I’ve struggled with this a lot but lately it’s gotten way worse and I get so anxious I can’t sleep. I get suuuper paranoid about my boyfriend having close friendships with other females. I have thrown so much logic at this but it does nothing for the anxiety. I am terrified that him having friendship intimacy is going to turn into something else. I’ve been left for someone else before and I was so traumatised by it that the mistrust has never gone away even though I’m in a new relationship. 

We’ve been together 3 years but I barely know his friends. Unfortunately for me and my tendency to be super paranoid, all but one of them are female. He’s got different friends to when we first started dating and I’ve never said more than a greeting to them. He’s never invited me to hang out with them but tbh I wouldn’t be able to handle this anyway without a panic attack/feeling like the third wheel. Because I barely know them, my brain has decided that there’s a tonne of leeway to make things up about their friendships. 

One of them has been the focus of my paranoia for a while. A year and a bit ago my bf got drunk and told me he thought she was really hot and omg I wish he had never said anything. My crazy ass brain took that statement and ran. I tell myself he wishes he was with her instead, or that he probably thinks about sleeping with her but would never tell me that or he thinks she’s hotter than me or that eventually he’s going to leave me for her. I try very hard to not bring this up with him. We’ve talked about it before but I don’t want to be a broken record and have it get to the point where he’s sick of hearing about how upset I am over something I just made up. 

I don’t know what to do anymore because I am not coping with their friendship. They ended up becoming very close friends (which is what I was dreading) and she always talks to him about her problems (he loves helping people way too much), tells him stories about her sex life, and from what I can see messages him at least once a day. He brings her up multiple times every time we hang out (it’s usually to update me on her latest problems but I hate that he thinks of her so much). I can’t stand the idea of my bf being the person other girls run to EVERY time they have a problem, I feel like he’s supposed to be my person not everyone else’s. All of this makes me crazy paranoid. Every time I hear they’re hanging out I get super angry bc my abandonment fears are triggered and I’m not always the best at hiding it. I am terrified that he’s going to get sick of my jealousy and the way I always seem to be angry when he hangs out with his friends.

I just cannot stop feeling this way! I have tried and tried to find ‘evidence’ that this is more than a friendship and found none. My boyfriend says he doesn’t think of her romantically/wouldn’t date her and I do believe him but my emotions refuse to match my logic. I find it so hard to trust that he loves me and wants to be with me, especially now that the honeymoon phase is over and it’s less obvious. 

I just feel super unsafe and insecure and it’s eating me alive. I have lost all my confidence because I keep comparing myself to other people and thinking I’m not as good as them. I feel so needy for reassurance all the time and I know it’s going to get old really fast. I just want to be confident and secure but I find that so hard when I’m not the only female he is close with. 

How do you deal with your SO being close to other people and the paranoia it comes with?