[UPDATE] AITAH for telling my girlfriend her best friend has 2 years to find someone or we're moving ahead without that condition?
Link to original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/WtQjLGxhq2
Since the original post was getting way too long to keep updating, i'm putting the final conclusion here.
First off a massive thank you to everyone who commented. A lot of you pointed out things about codependency and enmeshment that i was completely blind to and honestly it gave me the clarity i needed.
Before getting into the update i just want to address two things that kept coming up in the comments.
To everyone roasting me about my timeline, yes i know you can still be a fit and active dad well into your 30s and 40s lol. It was just a personal goal i had in my head but fair point taken.
To everyone jokingly suggesting i should just date the best friend since she's apparently the sane one, absolutely not lmaooo. We are cool but i am staying far far away from that entire dynamic.
A lot of you were also asking how i missed such a massive red flag for three years. Honestly i didn't understand it either at first. I think as a guy you are sometimes so starved for affection and care that you hold onto it tightly when you finally find it. But it wasn't just that, i genuinely felt loved and cared for. She worked from home for her dad's business and there was no lack of emotional or physical intimacy either and she made my life so easy like would always make food for me, handled all the household stuff willingly without ever complaining and even when i offered to help she'd just wave me off saying she had it. This whole condition truly came out of nowhere and blindsided me completely.
After my last edit i left our apartment and spent the night away to clear my head. I made up my mind that i was going to sit her down calmly and try to make her understand how absurd this whole thing was. My plan was that if she finally understood we could look into couples therapy together to get to the root of it.
We had that final long conversation this morning. I tried to explain why having my future tied to a third party was a dealbreaker for me. But instead of trying to understand my perspective or even taking the lifeline of therapy she doubled down. She said her best friend is "abandoning" her and that i am being unsupportive of her vision for her life.
I even asked her directly to be honest with me if she simply wasn't ready for marriage or kids yet because that would be a completely different and understandable situation, one i was willing to work with and make compromises for because i genuinely didn't want to lose her over some fantasy plan. But she said no, she loves me, she does want marriage and kids, she just wouldn't drop the condition. And when i brought up the fact that her best friend had literally told her she doesn't want to get married, she just waved it off saying "she will come around, i know her better than she knows herself." That's when it became obvious that i was essentially the third wheel in my own relationship and that no amount of reasoning was going to get through.
It was a long hard conversation and there were a lot of tears but i made the decision to end the relationship. We want fundamentally different things and i can't build a future with someone who prioritizes a fantasy timeline over our actual partnership.
We are currently sorting out the apartment situation and i'll be staying with family for a bit while we untangle everything. It hurts right now, not going to pretend it doesn't. But reading through all your perspectives genuinely gave me the clarity and reality check i needed to see things for what they were.
Thanks again everyone. Won't be updating after this, just focusing on moving forward now.