My best friend broke up with her boyfriend a few months ago. She had been dating him for almost three years and I could tell that he was the best thing to happen to her in a long time. Before they started dating we were all friends, it was kind of nice that way because when it happened it was natural and nothing was too awkward.
I was by both of their sides throughout the whole relationship. I was on the phone with her until three in the morning talking about how much she liked him and the next night I would be on the phone with him listening to him talk about how much he liked her. From someone who was privy to both sides of the relationship, it was really sweet.
He went to college two years before her and they did long distance. And when I say long distance I mean long distance. He went to college in the UK and we were still in high school. But even with the distance and a pandemic they stayed together and made it work. My best friend considered her boyfriend also to be one of her best friends, which is how it should be. But that is also why their breakup was really difficult, they both had lost their best friend.
A few weeks after the breakup I didn’t know where I stood. I had known her since we were five years old and I had known him since I was fifteen years old. I knew that I was always going to be her best friend and that’s why I stopped talking to him after they ended things which was weird for me because I felt that I too had lost my friend. A few weeks later she had said that they were still talking and she would never want to tell me who I can and cannot be friends with, which were the words I was waiting to hear. Since then he and I have been keeping in touch, not as much as we used to but enough to still be friends.
Anyway, fast forward to the present day, my friend has a new boyfriend at her college and she says she really likes him. I didn’t doubt this until I started receiving texts from her where she would compare him to her ex and every time her ex would come out on top. I brought this up with her and she responds with “[ex] would have done it this way or better.” I told her if that’s how she feels then she needs to talk to her current boyfriend about how he makes her feel in those situations and what he could do differently without bringing up her ex. She disagreed and never said anything to her current boyfriend. This has been going on for a few weeks and as someone who is constantly listening to her complain about her current boyfriend one second and then praising him the next I am done with her dramatic love life turbulence. I have given her all of the advice she has asked for and more and she has taken none of it and is surprised why the situation has not changed.
I think the turning point for me was when she asked me to text her ex for her. The message was personal and I felt weird about sending a text from her where she wanted to check on him and his mental health because she could sense something was wrong. I told her she should send the text herself, there was nothing wrong with it but I thought it should come from her. That is when she told me that her current boyfriend made her block her ex on all socials. When she told me this I was shocked and said that he should not have asked that of her. Her defense for him was that he had never been in a relationship before and he was insecure about her previous relationship. This is the biggest red flag I had seen from him thus far. Immediately I told her that and she started with her usual excuses for him. At this point, I told her to drop it with her ex. If she felt that her current boyfriend would break up with her over this then it was not worth it. But I also said that she should reevaluate her relationship with her current boyfriend if she truly thought he would break up with her because she reached out to her ex to make sure he was doing well mentally. The last thing I left her with is “his insecurities are not your problem,” because if there is one thing I know, it’s that until you love yourself and can trust the other person you should not be in a relationship.