Best friend's relationship

[ykwvn]

Hi everyone,

I've been sort of struggling lately. My best friend of 20 years (we're only in our early/mid 20s) has her first serious boyfriend and I am finding myself being kind of jealous. Not in a I want to have a romantic relationship kind of way (I'm aro ace), but more in a we have been each other's "person" for so long now and I count on her to be that for me, and I still want to be that for her, but now that place is being filled more and more by her boyfriend.  I tend to get critical of things that she does in her relationship without conciously doing so, I'm not used to having a filter around her and things kind of slip out, and I think it probably hurts her for me to say this stuff (like questioning why they go to so many of each other's family events). I feel like she thinks of him as family and she doesn't think of me as family, and that makes me really sad since she is the person I am closest to in the world. 

 

It's also hard because she is normally the person I talk to when I'm upset, but I don't want to make her feel like I'm blaming her, or make her feel bad about her relationship, so I don't really want to talk to her about it. I get that she is just living here life and that I should be happy that she's happy. I just can't help but feel like I've been demoted.

 

Have any of you struggled with stuff like this? Do you have any advice? 

[Back to Avalon]

Years ago, a good friend of mine started dating a guy and they became serious. I don't remember feeling squeezed out, but when I was around them (which wasn't often, as we live far from each other), they were annoying and embarrassing because they were so into each other. 

 

That was 20-plus years ago. They've long since divorced, and we're still friends. My point is even though your friendship is changing, which is hard, try to keep the friendship together. Get together just the two of you; keep calling and emailing or whatever you do to stay in touch. I don't mean to sound cynical, but the odds are your friend and her boyfriend will break up eventually. You'll want to be there and still have your friend in your life if and when that happens.

[RoseGoesToYale]

I've definitely dealt with it before. Some of those friendships ended because of it (they became toxic), others have been relatively unaffected like my best friend and I. She recently got married, but our relationship dynamic now is infrequent check-ins and we can still go to each other if we have a problem, and occasionally visiting because she lives on the other side of the country.

 

Is the relationship still pretty new? If so, sounds like they're in the "honeymoon phase". New couples tend to become crazily attached to each other and do everything together constantly at the start before things start to settle in. I guess it's kind of like a horse having blinders on during a race, and the horse can't see anything else until the trainer takes them off. I'd say give it some time, see her when you can, eventually she'll come back down to earth. Friendships of 10 years plus are usually able to withstand life's trials and tribulations.

[Homer]

It depends on the people involved.

 

I used to have a very close friend. She had been in long-term relationships for most of the time we knew each other. However we were still really close and when we met to talk or to do stuff, it was just the two of us. Her SO was not a factor. I knew him because I went over for visits regularly, but we didn't have a separate Homer/SO-friendship going on or anything.

 

However their relationship didn't work out. She got therapy afterwards for a few unrelated issues. Then met someone else, got together with him after a short while and decided that she didn't want to have what we had anymore. Eventually got married to that other guy, which I got to know about purely by chance. So that sucked, to put it mildly.

 

He has left her a few weeks ago and I'm... experiencing conflicted feelings, to say the least.

 

A new partner always means some rearrangements in everyday life. I think it's best to leave them mostly alone during that honeymoon stuff – personally I'm glad when I don't have to deal with infatuated people anyway. Come back when you've put your head back on from then on it's all about finding ways to make it work. Does everyone involved want to get to know each other? Is everyone involved ready and willing to make some room for the other people to spend time together? Do you like each other enough to spend time together as a group? That kind of thing. Time will tell the rest