AITA for not wanting my boyfriend to be friends with his old friends
My boyfriend (19M) has had the same friend group since freshman year of high school, including someone I’ve (19F) known since 8th grade. I was never super close with them, but I always tried to be friendly and get along so it wouldn’t be awkward if I tagged along sometimes.
I want to preface this by saying my boyfriend is genuinely a great partner in every other aspect of our relationship, which is why this situation has been so confusing for me.
Over time I noticed his friends didn’t really treat him that well. They’d make separate group chats without him, talk badly about him behind his back, and generally followed whatever the “main” guys in the group thought. My boyfriend is very easygoing and non confrontational, so he mostly brushed it off.
Things started around prom. My boyfriend and I had plans to spend the night together and get breakfast the next morning. Last minute, his friends planned a hiking trip two hours away early the next day. My boyfriend said he was conflicted because he wanted to do both, but I told him I’d really been looking forward to our plans, so he stayed with me. His friends gave him a huge amount of shit for not going.
A month or two later, I was hanging out with a male friend from school and posted a photo on my story. Two guys from my boyfriend’s group screenshot it and sent it to the group chat, where one of them started calling me a slut and saying I was “definitely sending nudes to all my male friends.” My boyfriend told me he thought it was horrible, but he never actually defended me to them. Out of 8 guys, only one said “chill on her.”
That was the beginning of the downhill spiral. I made it clear I wanted nothing to do with the guy who said those things, and the group noticed immediately.
Over the next year, my boyfriend started choosing to spend more time with me instead of them. I understood why they might be annoyed, but they started making comments implying I was controlling him or “not letting him” do things. I asked my boyfriend if he was telling them that, and he swore he wasn’t.
Eventually they slowly stopped inviting him to things entirely. I still wonder if that was my fault.
Later, I became friends with one of the girlfriends in the group because I hoped everyone could eventually get along. One day we were talking about a girl both our boyfriends had dated before us. I accidentally referenced something physical I knew her boyfriend had done with that girl because it had become an inside joke in the group. I immediately realized she didn’t know.
I apologized and told her she should talk to her boyfriend instead. She kept crying to me and begging me to tell her what I knew. Eventually I told her the bare minimum because I felt guilty for opening the can of worms. I specifically asked her not to tell her boyfriend it came from me because I didn’t want drama or for my boyfriend’s friendships to blow up. She agreed, then immediately threw me under the bus.
Not long after that, the whole friend group got together because one friend was visiting from out of town. They didn’t invite my boyfriend, including his best friend of 8 years. We happened to drive by and saw them all hanging out. My boyfriend looked devastated.
I got angry and texted his best friend calling him a shitty friend for excluding him. My boyfriend said he no longer wanted to be friends with them because of all of the disrespect towards him, me and our relationship. Later my boyfriends friend admitted they excluded him because they didn’t like me and didn’t want me around. Apparently they had all talked about why and how much they disliked me, including that I made things awkward by disliking the guy who called me a slut.
Obviously my feelings were hurt too. I didn’t care if they wanted to be my friends, but hearing an entire group of people I’d tried hard to get along with basically hated me sucked.
At first, my boyfriend said he didn’t want to be friends with them anymore, but once he realized their issue was mostly with me and not him, he changed his mind and wanted to keep us separate instead.
That really hurt me. I would never stay friends with people who openly disrespected him.
Eventually I told him I supported whatever decision he made, but I personally couldn’t stay in a relationship with someone who actively chose to stay close with people who talked badly about me and our relationship. After days of arguing, he left their group chat without saying anything.
None of them checked on him or asked why for 4 months.
Fast forward almost a year later: he’s asked me multiple times what it would take for me to be okay with him being friends with them again. I’ve consistently said I don’t think I ever could because of the amount of disrespect involved. I’ve encouraged him to make new friends at college, but he says he’s picky about friendships.
Recently he hung out with two of the guys again, and they told him nobody actually dislikes me and the “slut” comments were “just jokes.” After that, he asked me AGAIN what it would take for me to be okay with him reconnecting with them.
We got into a fight because I’m tired of repeatedly explaining my boundary. He says if he becomes friends with them again, he’d defend me this time and cut them off if they disrespected me again. I finally told him I was done caring and he could do whatever he wanted.
Now I’m conflicted. I don’t know if I’m the asshole for not wanting him to be friends with them, especially because part of me wonders if I caused some of this in the first place.