How do I forgive my boyfriend? - Long post
My boyfriend (M24) and I (F23) have been together for nearly a year now, and ever since the beginning of our relationship one of his female friends he met while studying aboard has been an issue. A really big issue for someone who lives overseas and who I've never met and who my boyfriend hasn't seen in person since 2023. For the sake of this story, I'll refer to this friend as Faye and my boyfriend as Mark.
I never had an issue with Mark having female friends, he has a few and I get along with them great and have my own relationship with them, they are honestly very beautiful souls and I'm very happy he has them in his life. Faye has always been a different story, however. Unlike Mark's other female friends, she's always crossed boundaries, been inappropriate, and sexually charged their conversations by telling my boyfriend in great detail about her sex life, what she likes during sex, how horny she often is, and how much she flirts/sleeps around with all of her male friends because that's her "thing".
Faye has mentioned to him in conversation that he turns her on when he does a certain accent, she has sent him photos of herself in revealing clothes to show him how "good she looks" for her other male friends, and even he admitted that her breast looked good to me as I was there while this text conversation over Instagram happened. Every time I made an effort to connect with her and form my own relationship with her after she reached out to request my Instagram account to follow, every conversation would be about her and Mark's relationship or about Mark in general, and if I tried to stray away from Mark as a topic and ask her about work or uni or life, I would be left on read. At a friend's birthday party one time, I posted a photo of myself and my boyfriend on my Instagram story to a French love song and she replied to the story insinuating that I should take the post down as my boyfriend doesn't like French music. I told her that as its a photo of him and l, and that he told me to post the photo to begin with, it's fine. Again, she centered the conversation around Mark and how she's so sad that he wouldn't let that slide with her if she ever posted a photo of them together (mind you, they haven't seen each other since his time studying abroad in 2023, and even then they don't have photos together unless they're in a group photo, so it was a weird thing to say), and tried to make out my boyfriend wasn't a good friend due to this. At this point, it had been three months of her aggressively pursuing my boyfriend's attention and I had, had enough. I did lay it on very thick about how good of a friend he is home country friends and how grateful I was to have him as a boyfriend. It was petty, I know.
Faye really didn't like this, and started to send selective screen shots of our private conversation to my boyfriend asking if I had an issue with her as I was being "rude". My boyfriend asked me what was wrong and why Faye and I were having a conversation over this, and when I told him the whole story of her replying to my story, he just told Faye that it must be a "cultural difference issue". At the end of the party, me and my boyfriend had a big talk and that's where I think my trust with him first felt rocky.
Every issue with Faye I mentioned above, I did mention to my boyfriend how uncomfortable I was with how inappropriate she was being and the lines crossed. I asked Mark to talk to her about these and set in boundaries, and in the conversation I had with him after the party, I discovered that he never approached her with these issues and he thought that he was the one in the wrong for telling me about these private moments between him and Faye. This hurt a lot, and again I told him that he needed to set boundaries and stick to them with her because I honestly believed that she had a crush on Mark or at least wanted his attention and I wasn't okay with that as that's not a normal friendship. I also have male friends, and never have I ever acted like that towards them while I was single or in a relationship with Mark. So, I told him that boundaries did have to be set this time - No more sex talk, no more skimpy photos, no more flirting on her end, and to actually talk to her this time about her wrong behaviour.
He did speak with Faye about this, and the next day I was removed as she friend off of Instagram. Which I didn't mind. After some time, I though my boyfriend would update me about the conversation he had with Faye but he never mentioned it. I won't lie, this made my anxiety spike. So, I asked him about it, and he told me that it was a "good" conversation and boundaries were set. No details were given, and I just let it go hoping that would be the end of it. A little later, after a conversation with my friends about someone we know who was going through a similar situation where being a good friend matters, I got curious about that conversation between Mark and Faye. When I asked Mark again about it, that's only when he told me that she called me things like "jealous", "immature", and "insecure". I wasn't happy that I only found out about this name-calling and how unwillingly she was to understand how she crossed boundaries. He was vague on how he handled her calling me these things, and I was honestly kinda done at the point with her, but because he didn't want to end the friendship as it was a boundary for him, I dropped it and tried to be respectful towards her and their friendship.
Faye couldn't do the same and just let things go. She started to stalk me on my other Instagram account, it's a public business account. I only have this second account because my private Instagram account is use mostly for communication and I don't post much on there unless its family related (I grew up in a very strict household, where dresses and skirts that were just above the knees was pushing it, so yeah, I had a second account where I blocked all my family from seeing so I can have fun and post beach day photos of me in a bikini, sue me). She started to get her friends to stalk me to. I know this because as a business account, Instagram collects the data of your viewers. It gives you a weekly insights of who your regular viewers were and where they were geographically located across the world. Well, her hometown in Europe kept showing up to be 30% of my regular viewers, so her and her friends. She was so aggressively stalking my account that I could see that she was regularly traveling to countries like Luxembourg and the The Czech Republic. Never before did I have European viewers in my data (again, I blocked my family from seeing this account so I couldn't and shouldn't have European viewers, especially from France and Germany, The Czech Republic and Luxembourg. I'm second gen Italian to begin with, so if I'd ever have European viewers it would be from my Italian relatives from Italy...).
Again, addressed this to my boyfriend and he denied that it could be her and if I was so freaked out, I should either put my second account on private or block her. He did ask me if I wanted him to ask her if she was stalking me, but I told him not to as I didn't want to stir the pot and I knew she would just deny it and call me names again. So I blocked her on both of my accounts and left it alone. I was tired of her and of us always arguing over her. Me and Mark don't have issues. We don't fight, we don't call each other names...It's not like us to bicker unless its over Faye.
The real tipping point for me, was just a few weeks ago. I organised a really nice dinner date for my boyfriend and I at a high end restaurant he's always wanted to go to. I was really excited for that night as Mark is usually the one to plan and organise our dates so it felt nice to spoil him like this. At the date dinner, he posted a video of me on his Instagram story. It was me fixing my hair with my hair and makeup done up and me in a really nice dress as the restaurant was very, very expensive and I wanted to look good. Faye ended up replying to his story of me making a joke or acknowledging that I blocked her (I'll be honest, I was a bit tipsy from the wine when I saw Mark open his phone and this reply pop up in his notifications). It really played at the back of my mind and it triggered a lot of my anxiety.
Last week, I was expressing to my boyfriend how I've been working with my therapist about being open with others (this was in relation to my abusive past with my family) and how I hate it, and struggle very deeply with expressing my emotions. He talked me through it and asked if there was anything between him and I wanted to bring up and I mentioned Faye (again. Shock horror, am I right?) and the stalking and the message she sent him while we were out at dinner. Mark admitted that he just ignored the message even though it made him angry and said that it felt like Faye was trying to push him into making me unblock her. That really pissed me off, because I also thought the same and I don't know why he wouldn't correct her when he was the one who told me to block her in the first place. I was open and told him that I've had to block a lot of French/German accounts (who I 100% believe where her friends) that have been popping up in my recommended and "who you may know" features and how the whole stalking thing really creeped me out and made my anxiety go off. She was the one who unfollowed me, why would she then continue to stalk me and get her friends to stalk me? It made no sense.
As we started to further talk about her and how I was done with their relationship and how uncomfortable I was. Mark did agree that she was being weird and nasty and mentioned how in their talk all those months ago after our friend's birthday party, Faye had been in his ear trying to change is mind about me. This really, really upset me. I asked him twice what happened in that talk between him and Faye, the first time, I was told "it was a good chat", the second time I asked him, he told me she called me names and was nasty towards me, and now he only mentions how she basically tried to convince him to dump me?! But still didn't seem to understand how badly this was affecting me. This has been 8 months of my life with her crossing my boundaries and when I address them, I basically have to bite my tongue and get over it or she escalates the situation. I expressed this to my boyfriend, and how I've had enough and I want them to end their friendship. We agreed that he would end the friendship, just not that night as it was a big and emotional night and it can wait.
A few days go by and still, he hasn't actioned anything. So I asked him if he could talk to Faye and cut off their contact. He said that after thinking over somethings, he shouldn't have been so quick to agree to cut off his friendship with Faye as the fallout would be messy. His other European friends who are also friends with Faye might turn on him, and he thought that the friendship between him and Faye could die out naturally as they weren't as close anymore.
This hurt to hear. I didn't feel like I was worth much to him when he said this. But I put my foot down and really tried to make him understand that I was done with her. He tried to argue that since their talk after the birthday party, she has kept to the boundaries set in place. And I disagreed, I said that if anything she's getting worse by stalking me and feeling as though she had the right to get him to make me unblock her. I asked if she has really kept to the boundaries put in place and he said she had in his opinion. Throughout the chat, I had a really uneasy feeling in my gut, that she's been talking about me in a negative way due to her stalking me and how causal she was with bringing me up in conversation about blocking her. I asked my boyfriend if she's spoken about me over the last few months and he confirmed that she hasn't until the other night. But I didn't believe him, I had a sick feeling in my stomach so I asked him again and again and again and he was very adamant that Faye hadn't spoken about me. But this was the same feeling I had in my gut that she wanted me out of the picture for Mark's attention and that she was stalking me. So I asked him to search for my name in their chat logs in their Instagram DMs.
And I was right. Faye was talking shit about me and making me the butt of her jokes and still accusing me of being jealous and never, not once, did Mark defend me. And I honestly think my heart broke when he sent through the screen shots of what she has been saying about me and either he ignored her or continued with the joke.
I confronted him about this, and all he's been doing is apologising for his lack of action and his behaviour. Mark opened up about how he struggles with standing up for himself and how he can't manage boundaries and how he's working with his own therapist to get better at this. And I believe him. But it doesn't change how I feel at the moment.
Last night he finally sent Faye the message about ending their friendship and she's just left him on read. But I think its over. I hope so. Because I am so utterly broken right now.
I feel like a joke.
My boyfriend was putting another girl over me. And this girl has spent the last few months making me feel crazy and scared and anxious and like I don't matter. Like I'm nothing. Like I'm not worth my own boyfriend standing up for me, and respecting my boundaries and my feelings. And, apparently I'm not worth anything.
I'm so angry at this whole situation. I'm so angry that I was so concerned with not being a bad girlfriend and respecting everyone's feelings and boundaries but not standing up for my own feelings and boundaries. I should have told my boyfriend to cut her off after she basically flashed her tits at him.
I'm so broken right now. I feel like I can't trust him. He hid things from me, he put her and her feelings and their relationship over me and our relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend. He kept fighting for her and for them but would fight with me. Not for me. He let her talk shit about me, he told me to correct myself and my behaviour while letting her torment me for months.
What the fuck do I do? I love him. I love him so much. But everything is so fresh, and I'm so heartbroken and betrayed and I feel so worthless, like I mean nothing to him. Like I'm not his number one. I want to forgive him and move past this and have my boyfriend and be happy and in love. But all that feels so bleak at the moment. I don't even want to see him right now. But he's scared and upset and doesn't know if we'll get over this.
How do I forgive him and heal from this? I can't see my therapist until next month and I won't talk to my friends and family about this. And I can't talk to my boyfriend about this, I don't trust myself to not be nice. I don't want to be nasty to him. That's not our relationship, and I don't want to get mean and nasty and step over a point of no return in our relationship. I want us. I love us. I'm just so sad and hurt. And I need someone.
Note from Author: Please know that I have posted this in a different community and the only comments I am receiving is to break up with my boyfriend. I don't want that, I would really like some advice as to how to forgive and move on from this.