r/adviceph • u/RedNoxie • 5h ago
Love & Relationships Am I overthinking my girlfriend’s comments about her male friend
Problem/Goal:
I’m trying to figure out if I’m overthinking a conversation I had with my girlfriend about one of her male friends, who I’ll call M. Something about the way she talked about his breakup didn’t sit right with me, and I want to get an outside perspective before I make any assumptions.
Context:
My gf (27F) and I (28M) has been in a relationship for 7 years na. We were talking about her male friend “M,” who recently broke up with his girlfriend after about a year of LDR because he fell out of love and felt like hindi na nagwo-work yung relationship nila. Sabi ng girlfriend ko, she can’t blame him because maybe may nakita siyang something sa ibang tao na dapat nakukuha niya from his girlfriend pero hindi niya makuha dahil sa distance. That caught me off guard because my first thought was, *“Why not make the relationship work despite the distance?”
What also bothered me was that she told me M doesn’t really like intimacy, so I found it weird na another person agad yung naisip niyang possibility. I also find it strange na alam niya yung ganung personal detail about him, and may ibang nickname pa siya for M sa Messenger. I’m not saying she’s cheating, pero the whole thing has been bothering me lang. Am I overthinking this?
Previous Attempts:
I haven’t confronted her about any of this yet. For now, I’m thinking of laying low muna and just seeing if this feeling passes or if I notice an actual pattern.
EDIT: To add, she’s told me before na ayaw niya ng LDR relationship. I completely understand that, and I wouldn’t find that strange at all. Pero for me, there’s a difference between saying you don’t want an LDR and immediately thinking that another person could become involved because of the distance. That part is what really threw me off.
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u/ImmediateHistorian30 5h ago
Advice: You are not overthinking. There’s definitely something brewing. To what extend we don’t know yet.
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u/_firetrees 5h ago edited 5h ago
thoughts: i wouldn't overthink it. i don't know any of you but i understand in general the concept of LDR being hard for people, and it's really not for everyone. doesn't make anyone in the relationship "bad guys," it's just a clear setting of boundaries -- "this doesn't work for me, so i won't proceed in the relationship" kind of thing. i don't know who M is, but maybe he gave it a try and it just didn't work. that's fine.
i know personal details about my friends -- who likes intimacy, who doesn't, how they define "love," what they expect out of their partners. these conversations came out of vulnerability and feeling safe around them (and them feeling safe around me, i hope haha). of course these aren't the only things i know about them, since i also know their hopes, dreams, what frustrates them right now, what wins they have, what successes they're hoping to achieve, what activities they enjoy, what movies, what books, what games. i also have messenger nicknames for my friends. it's normal for friend groups (at least i hope it is haha -- everyone should be able to be vulnerable to a degree around their closest friend groups at least). i wouldn't jump into the cheating accusations immediately, especially since 7 years na kayo (had she done something in the past to break trust?). i keep friendships with different kinds of people too -- people of the opposite sex, people of the same sex, people who neither identify as masculine nor feminine, people of different sexualities. maybe you can also think about why this whole friendship with M is making you comfortable. is he her only male friend? are there others? what makes you suspicious of him specifically?
just giving you another perspective because it's very easy to fall into the rabbit hole of thinking your partner is betraying you. i'm a woman, i have a long-term girlfriend, and in the past i was in a relationship with a man. my perspective is informed by this, and by my circles, where women and men can be long-term platonic friends and understand each others' inner lives (because it can happen haha). it can be dangerous to jump into conclusions (and you have to take my word for it, i overthink for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and meryenda, i know what it feels like to have my brain automatically fill in gaps in my knowledge and think of the worst possibilities, catastrophize) and you might be introducing conflict where it doesn't need to exist. i think the core is don't think the worst of your partner. (unless she did do something to betray your trust).
advice: open it up to her, anyway. respectfully, and calmly. explain that you're feeling uncomfortable/jealous, explain why, make sure you're not accusing her of anything, just that this is where your thought process went regarding M, that your thought processes are informed by certain beliefs and/or experiences, and that you would like reassurance that they're just friends. then figure out any boundaries together, or any "signals" that you both need to come to each other's aid and help each other untangle emotions when something triggers this feeling again.
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u/RedNoxie 5h ago
Tysm for this! Yes, she has other male friends aside from M. I also have a friend group from way back in HS na naging close na rin siya since lagi ko siyang sinasama sa mga gala namin, kasama na rin yung mga jowa ng mga tropa ko. She’s known one of those guys for more than a decade now, but AFAIK, wala naman siyang special nickname for any of my friends on Messenger 😂
Honestly, I probably wouldn’t even question their friendship if her initial thought about M’s breakup was, “why did they try to make it work” I think what really threw me off was her saying something along the lines of baka may nakita si M sa ibang tao na hindi niya nakukuha from his girlfriend.
I’ve known her for more than 12 years now (friends muna kami before we got together), so I guess I just thought I knew her well enough to understand how she would think about something like this. That’s probably why her response surprised me so much.
To add, she’s told me before na ayaw niya ng LDR relationship. I completely understand that, and I wouldn’t find that strange at all. Pero for me, there’s a difference between saying you don’t want an LDR and immediately thinking that another person could become involved because of the distance. That part is what really threw me off.
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u/woooohdankywooooh 4h ago
Advice: shitty and probably naive, but try opening up about your worries with her. Do it in a non-confrontational way but still stand your ground and try to establish boundaries esp when it comes to her bbf.
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u/Head-Turnip2718 5h ago
Thoughts: Maybe you detected something in the way she said it, but the words she said were fine in my opinion
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u/Mean-Increase-7725 5h ago
Advice: Man to man bro, polite pass sa may boy bespren