Am I being ridiculously jealous here or do I have a reason to be?

He’s not treating you with the respect you deserve; dump him.

Boy, I can’t even begin to count the number of people who send me <3s and xoxoxo, and whatnot. It means you’re friends. I also say “I love you” to my best friend, who is a woman. It’s true. I love her. That doesn’t mean I want to have sex with her. It’s not that big a deal. All I want to do is have dinner with her every once in a while.

Jealousy is a difficult beast to live with. Usually it comes from fear of loss, which may have something to do with family of origin issues. It’s about lack of trust and fear of abandonment, and of not being sure where you stand with your love.

These are serious issues, and if you don’t work on them, you will eventually drive away any man you get involved with. Unless he’s some kind of gormless gimp that you can order around. You should want a man with gorm. But you’ll have to deal with the green-eyed monster if you want to keep one.

I’ve always believed it’s almost impossible to stop feelings of jealousy once they set in, founded or not, but in this case, I do think you have reason. I would confront him one last time with your concerns and if he insists on maintaining this other relationship, wish him luck and move on,

Honestly if I were you i’d get out of the situation – just simply end it, you don’t have to state reasons. It sounds like he treats you more like a friend than a gf/partner. Your not alone with the jealousy thing, id feel the same way if I were in your situation. I have never heard of anyone saying “I love you” etc to friends when they are the opposite sex, sure if they are the same sex and both females it’s a different story. He has been upfront with you from the start so I certainly wouldnt contront him about it. Good luck and keep us updated.

@minniemau5: You do have serious stressors related to your health. It would be wonderful for you to work on enjoying the pleasurable parts of this relationship and not torturing yourself with phantom or bogus issues.

He did tell you about the friendship and he also told you that “he only wants” you. Your snooping is bad for you, for him and for the relationship.

As @wundayatta so wisely says, you are in the process of sabotaging this one. You must have better things to do than peeping and prying.

He told you upfront about it. You go snooping through his phone. I fail to see how he’s not treating you with respect.

Having said that, jealousy is not entirely rational. If you’re not comfortable with it, end it now.

@bob_ Even though it was wrong to snoop in his phone I still think she had the right to know. There was no way he was going to give her his phone and say “hey check out what my friend texts me”.

@silvermoon Well, that’s a whole other debate, but from what I understand, it seems like she didn’t find anything surprising, just what he had said before was going on. It was not a discovery, but a confirmation.

I’m not sure that I see a difference between this and your last question. I even offered a similar scenario to you… in that my husband was jealous of my own best friend, who happens to be a man. I also tell my friend that I love him, and he says the same to me. We are and always have been platonic, and my husband came to see that over time.. and his jealous feelings went away.
If you are still feeling so consumed with jealousy that you feel the need to snoop (which is bad!), then you aren’t doing yourself any good. I think what you are really asking for is permission to tell your boyfriend that he can’t interact with his friend like this anymore, but I don’t think that would go over well. I would also not be the one to say that you should try it.
Truth is, if you really don’t trust him, then you shouldn’t be with him. The stress you’re experiencing from your health concerns may be putting you on edge, that is definitely possible. But, if you are unable to get a grip on your jealousy or find yourself able to trust him… all of the outside stressors in the world aren’t going to matter. You can’t be in a healthy relationship with a person that you don’t trust. It doesn’t matter if it is their issue or yours. Trust is essential in a happy relationship.

I don’t think you are being that irrational since he is your first boyfriend and that isn’t really common behavior on his part. I think if you can’t learn to deal with it then you should break up with him….if he was going to stop doing it for you, he would have stopped by now. So I guess you gotta pick.

I suppose it doesn’t matter to you whether or not he’s being honest about their relationship, you’ll still believe whatever you want because you’re driven by an irrational emotion like jeaulosy. I agree with @bob_ .

I think there is something else that you said that is important. This is your first boyfriend. You are still learning how to be in a relationship. Yes, it does take work and practice. Your jealousy could stem from a lot of things. What you need to decide is, are you a tolerant person…meaning, are you able to tolerate his interaction with strong bonds before you were there in the relationship? If not, why? If you aren’t, you need to end the relationship and figure out what is going on in you.

Understand that immaturity doesn’t always mean to be insulting. It means that you just aren’t on that level yet.—In this case. You might not know how to handle a relationship, yet.—

Jealously is a tough emotion. It usually stems from insecurity. In your case, it sounds like (don’t see this as an insult) immaturity. If he’s your first boyfriend, you might not really know how to “share” him with other people.

He was upfront with you. Stop snooping through his phone; clearly, you are only going to find things you do not like about their messaging. If you find that you cannot tolerate what is between them; or, you truly feel like it may be more than a friendship between them, move on.

I think the problem with this particular situation is simply that you are kind of put in the position of being the third wheel. It is true that people often say I love you to friends of the opposite sex, but with this guy and this girl, it seems like there is more going on. The way you have described it, it sounds too lovey-dovey for just a platonic relationship. Or there was something more serious going on between them before you entered the picture. Did they ever date? Did he ever have un-requited romantic feelings for her or she for him? I’m still throwing out the idea that he is possibly a closeted gay man. It happens more often than you would think.

You shouldn’t have snooped, and hopefully you will never do that again. But I think you two are due for a serious conversation. You could tell him that you snooped, but it is likely that he will be very angry (rightly so) and dump you on the spot. In this case, if you can avoid telling him that you snooped (AND VOW TO NEVER DO IT AGAIN) then have a conversation. It can go something like this:

“Ron, I really like you and I want you to be my boyfriend, but I kind of feel like the third wheel in this situation with you and Mandy. I know that you knew her before me, but you treat her like she is a girlfriend not just a platonic friend. You tell her you love her and speak all lovey-dovey to her and send her hearts and things. We haven’t even yet said I love you to each other. Maybe we’re not at that point yet, and that’s OK, but to me, this situation with you and Mandy is very weird and very un-comfortable for me. Did you ever date her in a romantic way, or want to? If not, then why are you so lovey-dovey with her. It seems like you kind of want her to be your girlfriend? I really need you to be honest with me, but I’m being honest with you too, about the fact that I feel like I’m not number one in your book. Maybe we just have very different ideas about what it means to be boyfriend and girlfriend, but I’m thinking that if you don’t cool it with this girl, I just don’t see how it’s going to work out between us. I’m not asking you to choose between us, I’m just asking you to look at this situation from my stand-point. I feel like you are cheating on me, even if you don’t see it that way. Can you please tell me what’s going on here and how you see me and you in the future? I don’t think I can keep up this relationship if Mandy is always going to be in the picture the way she is now.”

You will probably get some information from this conversation, but be aware that he will likely be very defensive and start throwing out accusations at you like “You are just jealous” and “It’s none of your business” and “You’re just stupid to think that” but his tone and body language will tell you at least some of the picture. If he defends his relationship with her too much, that will be a sign for you to break up with him and move on, because he will be saying that she is much more important than you are, especially if he doesn’t try to calm your fears by telling you the whole truth and story about his and this other girl’s relationship, or offer to cool it with her, so as not to hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are part of a trio. It doesn’t sound promising to me, but you should still have the conversation, just to find out. Good luck.

The relationship is over, time for you to move on. He was honest about it in the beginning, you snooped through his phone, and you’re feeling like you’ll never match up and be his best friend and lover. Even if you gave him an ultimatum and told him never to talk to this person again you’re not going to trust him to do it. You’ll snoop through his phone when you get the chance to make sure he’s not talking to her. You’re going to drive yourself into a pit of insanity if you stay with him.

Wow, @Kardamom! I am completely dumbfounded. Why on earth would you want to make your boyfriend defensive? Why on earth would you assume you have to be number one? Why should he have to choose between girlfriend and friend?

You have given her a script to allow her to try and hang the defendant before the trial actually gets started.

@minniemau5 I don’t think I’ve seen advice that I have disagreed with more. I respect @Kardamom a lot, but I don’t think this advice is helpful, unless you want to lose your bf.

I have been jealous many times in my life, and I think each case served to push my girlfriend further away. I wasn’t just jealous of other guys, but of hobbies and vacations and who knows what?

I was a late bloomer, so my first lover happened late—I was 20. After our first few months together, it was summer and time to do something. I wanted to stay with my lover, so we arranged to rent some space from a friend of hers and look for work there. We found work with a neer-do-well handiman who never ended up paying us.

It was clear, after a month, that we didn’t have any money coming in, so we ended up separating and going home. While we were separate, she met a college professor and took him up as a lover.

I would have broken up with her when I found out, but we had made an arrangement to be roommates the next year (which was not exactly legal) and we couldn’t get out of it. In those days, there were no cell phones. In fact, there was one phone for the entire building. Her lover would call, and I could hear them talking (the phone was right next to our room).

I was constantly badgering her about what this guy meant to her, and I got really jealous and I kept asking her all these questions. At the end of the year, I graduated and went home. She dumped me. Supposedly she went on a kind of sexual rampage. Whatever. I didn’t care. I loved her. It took me two years to get over her. My jealousy hurt the relationship a lot, and definitely played a big role in making us both miserable over the last months we had together—months I didn’t realize would be the last.

I have learned since then that it makes no sense to be jealous. You’ll basically destroy what you love. If you let people be free and they come back to you, then there is something to the relationship. Otherwise not. Good luck.

@wundayatta I think you always take a risk when you talk to people seriously, and try to find out what the truth is. I didn’t say he would get defensive, I said he might get defensive. If he does get defensive, when all she is doing is asking him what is going on and telling him how she feels about it, then that is a pretty good sign to her, that she is not that important to him. She isn’t making accusations, she asking him questions to try to find out where she stands, because at this point she doesn’t know. On the other hand, if he doesn’t get defensive, and he says that he is sorry that she feels bad (or has misunderstood the situation) and he offers to make it better by either explaining the whole situation so that it makes sense, or offering to cool it with this girl, then that is a really good sign that this guy really cares about her and want only her to be his girlfriend. What I mean by “number one” is that his girlfriend should never be put in the position of thinking that he might be in love romantically with someone else or that the female friend will always take precedence over her (because that would be a truly shitty situation for her).

If she wants to know the truth, she has to ask him direct questions. But if she does that, there is always the chance that he will get defensive. But you can glean a lot from people, not only from the words they use, but how they use their body language. If she doesn’t talk to him and attempt to find out the truth (whether the truth is good or bad) she has the choice of simply leaving him without knowing, or sticking with him and having this really un-comfortable feeling that she’s not alone in this relationship. I would want to know, even if this made him defensive. She has options.

Loser. Dump him

I think that your feelings are valid at the root, although you’ve blown them out of perspective.

I mean, you’re in a new relationship, you have yet to develop strong bonds or express your burgeoning feelings for each other – and here your boyfriend is exchanging Love Yous and emoti-hearts with another lady. At the very least, that is an uncomfortable situation; and most normal people would feel jealous, even had they been prepared (as you were), even if they trusted entirely that the friendship was innocent (as you do?).

So, I think your boyfriend should be made to understand the awkwardness of the situation. It sounds like you and he have great communication skills and trust – congratulations! But these aren’t enough to ward off the awkwardness of this situation. The solution? Compromise. You will continue to treat your boyfriend with trust, you will continue to respect his friendship with this girl and not do anything to get in the middle, but, for the sake of your comfort, he and this girl will cut-out the lovey-doveys when you’re around. Not because they’ve done anything wrong, and not because there’s something wrong with you: just to avoid the natural awkwardness of this situation.

Not having it shoved in your face should reduce your feelings of jealousy.

But stay away from his phone from now on! Do not go into his private spaces when doing so only makes you feel badly.

@Kardamom If you do ask questions, I would not ask loaded questions. If you don’t ask loaded questions, you will get honest information. If you tip off in advance what you want to hear (which is what your script does), then you get what you want to hear. Not real information.

You know as well as I do that I statements are very important. It is equally important not to do his thinking for him. “You treat her like she is your girlfriend?” Let him define the relationship. “What is your relationship?” If you say what your perception is first, you won’t get accurate information. At best you put him in an uncomfortable position because he knows you are judging him, and at worst you tell him what you want to hear and he lies.

I don’t want to go through your script and revise it. I agree with you that she should speak to him honestly and gather the information she wants. He needs a chance to describe his relationship to the other woman, not to explain himself, or defend himself. The way you ask questions determines in advance, which you will get.

I know I could probably make you defensive in thirty seconds. Since when have you been corrupting minors? I’m very surprised at you. Etc etc. I mean, I wouldn’t be that obvious, but it’s pretty easy to do to anyone but the most well-controlled and observant person.

I would hope that she does talk to him. I hope she does it openly and honestly, not like a lawyer leading a witness.

@silvermoon ”Even though it was wrong to snoop in his phone I still think she had the right to know. There was no way he was going to give her his phone and say “hey check out what my friend texts me””

No, instead he just told her about it. Before they were even in a relationship. She didn’t find anything on his phone that she didn’t already know about.
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I’m kind of boggled by the people who are saying he’s a loser and you should dump him. He sounds like an honest guy to me, who’s actually capable of expressing feelings to people. If you do decide to break up with him, you wanna send him my way? I’d like to know a few more guys like that.

But I still don’t want to invalidate your feelings. You feel what you feel and that’s nearly impossible to control. Not to mention, you said yourself that “he’s [your] first boyfriend and [you] didn’t know that [you were] such a crazy jealous person.” I don’t think you’re being crazy jealous, anyway. I mean, my dad has female friends that he says “I love you” to and sometimes it makes my mother’s shoulders tense up a little. She’s not generally a jealous person and they’ve been happily married for more than 35 years and still flirt with each other. But every once in a while, “Love you, too, Betts,” before he hangs up the phone still kinda gets her.

Anyway, long story short, the advice I want to give is try talking to him. Like I said, he sounds to me like a really good guy and if you speak rationally to him instead of using a script like @Kardamom‘s to provoke him, I think it could go really well and you could end up with an eased mind. Sit him down for a talk and ask him just to listen at first and let you get everything that’s on your mind out before he responds. Tell him that you feel like you might be overreacting but you can’t help feeling a little bothered. Tell him you think stress from things outside the relationship might be affecting how you’re reacting to things inside it. Basically, tell him the things you’ve told us in your details, and the say you’d like his help fixing it. Because, honestly, you sound reasonably jealous to me, and like you feel you shouldn’t be. And the only way to fix that, I think, is if he’s aware of exactly how you feel and tries to help you with it.

GA @MacBean
I was surprised by all the “dump him“s, too

Open communication is the key to making any relationship last. Your snooping was not open. Since you found what you already knew to be true, and it gave you more pangs of jealousy I question your ability to be able to live with it.

What I see here @minniemau5 is you wanting to control how he feels and responds to this female friend. That is not okay. Whether this is due to your insecurity in your self or in your budding relationship is for you to decipher.

If that’s not true, and you just want him to be more willing to develop a best friendship with you (meaning you prefer to have a boyfriend that you’re also best friends with) without his friendship with this girl to get in the way so to speak…then communicate that to him.

He was upfront with you about exactly what his feelings for his best friend are. Now you need to be upfront with him with your feelings toward his ability to openly express his feelings with his best friend.

If It makes you feel this bad than just sit the guy down and have a talk with him. If he is a nice guy then he will be understanding.

You are not being crazy jealous because this is NOT a common situation you’re in. I’ve had several boyfriends and I have never known of any of them saying I love you to another woman who wasn’t me (unless it was their mother or sister). Even if she is his best friend, I don’t think either of them are giving you the respect that you deserve. Have you talked to him about it? If you haven’t then you NEED to tell him what you are feeling. If he cares about you as much as he says he does then I’m sure he’ll understand where you are coming from. It doesn’t sound like you’re bothered by him having a female best friend but more so by the way they express their friendship which is very valid. I mean come on, does he say I love you to his male friends too? If not, then there’s obviously some type of exclusivity with this particular girl and it’s not fair to you.

Part of the problem comes from the snooping. There is a saying that “eavesdroppers never hear well of themselves.” That exends to snooping; you generally find things that you don’t understand the full context of, and it becomes problematic.

Does he send you hearts, and lovies like he sends her, or does he do this exclusively to her? If it is causing you stress, and you tell him it’s causing you stress, and you ask him how he would feel if you were sending kissy face messages to another guy, and it would bother him, then he needs to be respectful of you and your feelings. It’s not okay for him to being communicating with an ex-girlfriend in a way that he would not be okay with you communicating with another guy in that way. He needs to find a way to stop it if he has no intention of getting back with this girl. It’s one thing to do it if he’s not dating someone. It’s not right when you are in a relationship that you are saying is important to you, unless it’s abundantly clear to everyone that no one has any intention of acting on any feelings. That doesn’t seem to be the case here, the girl seems to be sending out vibes to you.

But really, for your own sanity, quit checking his phone. He’s letting you look because he has nothing to hide. He trusts you with his phone. Don’t violate that trust.

I just want to second what some others have said, because I think that there have been too many dump-hims, too. I really don’t get it. He sounds like a great guy to me—no one’s ever told me they only want me.
Also, you guys sound like you have talked about this. So what of his answer wasn’t satisfactory? Don’t you believe him when he tells you that yes, he has a very close friend, and yes, you’re his girlfriend, and yes the two of you are very different in his life?
If you do need to talk to him, then do. But like some have suggested, don’t make it accusatory or presumptuous, because both of those will only lead to a natural defensiveness on his part, no matter how nicely you phrase it. Keep it open, keep it as asking, not as verifying something (that more likely than not isn’t even there.)

This reminds me of a discussion I had in Poetry Lit—just today, actually. We were reading a beat poem, and at the end one man asks the other for a kiss and is denied. Quite a few people tried to argue that the man was gay. The rest of the poem was asexual, but because they couldn’t see the kiss as anything other than a sexual desire, they were sure that the main character had to be wanting some sex. (This poem, truly, had nothing to do with sex.)

We started then talking about whether or not a kiss has to be sexual: can you kiss someone just because you care about them, just because you’re happy, just because they’re there, and that’s all it means?

There was a strong, small but strong, part of the group that felt like a kiss was a precursor to sex, and could be nothing else.

It was brought up that guys can kiss girls and it not be considered sexual, and even girls can kiss girls and it not be considered sexual. (We did agree that, if the tongue was involved, it was heated.) Family members kiss, and it doesn’t mean incest. In all these cases, it’s just a greeting, or a farewell, or a celebration. So why the double standard?

I’m telling this story here, because, I don’t think it’s all that different. The details are, for sure, hugely different. It’s not two male characters in a poem, it’s two long-time opposite-sex friends; they’re not kissing, they’re telling each other they love each other. But in the general sense, identical.
Like kissing, ‘I love you,’ has many different meanings, and just one of those is sexual. Everyone here saying he’s cheating on you is denying that an action can have more than one meaning behind it.

That he hasn’t told you “I love you” yet doesn’t mean he isn’t getting there. The love you guys are developing in your relationship is different in type, but similar in that it will take time to grow.
—how long has he known this friend, again? Now, that’s not something to feel bad about.
You two are together now, in a romantic relationship, but in the budding of it. Enjoy the development, the getting to know each other at a deeper and deeper level. Don’t expect everything to happen at once, and because it’s not going to. And anyway, that would be dull and fairly meaningless.

As to the jealousy—like others have said, it’s seated somewhere near insecurity/lack of trust in the relationship. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you’re going to have to work on it, hon, if you want this relationship to continue. Without trust, there is no relationship.

All this above stuff is really nice and fabulous.
Now, dump the loser and move on to something that enriches you.

You have half a boyfriend. He has two girlfriends. If you want a real boy friend start looking.

@minniemau5, it’s a little bit odd for sure. Be wary, but I don’t think it’s any reason to dump him—yet. Be watchful!

You two have been only dating for a couple months and you already looked through his phone? Anyway, the guy has been upfront with you since the beginning, even about the “i love you’s” and you accepted it as soon as you chose to become his girlfriend. I am guessing that actually seeing it physically makes it hit home and makes it more real for you.

I think the question you should ask yourself is: do you think you can have a happy, healthy relationship with this guy who has a best friend who happens to be a girl? I mean, this is your 1st relationship, no one would fault you for wanting to stay with him or wanting a more traditional relationship.

Oh and don’t go through your bf’s phone unless you HIGHLY suspect him of cheating on you, i guess (basically, if you are sure and need evidence). I don’t condone this, but I’ve heard situations where this had to be done.

Listen to your gut. Plain and simple. Yes, men and women can be friends and can love each other platonically, but if something feels really off to you, it probably is. From your description, it sounds like there is a lot more interaction between them other than just “love you” as they are saying bye.

I was dating a guy once that had a best friend that was a girl. No big deal in of itself, but when they would talk or would be together, I would feel like the third wheel, like I was intruding on their time or something like that. It was very awkward for me. He knew I was upset by the way their interactions/connection made me feel, so we decided that we we wouldn’t hand out with just the 3 of us. He always reassured me they were just friends and she even had a boyfriend most of the time we were together. Well… long story short, we ended up breaking up for other reasons (nothing to do with her). She ended up breaking up with her boyfriend a short while after our break up and shortly after that, the two of them were together. I still said hi to him when I saw him in town (it was a small town) and one time when asking him how he was doing, he mentioned it. We talked for a bit and he finally confessed that he had been ‘in love’ with her since high school, but she always had a boyfriend. Suddenly it all made sense to me. They dated for a while, but as far as I know, they ended up breaking up a bit later. I moved away from that area though, so I haven’t seen or talked to them in years.

I’m not saying something like that is the case for your boyfriend. My point is simply that you need to listen to your gut. If something feels like it’s ‘off’, it probably is. You want to believe what he tells you and you want to trust him since this is a new relationship (and your first) and those are the things you constantly hear that you need to do in relationships, but if something inside you is telling you that something is wrong. It is best to listen and go from there.

You can ask him if he has a past with his friend or if he/she ever was interested in more than a friendship. He may not like you asking, but you can ask. Best case scenario, you get some real answers. Worst case, he dumps you and you can move on.

Good luck.

I’ll go with @Austinlad . Move on.