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JohnnyTruant
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PathStep 5 Compassion hearts19 Forum posts3 Forum upvotes4 Current upvotes4 Age GroupAdult Last activeMay, 2026 Member sinceAugust 2, 2017
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Trust and boundary issues with my gf and "good" friend
Relationship Stress / by JohnnyTruant
Last post
 July 30th, 2025
...See more I've had a bit of a difficult and complicated situation with both my girlfriend of a year and a half and a male friend I've had for 10+ years that has caused me to lose trust in both of them and makes me feel like a fool for tolerating bad behavior and not being able to honestly arrive at forgiveness. To provide some background, my friend has been cheating on his wife for at least the past 5 years. This has also included having me at times go along with him and a girl he's interested in on dates so that it looked like I was being setup for that date (when I was single in the past), when in actuality, I was the 3rd wheel and gave him cover to do this. So many other odd situations like this, but I won't go further into it for now. When I first started seeing my girlfriend, we had just started talking and went out for drinks once with her co-workers. She then came out to watch a team sport I was playing and we were talking with each other at the bar. My friend walks over and basically it felt like I got elbowed out of the way and he asks for her *** and we discuss an event later that night that I clearly made it known that I was going to take her to it. He tried to convince her to go there earlier with him right in front of me, knowing I had an obligation that would prevent me from going earlier. I was already *** off by that, but later that night he also messaged her and tried to get her to go to dinner with her. She didn't go with him and went with me later and he backed off after seeing us together at the event. I really lost a lot of respect for him at that point and just chose not to confront him over it. She also realized he was married and I kind of went off about his unfaithfulness since he made it pretty obvious what his intentions were. It always felt like there was some tension beneath the surface ever since and honestly I got the feeling that she was enamored with him and she would especially make comments about him from time to time when we got in fights, and seemed to only talk positively about him no matter what I shared about him.  He eventually asked for her snap in front of me at some point and also asked her to play on a team with him in a sport she had never really played before. He would always go out of his way to hug her or talk with her and it always felt weird and knowing his initial intentions was always in the back of my head. About 6 months ago I decided to break up with her for various reasons. She immediately messaged him to join a team with him and informed him we broke up. We decided to get back together not even a week later, based on the promise that things would be different and I made it clear I wouldn't even consider it if she had already started going on dates etc. with other men, which she said she didn't. Cut to almost 2 months after that and she tells me that my friend had asked her to dinner after she messaged him about us and joining the team. Her explanation was that she was afraid of what it would do to my friendship with him is why she didn't tell me right away. She did tell me she was going to go to dinner with him but we got back together so it didn't happen. She explained it as "she needed to get out of the house" and he was just such a "nice chill guy" and that nothing happened so I shouldn't be upset about anything and she didn't mean anything by it. I was so *** in the moment that I blocked him on social media. Less than a week later, he noticed that I blocked him and he confronted me on it. I explained why and he said he didn't mean anything by it this time, but the first time he was trying to pick her up and claims he didn't know I was dating her or interested. He also showed me the at least 30 message exchanges during the time we broke up (which she never showed me) which showed that it was her that was pushing for them to go out for drinks. He said that he had been dumped before and knew how much it hurt so he was just going to help her feel better. The thing that kills me is how this was kept from me by both of them until she must have felt guilty enough to tell me. Well, her version of events that is, that pointed the finger at him and she never took responsibility for initiating this. I didn't feel I got much repentance or any ownership from her. That basically because she eventually told me and supposedly they never met up so I shouldn't be mad or suspicious about anything. I still to this can't bring up the subject without her being completely evasive and feel like I've had to deal with and carry it all on my own. I felt betrayed by him as well and would expect a good friend to at least tell me what was going on instead of keeping it totally quiet. His excuse was that he was "waiting for me to talk to him about the breakup" but it felt very opportunistic and I don't really believe the excuse. If I had a close friend break up with their gf/wife and they started messaging me and trying to get me to go out for drinks with them, I'd at the very least tell my friend about it and also not take their ex up on the offer. But that's just me. I feel like I'm still in limbo and can't unsee what I've seen and feel there is tension and an emotional undercurrent. I think about it every day and it still feels like there is some underlying connection, though I don't think they'd act upon it while we're still dating. I feel like I just have to suffer and carry what feels like a burden. Ironically, she broke up with her ex at one point because he took some random girl out to dinner and it feels like our relationship is full of double-standards.
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