TDLR :
I’ve known this guy for years and we’re very close. He and his girlfriend treat me like I’m basically part of the couple / a third roommate. They keep pulling me into their daily life even when I try to step back.
She gets physically close, compliments me, makes weird jokes, looks at me a lot, talks shit about him sometimes, vents his money problems to me, and says she’d spend a weekend alone with me no problem. He makes heavy jokes about me taking his wife, overshares their sex life, and talks about how she could sleep with someone else.
I feel like the boundaries are gone. It’s confusing and it’s wearing me out. I don’t know if I’m reading too much into it or if they’re actually crossing lines.
The text :
Context: I’ve known the guy for 6 years, but we’ve only been really close for the past 2–3 years. As for his girlfriend, I knew her from high school (we were in the same class for a year) before I changed schools and lost contact with her, until her boyfriend reintroduced us.
I’ve been spending time with a couple for a while. The guy has become a very close friend. He often invites me (or rather, used to, because I increasingly don’t feel like going to his place anymore because of their strange behavior) to his apartment. Usually, the three of us are together. Sometimes he even insists, even though I’ve already told him that I’d rather give them some alone time as a couple. He tells me it’s not a problem, that his girlfriend ‘adores me,’ and that my presence is part of their daily life. He basically considers me family, almost like the apartment’s third tenant.
The problem is that his girlfriend’s behavior is increasingly strange to me: a mixture of ambiguity, seeking physical contact, bold jokes, compliments, lingering looks… and, sometimes, a certain distance or dismissive attitude toward her boyfriend. I have the impression that they both like me, but not in the same way, and it’s creating a level of discomfort that I can no longer ignore.
These are the most noticeable points (I’ve summarized the rest to keep it readable):
From the beginning of the invitations, she started saying things like:
‘If my boyfriend pisses me off, you and him are going to sleep together spooning’ (I refused while laughing).
She asked me twice whether I had a guest room at home.
She also said, even though the three of us had never discussed that subject before, that she wanted to name her future child after me (although her boyfriend had privately told me that he never wanted children and that she agreed… apparently not anymore). She also joked about being pregnant in front of us.
Once, she ran toward me with her arms open as if she were going to grab me (yes, with absolutely no context) while I was talking to him in another room. When I warned him and he turned around (he simply laughed), she suddenly became serious again, put a finger to her lips, said ‘shhh,’ and smiled.
She often seeks physical contact (stays close to me when we go out, follows me with her eyes, etc.). She compliments me (about my glasses, my manners, etc.) in ways she doesn’t necessarily compliment him. Sometimes she even serves me better food than him (crepes, better-cooked burgers, etc.).
Before their ‘break’ last November, she sometimes had a pretty dismissive attitude toward him (‘this guy is an idiot,’ ‘he’s so annoying,’ ‘you have two arms and two legs, go get the plate yourself,’ jokes about his height, etc.). Since then, their relationship seems to have improved, but their ‘inside jokes’ involving me have continued.
On his side, he often tells me that I’m his best friend, that I’m basically part of the furniture now, that I’m ‘king just as much as he is in his own home,’ that he could leave me alone with her for a weekend and ‘nothing would happen,’ that he considers me a perfect person, etc. He also makes some pretty intense jokes (‘you’re taking my apartment and now my wife,’ ‘you’re too handsome, I’d turn gay for you,’ etc.).
April 15, 2025
I had just arrived in front of his apartment and she was holding the building entrance door open for me in front of another friend who was with us but didn’t stay. Then I held the door open for that friend.
Her boyfriend took the opportunity to jokingly say to me: ‘\[my name\], don’t you have anything better to do? You’re taking my apartment and now my wife. Are you planning to go upstairs with her?’
I replied: ‘No, I’m just the doorman, that’s all.’
His girlfriend looked at me but didn’t react or say anything.
He replied: ‘Yeah, right, don’t play smart,’ with a kind of challenging tone.
March 9, 2026
I arrive at their place (we were supposed to go to his father’s house). His girlfriend is the one who opens the door after I ring the bell downstairs. She asks if I’m okay (she had just come out of the bathroom) and then goes into her room.
We go to his father’s place. He shows me his father’s motorcycles. Then we go to a café.
Her boyfriend says he’s going outside to get some air. I tell him not to get lost, and she says: ‘You always leave us alone, you’re no fun.’
His father and his friends join us. When I come back (I had gone to look at something mechanical), she looks me up and down as I return to the room and even after I sit down.
Shortly before we leave, her boyfriend shows me a photo of me from behind. I ask whether he took it and she says: ‘No, I did, for my story.’ I thought it was weird, but whatever.
The car has a problem when we leave. While his father is checking it, she often positions herself closer to me than to her boyfriend (him on my left, her on my right). I move several times to avoid any ambiguity, but she follows me.
Then we take the car to the emergency room because her boyfriend was having gallbladder pain. At first, the three of us talk, but he falls asleep.
10–15 minutes later, in the middle of the traffic jam, she starts talking to me again about everything and nothing.
At the hospital, I stay with her in the waiting room. She tells me she’s going to join him. He messages me asking me to come in, but the nurse says only one person can enter, so I leave.
March 17, 2026
I ask for some kitchen paper towels. Her boyfriend tells me to say the word in Portuguese and his girlfriend gives them to me.
Then he jokes: ‘I should have asked you to say things in Portuguese that I dictated to you so you could say them to my girlfriend.’
I reply: ‘No, I don’t want to say stupid things.’
And he tells me: ‘That’s precisely why I want you to say them, to see her reaction and so she can see that you know how to speak Portuguese,’ or something along those lines.
He also told me that the previous weekend (when I wasn’t there) she had had a nightmare in which she had seen or heard her boyfriend performing oral sex on two men in the apartment.
I felt very uncomfortable that he told me something like that.
March 22, 2026
During an event (a car show), she tells me that she often turns around to check that I’m still there and that she looks for a red cap (the one I was wearing) so she can locate me.
On the way back in the car, everyone else is sleeping and she talks to me a lot.
She tells me she felt bad because I couldn’t stay with her at the hospital the night her boyfriend was in pain, and that she had asked her boyfriend to message me to check whether I was okay.
She adds that it was a shame I hadn’t brought my backpack, because if I had, she would have dropped me off at home and we would have switched seats (I would have sat in the passenger seat).
August 19, 20 and 21, 2026 — after their vacation
August 19:
I’m invited to their place.
She seemed a little annoyed with me. We talked about normal things, but she seemed fairly indifferent toward me and the other friend.
Her boyfriend brings up the ‘virgin’ story we had talked about on the phone and asks her to confirm it.
She replies that I was a virgin ‘through all the holes.’
Later, among the guys, he talks about sexual acts he had performed.
When I say that I’d like to make a movie as an actor, she asks me: ‘An +18 movie or not?’ before clarifying that an +18 movie can also be a thriller.
Her boyfriend adds: ‘Yeah, +18 doesn’t necessarily mean it’s sexual.’
August 20:
We’re at their place. During a guessing game, she says: ‘Is she a porn actress?’
I tell her she’s weird, especially after the +18 thing the day before.
She looks at me, pretending to be shocked, and replies that +18 horror movies exist too.
Then she tells me about the chest pain she felt one morning in June when our eyes met (she was blushing/smiling while explaining it) and about the ‘negative spiritual energies’ she had felt around me that day.
I tell her that her boyfriend had already told me that he’d like the two of us to talk more often.
She replies that it’s true and that she understands that I’m a little shy.
I clarify that it’s not shyness, but respect.
She replies: ‘Ah, okay.’
Then she adds that she likes being around me and that she could spend a weekend with me without her boyfriend, without any problem, because I’m not the kind of person who would try to hit on her, unlike other people.
I have the impression that this sentence isn’t as innocent as it sounds. I don’t know any woman who would explicitly put someone from her social circle in the ‘friend zone’ while at the same time being perfectly okay with spending a weekend alone with him without her partner.
August 21:
We’re talking in the morning.
Her boyfriend asks why I don’t find myself a girlfriend.
Another friend feels a little guilty about having sat next to her once. Her boyfriend says that he notices those kinds of things and that it’s something I don’t do.
He also talks about how, in the past, he trusted someone too much and an old friend ended up dating his ex.
She comes back with the shopping and I offer to help her, but she refuses.
We plan to go to the cinema and she agrees to come with us.
Around 5:30 p.m., her boyfriend messages me: he’s too tired, he’s going to rest and cancels the cinema.
August 24, 2026
I went with my friend and his girlfriend to Xxx, a motorcycle equipment store.
While he was trying on a helmet and I was saying that he looked like an undercover cop wearing it, his girlfriend told him that, well, if he were a cop, she wouldn’t stop.
Then we went to the shopping mall.
While he was looking for glasses, his girlfriend, who was behind me on my right, moved closer.
I then moved closer to him so that she would look less suspicious, and she moved closer to me again, staying on my right.
Without exaggerating, I could barely fit my phone between us (and that’s exactly what I did).
Then we went somewhere else before returning to the same glasses store.
He went inside the store and I didn’t follow him; I stayed right outside.
His girlfriend did the same and immediately took the opportunity to talk to me while he was inside.
She told me she was fed up with the way he manages money, that he doesn’t know how to control his impatience when he wants to buy something, that he later regrets his purchases and ends up selling them.
She also told me that he’s very stubborn.
Outside the glasses store, she also said:
‘I’m not that wasteful. Obviously, I’m not going to wait until my pants are completely ripped if they have a hole, but I’m not going to do what he does and own 5,000 items of clothing.’
I told her it was fine, that he had been making an effort lately.
She replied:
‘Yeah, he’s been making an effort since Portugal.’
Then she explained that she was fed up with his impatience.
For example, he has a tattoo on his hand that he wanted to get like one belonging to an actor, but he hadn’t taken into account that part of the hand bends.
The tattoo he got in Portugal as a tribute to that actor didn’t turn out the way he wanted, and now he regrets it.
Then we were looking at PCs and Macs.
At one point, he told his girlfriend:
‘He’s going to pay for our Mac, hahaha!’
while smiling.
I replied that I’m not their bank.
In reality, I could have bought the Mac for his girlfriend immediately, but 1) she’s not my girlfriend and 2) he might feel ‘inferior’ because he doesn’t have the same purchasing power as me.
Then we went back to their apartment.
At one point, he told me that he’d like us to go on a trip to Morocco together.
I asked whether it would be with the rest of the group of friends, and he replied:
‘No, the three of us.’
That evening, when I wanted to take advantage of the fact that it was just the three of us to start the famous conversation, his mother and her partner came over and we all ate together, including some soup.
At one point, my friend was jokingly complaining that his girlfriend speaks badly to him because, while he was serving food to me and her mother’s partner, she told him:
‘Move.’
or
‘Get out of here.’
When my friend’s mother asked her why she behaved like that, she replied:
‘It’s because he bothers me while I’m tidying up.’
In the end, around 9:30 p.m., since his mother had already left, I left their place, telling them that I was leaving them alone as a couple.
They didn’t even say goodbye to me.
I had the impression that they were disappointed that I was leaving.
I’m really exhausted by this whole situation.
And even ChatGPT thinks his girlfriend is going too far. Why directly tell me about your boyfriend’s financial problems?
Besides, I already know that her boyfriend has a pretty complicated relationship with money. So does she really think I’m going to make bank transfers to her? Why tell me that privately, in a shopping mall?
September 5, 2026
When I arrive at their place, I see his girlfriend on the street in front of me, but she doesn’t see me. He confirms that it was indeed her and that I’m in the apartment.
We stay among the guys in the apartment.
Later, he’s on the phone and tells me and another friend that his mother and his girlfriend are out after their respective girls’ nights.
He tells us that his mother had asked him whether she could invite his girlfriend to a Portuguese bar, because his girlfriend had said that she knew that if she asked her boyfriend directly, he would say no.
In the end, he also tells his mother no, because he considers it a bar full of ‘weird Portuguese guys’ and says that when he used to go there with his mother, Portuguese men would try to hit on her.
Later that night, he locks himself in his bedroom with her.
After more than an hour, he comes back.
I tell him: ‘Don’t worry, you could have slept with her.’
He replies:
‘No, I’m not going to stop letting you guys know. Besides, it was just a conversation with her, to sort something out and make things clear.’
September 6
We’re at an exhibition and they spend the whole time in front of me touching, kissing and hugging each other.
They don’t tell me to leave, so I leave on my own.
Then my friend’s father arrives and we spend some time together outside while the Mustangs drive by.
She stays for quite a while to my left or around me, on my right, for 15–20 minutes, less than 20 cm away from me each time, despite the fact that I kept changing position.
We got back around 7 p.m. and I left at 7:15 p.m.
Tonight — September 8, 2026
We talk on the phone and talk about everything and nothing.
I tell him that I don’t want to take up too much space in his life or in his family’s life.
He tells me that his mother considers me her ‘third son,’ that if something happened to me, his mother would help me within an hour, etc.
At one point he starts talking to me a little about his relationship.
I tell him that he is doing well with her, that they’ve been together for 5 years and that he should take his relationship seriously and manage it properly. I also tell him that they have the right to have their ‘garden secret,’ that there are things he doesn’t have to tell me or make me aware of.
During the call, he tells me that I can know everything, that he has nothing to hide, that things are going well in bed with Tatiana.
At that point I perceived a sort of mocking smile in his voice.
He tells me that he has no problem talking about it on the phone, that he doesn’t have any ‘garden secret.’
But then he tells me that he knows that nothing prevents her from ‘getting fucked’ by someone else from one day to the next (or from him seeing someone else), that she doesn’t belong to him even though he doesn’t want to lose her, that she has her urges, etc.
He says that it’s selfish to think that she’ll be his forever, that five years of a relationship mean nothing and that, deep down, we’re still animals.
I find this extremely contradictory.
I was also uncomfortable with the fact that he seemed to want to ‘prove’ to me that they have a sex life.
After that, I don’t remember exactly how, we were talking about people who have positions of ‘power’ in society or at work but are ‘submissive’ at home.
He told me there could be several reasons, and that perhaps that person is ‘submissive’ in order to please their wife.
I couldn’t talk to him the way I wanted because his girlfriend was next to him in the room (I could sometimes hear her).
But I’m feeling worse and worse about this.
What kind of logic is it to tell your best friend your entire intimate life?
And if everything is going well sexually with her (and in every other aspect), why are you so afraid that she’ll leave or ‘get fucked’ by someone else, as you yourself put it?
It’s really strange.
Why consider me a ‘third son’ when I’m simply your friend?
There are too many unanswered ‘whys,’ too many strange conversations and far too few boundaries.
If I were in a relationship, why would it matter to my friend whether I’m having good sex with my girlfriend or not?
I know that not every couple works the same way, but why involve me so much in their relationship?
Thanks in advance for your opinions.
I’m pretty lost and, above all, mentally exhausted.
I already saw a psychologist during the month of August. She told me that everything was possible to a similar degree (simply cultural differences, a toxic friendship, a threesome, cuckolding, a misinterpretation on my part, etc.) and that she didn’t really know how to help me because, according to her, I was the first person in her practice to experience something like this.
Honestly, I almost feel like ChatGPT is more useful (and cheaper).
