expect to persuade her to change. Sorry--the kind of change your gf needs to make can take a decade and some people never make the change, never learn how to set the appropriate distance and limits on friendships or even acquaintance relationships. 

Yes, I think you want to dump her and move on. 

 

 

Appreciate the response. Looking at it more clearly is helpful.

 

You do not know how right you are regarding the people pleasing. She has brought herself to tears before stressing over "having" to do something with people she doesn't even want to hang out with simply because they asked her and it would be rude or disrespectful in some way to politely decline. Like she has to put on a good show for everyone and she can never disappoint anyone in the slightest. She is extremely hard on herself in that way

 

I am definitely starting to think that the issue is more with my relationship and my girlfriend than with this guy

Edited 5 minutes ago by whathappenstomenow