My boyfriend has a girlfriend

[TH Anonymous]

[SIZE="a"](Just so you know, I'm a guy too.)

I have been in a relationship for two or three months with a guy. Two weeks after we got together, he told me he also had a girlfriend of three years.

I've been speaking with this guy for two years and I did know he had some sort of relationship with that girl but I thought they had broken up since he stopped speaking about her (surely because he was quarantined at his father's place, instead of being quarantined in his apartment with his girlfriend) and since he asked me out and said nothing about another relationship he could have.

Yet, something like two weeks after, he told me he still was with this girl. It's an open relationship and as far as I know, his girlfriend has nothing against him being with me and she even respects me and likes me. Little does she know that I carry a large amount of hatred towards her. During the two years I've spoken with my boyfriend, he told me how disrespectful she can be to him, and how she's used to make him feel like a mess. So, yeah, I hate her and I'm not a really tolerant or respectful guy when it comes to people I despise.

I told him that I should have remembered that he had a girlfriend, and that I would not leave him because of that. I also told him that I'd try to accept that, but now I realize this was a huge mistake. He knows he fucked up by not telling me that sooner but he really hopes I can accept it 'cause he's not ready to make a choice between her and me.

However I'm someone who thinks love should only be between two people and I can't seem to understand how he can love two people at the same time and wants to be in a relationship with them at the same time. I'm starting to get awfully mad at his girlfriend, I really really really despise her and he's getting mad at me since I won't respect her and have difficulties accepting that he wants to stay with her. He told me he didn't feel like he was my boyfriend because I'm kind of a loner who needs to be often by himself, and then he thinks I can feel like I'm his boyfriend and that he's 100% mine while he has a freaking girlfriend, lives with her and speaks to me about her and about how she seems so much better than me? (He didn't say that directly, but he described her to me and she was everything I'm not.)

It's not my fault if he doesn't want to understand that I'm not an accepting and kind little boy who will accept his other relationship without any problem, and fuck him for expecting something else.

I talked to him about that the other day and we all agreed on them breaking up, he also said he had asked what was the best to do on a forum like this one and people also agreed on them breaking up. Yet, he was awfully depressed after that, we had an argument where he told me he had made this choice for me and that he got nothing from me in return (he meant not feeling like he's my boyfriend), and I gave in and told him he could get back with her. Because I didn't want to make him sad or feel like I was being toxic and forcing him to break up with someone he loves.

But I can't bear it anymore, I'm not made to bear relationships like that, I can't stand that he has a girlfriend, that he has someone else in his life. I asked him about the future, he said he would make a choice. But I honestly don't think he's capable of it especially when he wants to stay with her as long as possible.

So I'm thinking of telling him to make a choice, her or me. Is that a good idea? Or am I being toxic and abusive?

I mean, I didn't know he had a girlfriend. I had no idea, I totally forgot her when he asked me out. And he waited two weeks to tell me! Do I have to accept it or can I ask him to make a choice?[/size]

[Mallika]

Hi there,

Thank you so much for reaching out to us here on TeenHelp. I'm so sorry about what you've had to go through.

My advice is: stand your ground. There's no shame in doing that. You should never have to accept something you're not comfortable with. If you're not comfortable with the idea of open relationships, that should be the final word on the matter, and you shouldn't have to change yourself to adjust for this relationship when it's giving you so much anguish.

From what I can understand, I don't think it's you who's making the relationship toxic. The relationship is toxic to start with - your boyfriend didn't tell you about his girlfriend (red flag!), your boyfriend compares her to you, etc. There's no shame in walking away from a relationship like this.

I get that open marriages and relationships are becoming more mainstream nowadays, but that being said, there are also many people who would never wish to be a part of an open relationship. I'm just like you, while I respect that some people are open to the idea of open relationships, I could never be with someone who has another partner. This is just who we are; we shouldn't have to change ourselves for society. If your boyfriend cannot accept your opinion, you might want to consider if you even want to continue associating with him? As it is, he's already creating a toxic environment for the both of you. There are plenty of great guys out there and you might find someone else who truly loves you, for whom you will be the one without a second.

This is my opinion, but considering his behaviour thus far, do you think you already have an answer to the question of asking him to make a choice? He hasn't treated you right, he has blamed you, lied to you. It already appears that he might not be worth pursuing. Also, getting him and his girlfriend to break up might spiral off into other sorts of repercussions e.g. he might blame you for putting him through a breakup, or he might try to contact her behind your back, etc. He is already upset about the idea of breaking up after you guys talked about it.

I think the ball is in your court now. You're not being selfish by leaving this relationship; in fact, you're liberating yourself and even your boyfriend. If he's happier with his girlfriend, so be it. You deserve great things too, so remember that it's not an act of defeat, but rather an act of strength, to walk away from what's distressing you

Take care, and let me know if you have any questions!

[Rivière]

It sounds like your boyfriend wants to have his cake and eat it, so to speak. In regards to telling him to make a choice, no don't do that. That's not fair. You can't force a person to make a choice, it must be done on their own.

I'd also like to point out that you seem very concerned for how well you're treating him, including fears that you're coming across as toxic to him, yet have you ever thought of how he's coming across to you. Judging by what you've written, he's the one that's toxic, not you.

When he asked on another forum if he should split with his girlfriend and they said yes, he got upset because it's evidently not the answer he was looking for. He wanted people to tell him, 'Yes you can continue to have your cake and eat it', except, they didn't. His behaviour isn't fair on you. He clearly doesn't care about how you feel in this situation, just that he wants both a boyfriend and a girlfriend, without any regard to the well-being of those he's with.

Adding on to all of that, while you've mentioned his girlfriend quite unpleasant to deal with and treats him poorly, from an outsiders perspective, I would say there's a reason for her behaviour too. For all you know, she could be jealous that she's not getting his full attention because she has to share him with you, just like how you have to share him with her. She may be feeling pushed aside and/or only agree to be in an open relationship with him because she doesn't want to lose him, so has settled for sharing him so she can at least have him around to some degree. We could spend ages speculating, but there's always more to a story than what one person says. Bear in mind your view of his girlfriend is based off what he has told you. Of course you're going to take his side because you obviously care deeply for him, but getting her side of the story wouldn't hurt.

If I were in that situation, I would leave him. He clearly doesn't care about you in the way that you care about him. Sure you'd forgot' he had a girlfriend, but based off what you've said, he'd made heavy implications he wasn't with her anymore. Had you known, you would never have agreed to enter a relationship with him.

Ultimately, the decision is yours, but you deserve better than to be with someone who only gives you half their attention, and treats you like a second-rate partner.

Non-monogamous relationships can be a wonderful, beautiful thing, but not if you don't want to be in one. It sounds like there are a lot of incompatibilities and broken trust here. Your boyfriend misled you from the very beginning of the relationship. It makes sense why that would be painful, and it means from the get-go you have a crack in the foundation. You deserved honesty, and you have every right to be upset by what happened.

From the sound of it, you're not okay with the current arrangement (non-monogamy). I will tell you right now that if your boyfriend is truly non-monogamous but you hate that about him, it's not going to work. Sometimes polyam/mono relationships can work, but they have to be mostly free of animosity and also full of intimacy, stability, and trust. It sounds like you struggle with those things already.

Don't make him choose between you. Ultimatums never work, not matter the relationship configuration. Even if he "picked" you, trust me, no one will be happy. You'll resent him for everything that's happened up until now, his ex will probably give him hell, and he'll probably resent you for making him choose.

This is clearly not a good situation and if I were you, I would just leave. Obviously it's up to you, but if you do decide to stay together, ALL of y'all need to work on building trust and fostering honest, open communication, or no one will be happy.

[TH Anonymous]

[SIZE="a"]We had two arguments following my post (he does't know about it, though, I just tried to figure out what we should do regarding this situation).

The first argument was about his girlfriend who cheated on him with her ex more than one year ago. He found out she had cheated on him by going through her messages and when he found out, he sent me a text message (it was when we weren't really friends, I had given him my phone number if he ever needed it since we met on a website and essentially spoke with each other on it). The fact that he discovered this is the main reason why we got closer. At the time, he didn't tell me the reason of his suffering, he just told me he felt like shit and didn't know what to do with his life. I didn't know that his girlfriend cheated on him before our recent argument then.

We mainly talked about that. That he says he now trusts her and knows that she's now honest with him and that he doesn't give a shit that she cheated on him anyway. That I don't believe when he says he doesn't give a shit, since he was buried in a hole and ready to lay there until he dies when he contacted me the night he discovered that. That I don't believe that she's really honest with him now, and that what he calls trust is nothing but naivety and desperation.

Then I told him I wouldn't leave, but if he wanted me to go away, I would. And if he wanted me to stay, I would too, but he'd have to make me some room in his life, which is not possible if he already has someone. He kept on saying I was being mean and that it was breaking him down. He said I wasn't sharing him with anyone since he's not a object that people can own. Then he told me he tried breaking up with his girlfriend, but the pain was apparently too overwhelming for him to get over it. In other words, he says he suffers if he chooses me, he suffers if he chooses her, and he suffers and makes us suffer if he doesn't make a choice since I'm not down for a non-monogamous relationship. It seems like he wants me to be oblivious of his other relationship, as if I should forget that she's here and just pretend he's monogamous and only has me. He said he doesn't want that, but it's truly what I read between the lines. I may be wrong, obviously. He already said that what he wants to do is not making any choice and just letting things as they currently are: so having his girlfriend, and having me at the same time.

Other subject of this first argument was me running away from him when we were just speaking as friends, that is to say when I had all my rights. I was allowed to run away if seeing that he was falling for me and that I was feeling for him scared me. I wasn't ready for a relationship and since I wasn't involved in any kind of serious relationship with him, I considered that I had my right to run away and then come back if I felt like things were going forwards too fast. Still, it seems that he resents me for that, even if it's been months that I stopped running away and I agreed on this thing between us. This subject came because he said he should leave, he almost said he should take his life, and that everything would be better for his girlfriend and me if he just left. I disagreed, told him running wasn't an option here, and he started blaming me for running away when I wasn't in any way involved with him.

The second argument, well, I don't remember how it started out. Anyway, he told me that his girlfriend was here to support him when I was running away, that she was here to reassure him when I was unsure of my feelings for him, when I was undecided, that his girlfriend was nice with him even when things were about me; and that me, on the contrary, I'm not satisfied of what I have and I always want more. He said I already have everything I want (that is to say, him) but that I want more anyway (that is to say, a regular monogamous relationship). Then he told me that if he breaks up with her, she will surely commit suicide for she says there's no purpose of keeping on living without him. But things are blurry and I have a hard time really understanding the whole thing, for when I asked him, ”So you're not breaking up with her only because she's manipulating you?”, he answered, ”No, 'cause I know she won't do anything”.

Though he was first in a bad mood, a change of heart occurred and he was now okay with choosing me and leaving her, although minutes before he was telling me that he couldn't leave behind years of happy memories with her. I'm confused like I've never been. I reacted too quick, and thought he was serious and has simply made his decision; but now I realize that this was not a thoughtful decision and that he'll eventually get depressed again and resent me for forcing him to make him choose between his girlfriend and me. Though his girlfriend, from what I've seen, is toxic and manipulating, he seems to hold on to the happy memories he has with her and be oblivious of how poorly she now treats him. I can't help but think that he inexorably lives in the past and can't let go of it.

He copes mentally, he goes from really bad episodes to okay-ish ones to ”Yeah I'm totally fine, I'm choosing you for I love you and you're the most important thing in my life”. I don't think this is healthy, and I don't think we should stay together regarding his current mental state. He doesn't know what he wants and as one of you said, he'll resent me for making him choose as soon as his good episode ends.

This hurts me, and I feel shameful for not keeping my word, but I'm going to explain to him that this won't work and that we should break up. We can't have a healthy, working relationship when we see how bad it began and how bad it goes on. If he wants to go back with me when he sorts all his feelings out, without him being with another partner, without him not wanting what he truly wants, and with him understand that he needs professional help for some of his issues, then I'll say yes we can be in a relationship. But for now, it'll just make everyone and especially him suffer.[/size]

[Rivière]

I think splitting with him would be for the best. He's messing with your emotions. He definitely seems like he wants his cake and eat it. It's as if as soon as he feels he's losing his grasp on you, he changes his tune and says he'd prefer to be with you. If true, that's very manipulative and unfair to you. He's making you feel all kinds of things just so he can get what he wants from you.

I also have to ask, if he's in an open relationship with this girl, how is it that she can 'cheat' on him? Is there some specific rule somewhere I missed? He seems all for telling you all the bad things about his girlfriend, but I have to wonder, what exactly is he telling her about you? It comes across like he's pitting both of you against one another because he likes that you both fight over him and it makes him feel good. Which if also true, is extremely manipulative. You can do better than him.

[TH Anonymous]

[SIZE="a"]Their relationship is rather complicated and I can't know for sure what rules they have established. From what I understood, he has the right to have another partner if he tells her about it, and she has the right to have another partner if she tells him about it. Here, she chose to be romantically (and even sexually, I suppose?) involved with her ex without telling him, and she hid this from him.

But I'd also like to point out that he tends to go against his own words, 'cause he was really upset when he confessed that she cheated on him, and the night he texted me after finding this out he was also in a really bad shape. Still, he's now insisting on the fact that he doesn't care if she cheats on him and that he didn't want to make it look like it was a big deal. However, I could see how upset he was. He's like an open book, he can't hide his feelings and yet he tries to hide them by going against his own statements. He's done that a few times, like when I said that he told me he couldn't break up with her otherwise she would try to kill herself if he did, but seconds later he said that she wouldn't actually try to commit suicide. He even did that when he said he didn't want to choose between her and me and that he didn't want things to change, and seconds later he said, ”No, I don't expect you to accept that I have a girlfriend, I expect nothing from you, I just want you to be alright”. He always says the contrary of his previous statements, so I don't know what's going on inside his head or what he truly wants or needs. Neither do I know what he really feels, about the cheat thing, and if he really loves her, or if he's only attached to the memories he has...

But yeah, it definitely looks like that he changes his tune to keep me by his sides. I don't like that, it makes me feel like he uses lies to keep me close, but if I tells him what I think he'll say that I'm being mean again and that he feels like he should kill himself. Sigh, I wish I would have thought a bit more before agreeing on this relationship between us. He's not ready to get into one, he has so many things to deal with before it's healthy for him to be involved in a serious relationship. But I guess he kind of hid this side of his from me in fear of seeing me saying no when he asked me out. He's not a bad guy, but no relationship can be healthy if he stays like that. He needs to realize a lot of things about himself and his ways of coping with them, actually he needs to learn how to cope with them. I hope he'll eventually seek professional help now that I told him my decision. So, yeah, we broke up, but I let him know that he could get back with me if everything truly gets better. And now I feel like he'll try to show me that everything's better when it's not just so he can get back with me. I don't know what I did to make him so clingy, I really don't get why he's so attached to me and can't stand the thought of me being away just on a romantic level... I mean, I still feel fine talking with him everyday, but it seems to him that I'm leaving forever when I just broke the romantic thing between us... sigh...

No, I don't think he tries to make his girlfriend and me fight over him. Most of the time he tells me how nice she is, and I know that he only tells good things about me to her too. It's just that he can't help but talk to me when things go wrong between them (spoiler: they daily go wrong, but he still tries to close his eyes to all the bad things she does to him) and every time I get mad at her for hurting him, he gets anxious because he doesn't like at all that I'm mad at her and that I hate her. As if he wants me to just comfort him, without being mad at his girlfriend. As if he wants us to go along pretty well and tolerate each other, so that he can stay with both of us.[/size]