Boyfriend’s Female Friends are Making Me Crazy

I’m wondering if I’m “OK”, “crazy”, “jealous”, or “sane”. If you could help me out and give me some perspective, I’d really appreciate it. I’ve been dating my Love for one year now, exclusively. He has three very good female friends:

1) Shana (she is married), is loud and large, and he considers her a “dude” … someone he likes hanging out with, and they talk a lot on the phone, and have a lot in common. They’ve been friends for years.

Shana and I do not like each other. My boyfriend blames it on me. He claims I’m jealous. But I claim, Shana NEVER liked me, and she doesn’t give me a chance to be her friend. I do not like

Shana because I feel she immediately judged me, and decided that I wasn’t good for my Love. That sucked for me, and still does. It’s always caused a strain in my relationship. Plus, he and Shana talk on the phone and visited quite often each week – and the frequency of the visits/calls/texts bothers the shit out of me.  In my opinion, they communicate FAR too many times/day (sometimes 3 or 4 texts/calls per day, or 2 to 3 visits/week).

Other than that, I’m fine with him having female friends, and me having male friends. It’s the damn FREQUENCY (out of respect to our boundaries and our relationship), that I wish would diminish a bit.

Am I WRONG about not liking or wanting so much FREQUENCY? Hell, I don’t see or text or call my male friends daily (and I DO THIS out of RESPECT to the boundaries of our relationship). I DO THIS in order NOT to OVERWHELM our relationship with “OTHER PEOPLE”, so as to maintain our own “time” together. I’m not rigid about it, if I get a call here and there, I’ll answer it if my boyfriend is around, but MOST OFTEN, I TRY REALLY HARD to keep the phone calls, texts, emails with guys at a minimum, and not to occur so much when I am having a nice night out with my BF. (My BF does not see anything wrong with talking on the phone to his female friends while I’m there, even for 30 minutes at a time, or inviting them over (even when we planned a quiet evening at home, etc. … THAT BOTHERS ME A LOT).

2) Second female friend is a lesbian, so it doesn’t bother me at all. So, I’m cool with that. She and I like each other a lot. She is cool (and of course, no threat to me). He does handyman work at her house, and hangs out with her once a month or so, and they also smoke weed together sometimes.

3) Third female friend (a recently developed friendship of my Love’s) is a neighbor of his, with a VERY shady past of having performed sexual favors for money, gotten arrested, in prison for three years, and has recently started inviting my Love over for dinner with her kids and Mother, and they “hang out” sometimes and smoke weed, and she has lately become his “boss”, where she gets him handyman jobs.

THIS RELATIONSHIP BOTHERS THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME. Why? Because of her past, and because he allows this dirtbag into his home, and because he says “She’s crazy but she’s cool … she’s my friend”. He says, “There’s nothing going on.” I see her “slutty” ways, and I watch her flirt with him, gyrate near him, and make joking sexual comments toward him. AND HE STILL allows her into his life?? THAT BOTHERS ME TO NO END. WTF?

As a result, I’ve decided that I can’t go to his home anymore, because I do not want to see their “friendship/relationship” (since she is his neighbor). I LOVE him, and want to spend the REST of my life with him, BUT it hurts my heart that he lets this trash into his life/his home, goes over her house, and thinks of her as his friend.

Therefore, I recently made a change where I won’t go over his house, and have decided that if he wants to see me, then he can come and pick me up at my house, and we can go out like normal people (without trash around). I’ve presented this to him in the kindest way possible. He feels badly that I won’t go to his home anymore, but he understands and accepts it.

Am I a crazy? Am I over the top? Should I be worried that they are fooling around (especially since SHE has EXPERIENCE as a call girl)? I’m scared, hurt, and angry all at once.

But after having expressed all of my anger and hurt to him, he still chooses to keep this neighbor in his life, to work for her, to visit her, and to even have dinner with her and her children and mother. He’s even become attached to her children, and feels like he can help her in many ways to guide them (since they’ve been through a lot, because their crazy mother was arrested/jailed, etc. … a few years ago, and they had a rough life).

After having read all of this – am I the one who needs to change? Do you think I’m crazy, jealous, or sane? Do you think I’m partially crazy, and not half wrong, or am I just a jerky crazy jealous woman? Am I being too rigid? Am I being bitchy/crazy? Or am I normal? I’m just trying to be respectful to him and to the relationship. But he doesn’t see anything wrong with texts, calls, emails, even during our alone time.

Anyway, I need you to set me straight, give me the straight skinny on all of this. I question my Love’s “character” for hanging with a woman of such “non-character”. She drinks, she does coke, and is a whore. She is bad news – and yet, I have to watch this relationship/friendship of theirs continue?

Please let me know WHAT to do in this situation. I love my boyfriend, and I do feel a lot less stressed by not going to his house (i.e. not having to “see” the slutty neighbor and his relationship with her).

Oops! Forgot to tell you the good stuff (just so ya know) … my boyfriend and I feel very much in love. We do a lot together, have a lot of laughs, great times, and excellent conversations. We LOVE each other’s company and intelligence. We feel like we are best friends and lovers.

Damn, I’m in such a bind here, and need your advice. Thanks for any and all advice you can give me.

Thanks for writing in – it is very obvious that your boyfriend’s behavior bothers the hell out of you. Here’s my take. You are not at all being unreasonable in the way you are thinking, or what you expect of him. BUT you need to remember that you can never control another person … you cannot control what he does or what he thinks or who he hangs around with. The fact that he does everything you describe – you either need to live with it, or you need to bail out … because none of it will change. Now sure, you can start erecting more barriers (like refusing to go over to his house) … but all that does is add drama to the situation. The fact is – he is not all that concerned with what you think, otherwise he wouldn’t be doing it. You cannot expect him to meet your expectations of your relationship … because he is not doing so right now, and you just cannot change (or control) people.

Here are some specific comments about your boyfriend’s three female friends:

1) Female friends are fine, but it sounds to me like he is spending way too much time with the first married friend you described. I think that is disrespectful toward you (and I think his female friend is being disrespectful toward her own husband). I have female friends myself, but I always am respectful and courteous about my time with them not interfering with time spent with someone I’m dating (or someone they are dating) … and the woman I date always knows she’s #1 at all times. That’s just the way it should be!

2) The lesbian – no worries here.

3) The Ho-bag – clearly that is an unhealthy relationship. If he needs the work she gives him, then he can have a working relationship with her – but just not go over to her home, not build a relationship with her kids, etc. That relationship is trouble waiting to happen (if it hasn’t “happened” already). He should know the perception it creates – especially with her being a former prostitute … and he should keep a respectable distance, for the sake of your relationship with him AND for the perception it gives to the world overall.

So your question to me was – do I think you are “ok”, “crazy”, or “sane” … I think you are just fine. You might be a little jealous … possibly a tad situationally psycho (see the Midlife Article here called, What Makes a Woman Turn Psycho?), but I think anyone in your shoes would be. My suggestion is that you either accept him and this behavior for what it is (and not add additional drama to it), or dump his ass. If I were you, I’d probably dump him and find someone more respectful 🙂

You should consider joining our Midlife Forum here on midlifebachelor.com … where we talk about a lot of things, including dating and midlife crisis issues. We’d be happy to have you as a member of our community. Here is a link to it:  Midlife Forum