AITAH for feeling uncomfortable about a friend’s situation and getting upset when my talking stage called me jealous?
I (F23) have been talking to a guy (M26) I met on a dating app for about 5 weeks now. We’re long distance, but we’ve been pretty consistent: daily texting during work, FaceTiming when we can, and we even agreed to delete our dating apps together early on. It felt like things were building in a really intentional way.
We both have demanding jobs, so our communication is usually around work schedules. He tends to share a lot of his personal drama with me, and I’ve mostly been in a listening role. He’s talked about past relationships, including a complicated situation involving an ex and a pregnancy scare, and I’ve always listened without judgment.
Recently though, things started to feel off.
He went through a situation with a “friendship breakup” and also tends to open up a lot about his emotional struggles, anger issues, and therapy. During one call, he even said things like he cares about me deeply and that he “loves me” in his own way, which made me feel closer to him emotionally.
But over time, I started feeling like my feelings or opinions often get dismissed or reframed in a negative way.
The main issue happened when I brought up something personal.
I have a friend who is in a messy situation: she’s a single mom, estranged from her husband, and recently ended a long-term relationship. She’s now receiving gifts from a married man at her workplace. I told my guy about this because I was unsure how to respond to my friend.
My issue wasn’t jealousy or judgment of my friend. It was that I personally feel uncomfortable celebrating something that involves a married man. It goes against my values, so I was unsure how to reply to her messages.
When I shared this, he immediately said I wasn’t replying because I was jealous and that it “sounds like jealousy because she’s getting things you’re not.”
That really hurt me.
I tried to explain that it wasn’t jealousy at all, but more of a values issue, but he stuck with his interpretation. He basically told me to just “celebrate it” and that it’s none of my business.
I felt really misunderstood and honestly kind of judged. It felt like instead of trying to understand where I was coming from, he reduced it to me being envious of my friend, which is not true at all.
After that conversation, I’ve been feeling disappointed and honestly a bit disconnected from him. It made me feel like he sees me in a way that doesn’t reflect who I think I am.
Now I’m questioning the dynamic overall because I’ve also noticed a pattern where when I try to express myself, he often reframes it as me being wrong, sensitive, or overthinking.
So, AITA for how I felt and reacted in this situation, or is this more of a communication mismatch?