u/Impressive-Flow-7343

Original post for reference:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AITA\_Relationships/s/ahaCl9WMC6

My (39F) girlfriend N (35F) and I have been together 2.5 years and live together. Her best friend K (37M) has been extremely enmeshed in our lives — frequent long visits, his hotels managed by her weekly, anchors in our home, trips, favors, etc. I’ve tried setting reasonable boundaries (e.g., not every week, protected couple time). Things blew up in December after an incident where he hid an AirTag in her car and then lied to her about having done that, plus began planning a 9-day trip with her.

Update:
Since then, N has made some progress in therapy and acknowledged some codependency, but the patterns keep returning. Recently, I said no to one single favor: dropping K’s truck off at the mechanic while she was away on the 9-day trip with him.
His reaction was immediate and extreme:

• He had a meltdown and told her he spent $1,700 on a factory windshield replacement for my car (he had lied to me at the time and said it was only $315 through a “work deal”). I never asked for the windshield.
• He declared he will never do any favors for us again (brakes on my daughter’s car, etc.).
• N relayed this to me as if my “no” created the problem.
When I pointed out the manipulation (big “gift” + lie → obligation → punishment when I set a boundary), she got defensive and said things like:
• “Well he knows you’ve been weird with him for a while.”
• I “take myself too seriously” and that’s why she can’t have fun with me like she does with K.
• She needs time around him because her and I are “lovers but not friends.”

She has also continued sharing private things I say (including frustrated comments) with K, then using his reactions against me. When I brought up past hurtful body-shaming comments she used to make about me, she minimized it and said I should have just laughed them off and not taken myself so seriously.

The anchors are still in our home (his medication in the fridge, Topo Chico in the garage), and there’s always a new excuse for why he needs to be here or why boundaries can’t stick.

I’m exhausted. I’ve tried patience, understanding her trauma, therapy support, and clear boundaries for 2.5 years. Now one “no” has led to punishment, blame-shifting, and more defensiveness. It feels like K’s “friendship” is conditional on unlimited access, and my feelings, privacy, and comfort are consistently secondary.

AITA for saying no to the truck favor and pushing back on these patterns? Or is this level of enmeshment, triangulation, conditional “help,” and body shaming as unhealthy as it feels to me? Any advice on how to move forward is appreciated.

My girlfriend N (35F) and I (39F) have been together for 2.5 years and have lived together almost the entire time. I have a stable income and early on told her she didn’t need to work, which is when the dynamic with her male best friend K (37M) became much more prominent in our daily life.

K and N were roommates in the past. They have ongoing shared business/financial ties, a shared storage unit, and her car is still titled in his name (with a pet-name vanity plate he chose). K is often helpful with handyman work and car maintenance for us.

However, K’s involvement has consistently taken up a large amount of time and space in our home and relationship. He lives in California but drives a car hauler for work, so he is in Arizona frequently. Visits are typically multiple days per week and often last from morning until evening.

Examples of how this has affected us:

•  On one occasion I took a full week of PTO specifically to spend time with N and do some day trips. After the third day, K showed up and stayed for the rest of the week, and N allowed it.

•  On another rare 6-day stretch without my kids, we booked a nice suite in California for a couple’s trip. K asked to stay in the living room of the suite because he didn’t feel like being around his family, and he did.

•  For Valentine’s Day weekend, N had told K clearly that it wasn’t a good time for a visit because we had plans. He then arranged for his sisters to borrow our car, which turned into several hours of rush-hour driving, last-minute schedule changes, and instructions texted to N during our pedicure appointment — cutting into our evening and the following morning.

•  There have been multiple other trips and overnights with K, including several to California for routine errands, concerts, and other outings. The most recent was a 9-day New York trip that N planned with him. I was not invited or consulted on the details, and N later admitted the trip felt too long and that she didn’t want to be away from me that much, but she still went.

When I have raised concerns about the frequency of visits and asked for basic boundaries (such as not every single week, or not having our home serve as his default logistics hub), N has responded that I am being controlling, that I will just keep asking for more, and that it is “too soon” in a 2-year relationship to expect these changes. She has also said that none of her past girlfriends ever had an issue with the dynamic (though she noted that the longer trips were not a thing back then). At one point she mentioned that when she and K asked his friends for their perspective, they thought I was the one being unreasonable.

After a significant argument in December, N started individual counseling and has made some changes — she got a job to reduce financial reliance on their shared business, hotel bookings are now mostly in his name, and she has said “no” to a couple of requests. However, weekly involvement through various practical anchors (such as compounded Tirzepatide stored at our house requiring weekly pickups for injections, or routing car maintenance through our area even when he had a hotel an hour away) has continued.

I am about to start a high-stress new job on May 11. I would like our one free week after she returns from the current trip (May 4–10) to be completely clear of K so we can reconnect and I can prepare mentally. I am also asking for a longer period after that where he is not around while I settle into the new job.

I am not asking N to end the friendship. I would simply like it to function at a more typical level — occasional hangouts that do not require ongoing management or make me feel like a third wheel in my own home and relationship.

Am I overreacting? Is wanting a reasonable amount of couple space and reciprocity after 2.5 years of cohabitation unreasonable in this situation?