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Opposite sex friends
Okay. I'm 22/f, he's 28/m. No comments on the age difference, please; it's pretty irrelevant.
So, Joe and I have known each other for years. We dated for awhile last year, but I screwed up and broke it off to get back together with my evil ex. We got back together a couple of months ago, and I'm beyond grateful that he gave me a second chance.
Joe and I are incredibly close; he's my best friend, and I'm his. We're even talking about moving in together, which I've never even considered with a guy before. I'm a very closed-off person in general, I value honesty, and I don't get along well with my own gender.
Therein, though, lies the problem. Most of my close friends are guys I grew up with. Joe says he trusts me, and I believe him. He says the fact that I'm close with these guys makes him feel like he's not providing for me enough emotionally. He thinks when you're in a good relationship, your significant other becomes the one person you go to for emotional and physical fulfillment. The thing is, I really DO turn to Joe for everything. He's the first person I call when I'm upset, or happy, or anything; he completes me in ways I could never have imagined.
I have friends of all genders, ethnicities, sexual orientation, ages - everything. I tried to explain to him that the guys I talk to might as well be girls, because I treat all my friends equally, and in my mind they are all equal, but he disagreed.
Joe said he might feel better if he was involved in all the conversations with them, but that's just not physically possible. I'll chat with them for a couple of minutes on line, and I even show Joe the transcripts, but it's not enough.
I offered to arrange for him to meet them, but he doesn't even want to meet a couple of them, ever. One of them I posed nude for for a photography project, and obviously, Joe doesn't like that. I hate that I did it, and I never would now, and I expressed that to him...but I didn't hide it from him because I want him to know everything about me. He feels that this particular friend is immoral, and that what he asked me to do was degrading and insulting to me.
Anyway, these guy friends are like family to me, just like my few girl friends. I desperately don't want to lose them, or lose myself, but I also desperately don't want to lose Joe...I love him, and we're planning our future together.
I don't know what to do, or how to compromise on this. Is it appropriate for me to have close friends of the opposite sex? Am I wrong for wanting to keep them? Is Joe right in saying he should be the only one I turn to? Could this be because I left him before? Is he right in thinking my friends are immoral?
I'd really appreciate it if everyone, young and old, gay, straight, whatever, could answer. I feel like I don't know how to handle this at all, and I'd appreciate any and all opinions.
Thanks.
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You know, it can be really hard to put yourself in someone else's shoes. I have noticed that many people don't even try... they simply say what they would do in a given situation without any empathy for the other person's situation.
Here, I will try my best not to do that.
From his perspective:
You have a history of doing unpredictable things. After enough unpredictability, people learn to expect the unexpected.
You have already dumped this guy once. The fact that you broke his heart so that you could go back to someone you now claim to be over, and probably told him you were over right before you dumped him for the guy, means that he expects to be dumped at any second.
With that in mind, you are now telling him: "All these guys I used to have sex with and pose naked for... I am SO over them."
Under the VERY best circumstances, that is something just about any man worth having is going to have a very hard time dealing with.
What you have created here is NOT the very best circumstance.
You told him you were over someone, then you dumped him and went off to have sex with the person you said you were over.
Now, you are telling him you are over other people...
... can you see where this could make a guy a bit anxious about your sincerity in all this?
The other thing that has probably occurred to him here is that you have a career habit of doing that which is worst for yourself.
Example: Joe is a great guy, right? You want to plan the rest of your life with him, right?
So... the very best thing you could do for yourself was NOT permanently destroy Joe's trust in you by lying about being over someone that is horribly abusive... so you could be abused some more, right?
Yet, you did the most harmful thing for both yourself and Joe.
The business with the erotic photos... well, I read one of your other questions about this situation to gain better perspective, and the following things would make me, if I were Joe, have difficulty believing you:
The photos that the one person had... Joe asked to see them, and they were destroyed. This will forever make those photos worse than they were in Joe's mind.
You can't fix this. There is nothing you can do to undo that one. He will have to choose to overlook this or not.
The other thing about it is the line about the guy just wanting the photos for his portfolio... that is the oldest line there is.
Ever since Ogg invited Oggette over so he could expand the portfolio of naked cave paintings he was working on... well, nothing has changed. Ogg just wanted to see Oggette naked. No exceptions.
It was a con then, and it is a con now.
Interestingly enough, I am personally acquainted with a young woman who has done literally identical things to end up in a very similar position.
I had a chance to watch this unfold from a very unique perspective. Here is what I took away from it:
This woman, Melandria, has crushingly low self esteem coupled with the belief that her self esteem isn't as bad off as it is. This is a very dangerous combo.
She did some pretty self destructive things, including erotic modeling for a friend's "portfolio." She left a guy who was good for her, for a guy who did nothing but abuse and use her.
The fascinating thing in all this, is that she was never able to see it from a view of personal responsibility. Her view was:
"Why is all this happening to me?"
... rather than:
"I did x, y and z... and I perfectly understand why I am completely untrustworthy in the eyes of those around me."
I hope that that changed sometime after I left the picture, but here is the key:
Once you do something like this, you poison the very soul of the person you have harmed.
It doesn't EVER go away. Never. Trust can be earned, of course, but once damaged that badly, it will never be the same.
You take a one of a kind Chinese vase. Thousands of years old, and it has never suffered any harm.
Now this vase is in your custody. It is in your best interest to take care of it, right?
Well, you decide that the very best way to take care of said vase would be to throw it off a building, then run over the remnants with a steam roller.
I don't mean to overstate this, but having felt such a thing in my own life I can tell you that this is what that feels like. This is what you have done to his heart.
So, you, now in his mind being just as fickle as the wind, decide that you want your pristine vase back because NOW you finally see the value of it...
... Well, you can't have it back. You destroyed it. It can't be fixed.
Sure, you can glue the fragments back together, but it will never be the same.
Over time, the vase becomes a conversation piece and grows a character all completely unique to the new form it finds itself in. Perhaps, 10 or 20 years down the road you can even laugh about your folly, but the vase is still broken.
Metaphor aside, it is really simple:
He has every reason to believe that given two choices: One good for you, one bad, you will, without exception, make the choice that is bad for you.
You have given him good reasons for this position.
I guess what I am getting at is this: People will tell you that he needs to get over these things, and rightly so, IF... IF... you had given him any reason at all to believe that there was ZERO possibility of you doing anything self destructive in the future.
You haven't done this. The only way you can do this is to NOT do anything self destructive for say, I don't know, 5 years at a minimum.
You ever wonder why you would do some of these things?
I wouldn't presume to say for you, but for the other situation I mentioned it all comes down to self hatred and self harm.
Self harm is a funny thing in that, there are so VERY many ways to achieve it. For some people cut themselves, some starve themselves, some whore themselves out at every opportunity, while still others go out of their way to sabotage and destroy every good relationship they find themselves in. Some do a combination of many of these things.
Let me ask you this: How can you expect him to trust you, if you, yourself, know in your heart of hearts that you aren't truly trustworthy?
Think you are trustworthy? Did you think you were trustworthy before you broke his heart last time? You see where I am going with this?
I don't know if you will listen, but if you can find it in your heart to do something that isn't self destructive:
Do WHATEVER you have to do to find out why you harm yourself.
The problem in this situation isn't Joe. This isn't about Joe's insecurities. You manufactured those insecurities by your own actions.
The problem is in the way you do harm to yourself in so many ways.
This isn't a relationship issue so much as it might be a mental health issue.
Only a trained professional can help you sort through such things, but you have to be willing to try. If you can't be honest with yourself, your, say, cognitive behaviourist, and Joe, then you have no chance at making this work.
Joe obviously loves you. If you ever doubt that, then ask yourself this: Why would he be with you, when there are MANY women out there that he wouldn't have to expect to dump him at any second so that said woman could heap more abuse on herself? Only one reason I know of: Love.
This isn't hopeless, but if the fundamentals don't change, it is doomed along with every relationship you will ever have.
The thing that is broken, will break any relationship. Fix the broken thing, fix the relationship.
Don't fix the broken thing, don't fix the relationship.
Simple as that, really.
P.S. In case you feel I am picking on you in some way, please don't. These are hard situations and any attempt at molly-coddling gives the mind a way to avoid the uglyness of the reality of the situation. I believe you are a person with great merit, or I wouldn't have bothered writing any of this.
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You have a rather fine line to walk here, because you've made all the reasonable offers you can: You've offered to arrange meetings. You've offered up chat history (more than I would have done frankly). You've offered reassurance and respect.
Some of Joe's intensity might be based on what happened before, but that doesn't really matter. At some point, you can't consent to being continuously punished for it. You both need to move on.
Since you've made every reasonable effort, in mind, it would be time for Joe to make some. That is what compromise is, both people give a little. You need to recognize that right now in this situation you are doing all the giving, all the offering and trying to solve the problems. Joe is being a stonewall. Joe isn't respecting your opinion regarding your friendships. He is harshly judging people you care deeply for. He is refusing every solution you offer. That is not respectful of your intelligence or of your emotional needs.
Right now, Joe would rather have this problem, then do the hard work he would need to do to get to a solution. I'm not saying he's a bad, bad guy, he probably isn't, but it's important to recognize when one partner refuses to respect another's wishes, or consent to reasonable compromises, that partner is being a bully. Joe isn't looking for you to compromise with him. He is trying to make you change for him.
That is where I put my foot down, and this is how I'd do it:
I will not be ending friendships based only on your opinions.
I am happy to introduce you to my friends, and include you in group activities.
If you do not wish to met my friends, that is fine but it's also your choice. I will not be ending a friendship I value because of you do not want to met that person.
I don't think my friends are immoral. It's fine if you do, but I don't. That is why they are my friends. You have to trust me to be in control of my own friendships, and end friendships if I do feel someone is immoral.
If you have a Joe has a problem with these very simple, and completely justifiable stances, then he needs to start looking for compromises with you that respect your ability to choose your own friends.
I've got to be totally honest with you, age does have something to do with this. A woman his own age would probably not have let this escalate as far as it has. With a bit more experience you'd be in a better position to recognize Joe's behaviour as being stonewalling and demanding, rather then letting it make you question whether you have a right to choose the people in your own life. You'd be in a better place to let him own his own issues about your friends, and know that once you've made every rational offer to help cool his fears, then it becomes his job to deal with his negativity.
Tell him what you are, and aren't going to change. Start the discussion from a place of your own strength and convictions, instead of from a place where you are questioning yourself and let his judgements guide you. You are a smart young adult. When it comes to your friendships, you are in control and your judgements and opinions are the thing you have to rely on. Trust your boyfriend, listen to your boyfriend, respect his opinions, but don't let them be a rule of law. The law is written by your own beliefs and convictions.
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It is fine that you have friends of the opposite sex b/c they can help you with other things that your female friends cant. And there really isnt anything wrong with you keeping them. The thing is since you have left him before for one of you i belive you said guy friend exes he might have some issues trusting you with them. but some things as the nude photo shoot thing are inapproriete for you to do with your guy friends. try talking it out with him again and try to see where hes coming from.
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