'I suspect my GF is only with me because she can’t be with her "best friend."' UPDATED

"I (29M) think that my girlfriend (26F) is only with me because she can’t be with her 'best friend' (26M). Should I just end the relationship?"

Sorry for the long post, I didn't realize how much I had to say until I got it all typed out. Thanks in advance to anyone who reads all this. I’ve been with my girlfriend Jordan for a little over 2 years, we live together and we have 2 cats.

Up until this weekend I genuinely thought everything was perfect in our relationship, which I know is what everyone says in these posts but I really was thinking that I was going to ask her to marry me sometime in the next year. We don’t ever get into arguments, Jordan is very sweet and easygoing and normally we just mesh well on everything.

Honestly, if everything in our relationship hadn’t been so good up until now I probably would’ve just broken up with her this weekend. But because things have truly been so perfect I’m not sure if maybe I’m jumping to the wrong conclusion about what to do because my feelings got hurt.

The other person who’s important in this story is Jordan’s friend Mark. She’s known Mark for their whole lives because they both grew up in the same small religious community. Jordan isn’t part of that religion anymore, she decided to leave the church when she was I think 19 and moved to the state that we live in now.

Mark still is in the religion and apparently takes it really seriously, I’m told he now works for the church back in Jordan’s hometown. Also as far as I know Mark is the only person from the religious community that Jordan still talks to besides her parents, which I’m mentioning because I now think it could be a red flag.

So on Saturday I met Mark for the first time because he was in our city and Jordan wanted us all to have dinner together. At this point I want to say: I will admit that when we were first dating and I found out that Jordan had a “best friend” who was a guy I didn’t really like it, especially because it seemed like they were on Facetime with each other a lot.

But since it was a childhood friend and they mostly didn’t see each other in person, I just trusted Jordan that Mark was only a friend and didn’t let it bother me and eventually I got over it. So when we were going to dinner, I wasn’t jealous or suspicious of Mark at all. If anything I was somewhat excited to finally be meeting him since I’ve been hearing about him for 2 years.

But then the way Jordan and Mark acted at dinner is what convinced me that there’s something going on there other than just being “best friends”. I honestly don’t even know how to describe it except to say that I’ve never seen two people act more obviously like they were in love with each other.

They literally would not stop touching each other, they were constantly touching each other’s arms and shoulders and at some points they were actually even holding hands. They completely left me out of the conversation and were laughing about inside jokes, and every time they’d laugh they’d do this thing where they put their foreheads together or that was when they’d be holding hands.

And then also they were just looking at each other in a way that I didn’t feel comfortable with at all, it was honestly even worse than the touching. It just wasn’t how anyone would look at somebody they’re supposedly just friends with. I’m 100% sure that every stranger looking at our table thought that Jordan and Mark were the couple and that I was her brother or something.

I felt like a third wheel the whole time and Jordan didn’t even notice how awkward she was making it for me because she was way too focused on Mark and all the attention she was getting from him. And that’s really not like Jordan at all, usually she’s a lot more considerate and would notice immediately if I wasn’t having a good time or if she was accidentally being rude and excluding someone at the table.

So it was genuinely really jarring to be sitting there with her and Mark and basically feeling like I didn’t know my girlfriend at all, it was like he turned her into a completely different person who didn’t even care that I was alive. So finally at one point when Jordan got up to go to the bathroom I just said to Mark: So are you into my girl or what’s going on here?

Mark: Nothing’s going on at all. That ship sailed a long time ago.

Me: What does that mean? Did you guys date at some point?

Mark: No, we never did. And then when she left the church, we both knew it meant that we were never going to. And we’ve accepted being in each other’s lives as friends. There’s nothing else going on at all.

Me: That makes it sound like the only reason you’re not together is because she left the church.

And all Mark did was shrug.

Me: Well, what if she came back to the church? Would you marry her?

Mark: Oh, she’s not going to do that. You might as well ask what would happen if a bicycle had six tires.

And so then when Jordan came back to the table, Mark said to her: OP wants to know if we’d be married if you weren’t a godless heathen.

Jordan: Why, did you two call your mom while I was gone?

And then she and Mark both just laughed about it and changed the subject. So because of dinner and that conversation and everything else that I’ve written about in this post, I really feel like Jordan and Mark are in love with each other and not just “best friends” like they say, and the only reason they aren’t together is because they can’t compromise about their religion.

I think Jordan thinks that because she’s okay with that decision, she expects me to be okay with being her second choice and in the meantime she’s actually secretly wanting to be with Mark. So that makes me think that I should probably obviously just have self-respect and break up with her, because I shouldn’t be in a relationship with someone who would rather be with somebody else.

But then the problem for me is that our relationship has been so perfect and Jordan has always treated me so well except for this one night. The only time she’s ever acted like this was on the one occasion that Mark was around in person, normally even when she’s talking to him all the time she’s never made me feel this way.

So one the one hand I’m wondering if maybe it doesn’t matter what Jordan’s feelings are for Mark, as long as he isn’t going to be around it doesn’t actually seem to affect our relationship. So maybe I just need to cool off and go back to trusting her that they are indeed only friends even if it seems to be true that they have complicated feelings for each other? Or should I just end things?

What do you think he should do? This is what top commenters had to say:

rezuaar said:

Touching foreheads and holding hands? I mean the rest of it is over the line, but maybe excusable in some way. But this? I don’t know how you didn’t say something when it happened.. it just seems so bizarre to me for friends to do that.

There has to be something more, it just doesn’t make any sense otherwise, no matter how you try and view it. Maybe they think of each other as the one that got away? Maybe some kind of tragic - Romeo and Juliette, right person, wrong circumstances kind of thing?

What I really think is that at the least: this will happen every time Mark makes an appearance in your lives. And at worst you’ll always be second to him, whether he’s there or not.

rmichalski asked:

What did Jordan say about all this when you two got home and had a private discussion?

OP responded:

We didn't talk about it again. I've just been trying to weigh things out on my own for the last few days, I wasn't sure how I should try to talk to her about it or if that was the best idea.

ThrowRA0070 said:

Why didn’t you speak up during the meal? I grew up with a girl for a best friend. (And I’m a guy.) Age 3-16 or so, we were basically inseparable. While that cooled in high school, we’ve always been good friends. We have families now, and still see each other fairly often. And we never headbutt, hold hands, or look at each other “lovingly” or whatever. Should’ve called it out when they were together.

OP responded:

I don't really know why I didn't say anything. I guess at first I thought she was just excited to be seeing her friend and I was getting jealous over nothing, but then by the time I was definitely sure that things were weird I don't know why I didn't.

I guess I just knew I was getting upset and I didn't want to say anything to Jordan that was going to start a fight. When I did say something to Mark I didn't even mean to, it just came out.

And cretin444_mcfc said:

Yeah I would absolutely end things but if you want to stay with someone who probably imagines you're Mark whenever you sleep together then that's your choice.

And Trick_Cake_4573 said:

She might change her mind and then you'd be screwed. Don't be the second choice! Everyone deserves to be someone's first choice.

Two days after his original post, he shared this update:

I talked to Jordan on Wednesday night. The TL;DR update to the situation is that I didn’t break up with her, after we talked about everything I feel like that would be too much of an overreaction for what’s actually going on. I do still think I was right to be upset about what I saw happening at dinner on Saturday and Jordan didn’t disagree with me about that, but I think I did jump to the wrong conclusion that it meant that she secretly actually wanted to be with Mark more than she wants to be with me. Now that we’ve talked it out I don’t think there’s a reason to end what’s otherwise the best relationship I’ve ever had and I’m glad that I didn’t just immediately trust my instincts because there was more going on with the situation that I didn’t really understand that Jordan has since told me, and now I do feel like she can be given some grace in this situation assuming nothing like this ever happens again. So thanks for the advice, especially for everyone who told me to just talk to her before I made a big decision.

So when we talked I decided to take the main piece of advice that I got from everyone and start by telling Jordan that my feelings were hurt by the way she treated me at dinner with Mark, and then see how the conversation went from there. It turned into a very long talk so I don’t want to try to remember exact quotes and get them wrong but here are the important things:

I repeated to Jordan some of what I wrote in the post and said that I felt excluded by her and Mark, especially because they were being overly touchy-feely with each other to the point where it made me uncomfortable. Jordan seemed surprised like she didn’t even notice that she and Mark were touching each other that much, but then she thought about it and said that I was right and apologized. She said that Mark is always really touchy with everybody and not just her (I asked) and so she didn’t even think about it, but that she wished I would’ve said something at the time because she didn’t realize they were being that obnoxious.

I said that was part of what bothered me, because I thought that normally she would’ve noticed something like that but she was acting so different around Mark and not paying any attention to anything else including how I was feeling that it was honestly just made me question which one of us she cared about more or if she cared about him as more than just a friend. Jordan apologized more and said that she could understand why it would look that way to me, but that she loves me and cares more about me than anyone else in the world and that she didn’t mean to act like that or make me feel that way. She said that she was trying to not make Mark feel like a third wheel because of being a single guy out with a couple but obviously it backfired and just made me feel like the third wheel instead which wasn’t what she wanted to do either.

After that Jordan explained a lot to me about her history with Mark, and basically as she explained it she said that she fully admits she cares about him as more than just a normal friend but she says that it’s not in a romantic way. She said that’s why she always specifically refers to him as her “best friend” and not just as her friend, and said that she would use the phrase “he’s like my brother” if it weren’t for the fact that she once had an actual brother (RIP) so she won’t use that phrasing for anyone else. According to Jordan the main thing that happened to make her and Mark so close was that when she was 17 she tried to kill herself, and that was actually when everyone else in the community stopped talking to her and Mark was the only person who didn’t. For the next couple of years until she moved he was literally her only friend and she said that he checked on her every single day to make sure she stayed alive which is also when they got into the habit of talking on the phone so much. And also apparently during this time Mark’s parents thought they were dating and made a big deal about how they shouldn’t be and that’s why she made that remark during dinner, apparently calling Jordan a godless heathen is something that Mark’s mom said.

I did tell Jordan that Mark basically said to me that he thought the two of them would be married if she had stayed in the church, and I asked her if she thinks that maybe Mark is in love with her even if she doesn’t feel the same way. She said definitely not and I don’t think she was being dishonest, I really don’t agree with her but I think she genuinely believes that Mark isn’t into her in any way apart from friendship. Her opinion of the situation is that she also thinks she and Mark would eventually have gotten married if she had never left the church or moved, but from her perspective it would’ve been more because of peer pressure than anything else and she doesn’t think it would necessarily have been a good thing. She thinks Mark was just being honest about that, and that possibly from his perspective he thinks he and Jordan would’ve made a good couple but he’s probably thinking that because he’s just assuming that in that scenario she’d be the perfect church wife so there’s no reason why they wouldn’t be a good couple.

But then the big thing that happened at the end of the conversation is that Jordan told me that Mark is coming back through our city on his way home from this trip, and so she was going to invite him to hang out with the two of us again, but she said that if I’m going to be uncomfortable with him around then she won’t ask him. A lot of people were saying that if she didn’t offer to cut contact with him or to cut down on contact with him it meant that she valued him over me, so the fact that she brought up on her own that she wouldn’t invite him to dinner with us again because I didn’t like it seemed like a really good sign to me. Based on everything else that she said, I do understand why she didn’t offer to totally stop being friends with him and I wouldn’t expect her to after what she told me about what happened when she was a teenager.

So now I’m deciding to take Jordan’s word for it that although she and Mark are weirdly close, it’s for the reasons that she explained to me and not because she’s in love with him. I think the fact that she was immediately apologetic instead of defensive was good, and the way she explained everything did make sense to me. I don’t necessarily trust Mark but I do think I can trust Jordan. But I am going to watch and see if it seems like she’s still talking to him as much as she used to or if anything changes or sounds different, I’m not going to be controlling and tell her that she can’t talk to him or that she has to talk to him less but I want to see if me talking to her about all of this causes her to act any differently at all. I’m kind of thinking she might realize on her own that the way Mark acts towards her actually does seem like he likes her as more than a friend now that I’ve brought it up, but I don’t know. It could be that things just go back to exactly the way they were before and I won’t know if anything has actually changed until the next time Mark is around in person, but I don’t think that’s something I should keep worrying about before it happens.