Janissy wrote:
The key observation:
Asperger96 wrote:
He's childish, she said, and he doesn't any of her friends. But most of her friends she only sees a couple of times a month, if that. I'm with her virtually every day (I was with her every day the past six days, one day as long as twelve hours), and so I get actual animosity for how often I'm with her. He's possessive, but not very controlling, by what I mean is he doesn't ever Forbid her from hanging out with anyone, but he mopes and sulks and acts childish (which she finds troublesome, but adorable). And she doesn't want to cause problems or start an argument this early in the relationship.
Today we spent some time around her ex (who, amazingly enough, her boyfriend has absolutely completely no problem with!) and he agrees that he is being a big baby.
I don't think he's isolating her (as abusers do to set the stage for abuse with no chance of intervention). I think he's competing for her attention. Her attention is a pie and he wants to make sure his slice is always the biggest. Other people are allowed to have a piece of pie just so long as it is always much smaller than his. You are the only person in her life who has a slice of pie equal in size (or nearly equal) to his. He isn't isolating her since he isn't cutting her off from other people, he's just making sure that no specific person gets as much of her attention as he does.
This explains why the ex-boyfriend is not problematic to him. The ex boyfriend already lost the competition and now gets only a little sliver of pie, maybe even just crumbs. The other friends also just get slivers.
She is trying to accomodate this jealousy problem of his by more evenly dividing the time she spends with friends so that she won't seem to be favoring you. It is the favoring you that makes him so jealous. That's why she swapped in another friend. The other friend isn't competition to him just so long as the other friend doesn't spend as much time with her as he does.
What should you do? If you can, I think you should diversify by spending time with other people too, maybe join a special interest group. If you have other friends (or at least other people to hang out with) he won't feel as much in competition with you. I may be the only responding poster who thinks this friendship is worth saving, but I think it is. I also think the best way to save it is by having other people to hang out with so that her boyfriend no longer sees you as competing with him and so that she doesn't feel pressured to choose between you.
This
Essentially a competition for attention. She says we're jealous of each other, though I don't want to have to compete for my own friends attention. He is okay with me hanging out with her, as long as he's otherwise occupied. But I want us all to be able to spend time together. Especially since if she can't spend time with both of us, when she has something super fun planned I might get benched for someone else (last year, in the summer and autumn, we went to a renaissance fair, the beach, Hershey Park, etc. Each time it was me, him, her, and a couple of other people. ) Now I'm worried that this year I'll miss out on all of that .
I've tried friendly gestures to appease him, I bought them Christmas presents, I let them borrow movies from me all the time; I'm thinking of buying him a birthday present next week.
This is my only great friend, I know I won't ever make another friend so supportive of me, I'm trying everything not to risk losing my friend.
15 Jan 2015, 8:20 am
