My (20F) boyfriend (21M) can’t seem to keep his promises regarding his female friend (22?F)

This friend (Lucy) and I haven’t gotten along in the past. She was the only girl in their “friend group” and gets weird when new girls are introduced. Since my BF and I were long distance initially, I did not interact with Lucy a lot anyway. It wasn’t until she moved in as a roommate that I noticed her being cold to me—referring to me in the third person when I was there or on the phone, commenting that my BF spent too much time on the phone with me. I had no problem with her initially; I even tried to spark up a friendship in the beginning but stopped trying when I noticed these behaviors. She still treated my BF as if he were single—doing girly/childish things like asking him to tie her shoes etc, laying in his bed, calling all her friends her “boyfriends” etc.

This bothered me. I felt like there were different boundaries for friends before and after getting into a relationship. I brought this up with my BF, and then messaged her directly with how I felt. My BF got defensive and defended her, we had a big fight, but we worked it out; he said he’d talk to her about it (since she never liked to talk to me). Lucy never responded.

Nothing changed. I basically thought we would put it behind us since we moved in together and away from her. Lucy and my BF rarely interact, just occasionally on social media. However, a couple months ago she FaceTimed while we were at the dinner table and he up and left and went upstairs to talk to her. I was really upset. He asked if I just wanted him to not be friends with Lucy anymore. We resolved it by promising he would cut contact with Lucy until he spoke to her about why I was uncomfortable with her behavior.

This didn’t happen. Still, it was very minimal— occasional texts about work, liking photos (breaking the promise, but I wanted to spare the heartache of bringing it up). But today he requested to follow her private Instagram account (behind my back, but he is signed into Instagram on my phone so I get all the notifications). I don’t know what to do from here. I know I can’t /make/ another grown person do anything; I don’t even know if I was right of me to suggest on ultimatum like that. Maybe I should let it go? The boundary crossing stuff happened several months ago now, it won’t happen again since we moved. It just still hurts to have a partner break promises, disregard my feelings, “sneak” behind me.

TL;DR: Female friend has boundary issues, BF neglects to address it for month despite promises.

Submitted October 26, 2019 at 11:32PM

This friend (Lucy) and I haven’t gotten along in the past. She was the only girl in their “friend group” and gets weird when new girls are introduced. Since my BF and I were long distance initially, I did not interact with Lucy a lot anyway. It wasn’t until she moved in as a roommate that I noticed her being cold to me—referring to me in the third person when I was there or on the phone, commenting that my BF spent too much time on the phone with me. I had no problem with her initially; I even tried to spark up a friendship in the beginning but stopped trying when I noticed these behaviors. She still treated my BF as if he were single—doing girly/childish things like asking him to tie her shoes etc, laying in his bed, calling all her friends her “boyfriends” etc.This bothered me. I felt like there were different boundaries for friends before and after getting into a relationship. I brought this up with my BF, and then messaged her directly with how I felt. My BF got defensive and defended her, we had a big fight, but we worked it out; he said he’d talk to her about it (since she never liked to talk to me). Lucy never responded.Nothing changed. I basically thought we would put it behind us since we moved in together and away from her. Lucy and my BF rarely interact, just occasionally on social media. However, a couple months ago she FaceTimed while we were at the dinner table and he up and left and went upstairs to talk to her. I was really upset. He asked if I just wanted him to not be friends with Lucy anymore. We resolved it by promising he would cut contact with Lucy until he spoke to her about why I was uncomfortable with her behavior.This didn’t happen. Still, it was very minimal— occasional texts about work, liking photos (breaking the promise, but I wanted to spare the heartache of bringing it up). But today he requested to follow her private Instagram account (behind my back, but he is signed into Instagram on my phone so I get all the notifications). I don’t know what to do from here. I know I can’t /make/ another grown person do anything; I don’t even know if I was right of me to suggest on ultimatum like that. Maybe I should let it go? The boundary crossing stuff happened several months ago now, it won’t happen again since we moved. It just still hurts to have a partner break promises, disregard my feelings, “sneak” behind me.TL;DR: Female friend has boundary issues, BF neglects to address it for month despite promises.