'I suspect my BFF and my fiancé might be attracted to each other.' UPDATED 2X

"My fiance and my friend are attracted to each other - advice please."

My fiancé and friend (we’ll call her Ashley) are attracted to eachother and subtly flirt with eachother, and I’m not too sure where to go from here. They have much more in common in terms of hobbies and interests (ie: both are big into gaming, computers, Lego, guitar, personality types, etc.)

Ashley (who is single) has described my fiancé as having “golden retriever energy” and then later said that she is looking for a partner with the same kind of energy and traits that he has.

My fiancé has subtly mentioned that he thinks it would be cool to buy a house (a future goal of ours) and have “friends” (meaning Ashley) come live with us. He’s mentioned that he really likes Ashley’s personality and I agree - she’s very talkative, bubbly, and fun to be around.

We went over to Ashley’s a little while ago so fiancé could help her with some DIY home improvement stuff. I noticed that fiancé dressed slightly differently (like wore nicer clothes than usual) when we were getting ready to go over. When we got there I noticed Ashley was extra bubbly around fiancé.

It was then that they discovered their mutual love for the same games, how both of them have a desire to build their own PC, etc. They even finished each others sentence when making the same joke.

Fiancé also kept pointing out little minor “safety infractions” around Ashley’s place in a joking manner, sort of subtly implying that he wanted her to be safe and protected etc. to which Ashley would just kind of giggle and be like “oh, it’s fine.”

Ashley also made a comment about how she’s been talking with a guy off Tinder who has flaked on her a few times and basically said that all Tinder guy had to do was come and help her with what fiancé was helping her to do around her place, and she would have let him smash, so to speak.

A few weeks ago fiancé, fiancés friend, myself, and Ashley went to an escape room together. At the end, Ashley accidentally (?) brushed her hand against the front of fiancés pants, then looked at him laughed. Fiancé just shook his head and laughed and we moved on. They didn’t know that I saw, but of course, I did.

All in all I’ve just notice lots of subtle flirting going on between them. I didn’t let it show that I was bothered while we were at Ashley’s a little while ago because I didn’t want to make things awkward, but on the way home I was kind of quiet and distant, processing my thoughts and feelings. Fiancé could tell something was up and tried to be extra nice.

He did ask me if something was wrong or if I wanted to talk, but I just said no, because I felt like if I started talking about it at that time I’d get too emotional. It just got me thinking about the fact that fiancé proposed to me a little after one year together, technically when we were still in the “honeymoon phase.” We’ve been together 2.5 years now, and have lived together for most of this time.

It also got me thinking that maybe by being with me, fiancé is being held back from being with someone who he could be happier and more compatible with - not saying Ashley specifically, but even someone like her. Fiancés ex was similar to Ashley in terms of being a huge gamer, very chatty/sociable and adventurous with lots of friends, etc.

For reference - I’m definitely more quiet and introverted, don’t have a lot of friends or family, and I’m not big into gaming and anime. Im still working on discovering more hobbies/interests that im passionate about, but there are a few things I enjoy like reading, knitting/crocheting, learning about space and the universe, etc.

I have a therapy appointment in a few weeks where I plan on discussing my feelings but just wanted to get r/relationship_advice take on the matter. Any advice or insight would be appreciated. Thanks

Here are some of the top comments, and OP's responses:

Crazy_Perception_731 said:

I once had a friend who was in the same situation as you only she was married. She asked her husband why he was flirting with her and he claimed he didn’t realise and was just being friendly and swore he had no feelings for the friend. The next time the 3 of them were together the friend was all over the husband like usual.

She asked the friend to come with her because she wanted a word. She took her outside and in clear words said I can see you flirting with my husband. If it ever happens again I wont be so charitable with you. It never happened again.

[deleted] said:

She is not your friend behaving like that. I’d be having strong words with them both to be honest.

AceyAceyAcey said:

Have you actually talked to your fiancé about this? Don’t get married if you can’t talk about things that bother you.

OP replied:

I brought up the fact that I think they’re attracted to eachother, and he totally denied feeling any attraction to her, he said he loved me and wants to be with me. It’s just difficult to believe though in light of what I saw between them - it honestly seemed they’d be a much better match together given the chemistry and many commonalities between them.

Admittedly though, I’ve been known to be over sensitive sometimes and already have low self-esteem - hence the upcoming therapy appointment.

I should also mention that fiancé has never given me a reason to believe he would cheat before. I do love him, and I know he loves me too. We have each others phone passwords, he doesn’t try to hide things, etc - I don’t believe he and Ashley would cheat together, but it’s just the knowledge of feeling like they’re attracted to eachother and maybe even better suited for eachother that I’m struggling with.

Skullsnroses66 said:

I agree with everyone that you need to talk with your fiance about this. What is really telling for me is how you said he was being extra nice to you afterwards and asking you what was wrong. That to me makes it sound like he knows why you were upset and he knows what he was doing was wrong and hes trying to cover his ass.

And OP replied:

I confronted him and he told me that he has absolutely no feelings for her (which is hard for me to believe) - I strongly think he does find her attractive, but his guy logic is telling him not to admit that as it might cause even more friction. I did tell him that it’s okay to feel some attraction for someone else, even when in a committed/long term relationship.

We’re all human and that part of us can’t be turned off like a light switch. I went on to tell him where it becomes problematic is when that attraction is acted upon. He just continued to refuse that he had any feelings towards Ashley, and the only reason he came to do the DIY home improvement stuff is because of me (she is my friend, after all).

Additional comment from OP:

True - it was almost as if they thought I wouldn’t catch on to the playful teasing/flirting. I did though. I honestly don’t believe my fiancé would cheat. Ashley is more difficult to gauge though .. I have only known her for about 6 months.

She is extremely open and has no filter when it comes to talking about sex and just other sorts of topics the average person would be like “hm.. should i say this out loud in front of others?” Like I mentioned, she is really fun, talkative, easy to be around - I guess that’s what appealed to me about her because I find it difficult to make new friends and be around others.

But yeah.. I don’t know. If I cut ties with her, I worry my fiancé will look at me like I’m crazy/possessive. Maybe going forward in the future I can just try to minimize the times my fiancé and her are around eachother, I don’t know. He is already acting like I’m kind of nuts for thinking he has any attraction towards her.

Later, OP shared this update on the situation:

Update: I have talked to my fiancé who adamantly swore there were no feelings for her and was really blindsided by me bringing this up to him. He repeatedly told me he loved me, did not feel like he was too hasty in proposing to me, and that his feelings for me have not changed at all.

He said there may have been feelings or attraction on her part towards him, but he was completely oblivious to it if there was anything, and those feelings or attraction were absolutely not reciprocated by him. He agreed that we should keep our distance from Ashley and said he was 100% good with not having her in our lives if need be, if it meant keeping his and my relationship on good terms.

In terms of having her live with us, he said he was not talking about Ashley exclusively, but also a friend or two of his, but also included Ashley because he considered her a friend of mine - I guess maybe I jumped the gun a bit assuming he was only talking about Ashley. My mistake.

In regards to her brushing against his crotch at the escape room, he did acknowledge that this happened but told me he brushed it off like it was nothing because he figured it was an accident -

to be fair, his back was towards me when this happened and I could only see that Ashley had tried to hold eye contact with him and giggled when it happened - I only saw the back side of him, he shook his head, kind of laughed, and then kept walking.

I mentioned that it made me feel like maybe he was “settling for less” with me in a way because it seemed he and I had less in common than he and Ashley did. He reassured me that things like video games, guitar, music, etc. was just surface level stuff to have in common with a partner.

He told me that our common values and goals mean way more to him than whether I can keep up with him in video games or not. We talked for a good long while and I do feel a lot better about the whole thing.

My fiancé is a just an overall very friendly, positive, outgoing kind of person so maybe I was looking at his efforts to be nice in a social situation as more than it really was. I do still plan on bringing this all up to my therapist in a few weeks to work on myself so I can bring my best self forward in our relationship.

As for Ashley, I have not yet made a solid decision on what to do about her but a lot of this negative behaviour seems to be stemming from her. I am going to keep my interactions with her to a very basic and bare minimum, especially until I can discuss all of this with a therapist and get some solid insight on how to deal with it.

And then, OP shared this second update:

As a further update, I will also just add a bit more context to my conflicting feelings towards Ashley. Yes, we did only meet 6 months ago, but she has told me a few times already that she is so glad we met and that she is thankful to have me as a friend, and I’ve reciprocated those feelings every time.

She struggles with mental health issues (depression, anxiety, ADHD, neurodivergence). She goes to see a therapist for these issues. When her and I hung out last week she had told me that she was struggling with suicidal thoughts at times and shared the same with her therapist.

Her therapist got her to identify 2 people in her life that she could call if ever these feelings became stronger, and Ashley identified me as one of the people she felt close enough to talk to about this.

So even though we did only meet 6 months ago, you can see how we have grown closer in this time, which just made her behaviour towards my fiancé very confusing. I struggle to understand why she would potentially risk our friendship over being over the top flirty and inappropriate towards him.