Trust

[mynameiseric]

well they aren't ex's, and they have never had sex...but they do have a sexual past. He's cheated on 2 of his girlfriends with her, which tells me Amanda comes before the lady in his life...and im not okay with that. And if I get to the point to where I have to limit what she does, the relationship is over. She should know what she can and cannot do because of our relationship. It should be assumed you cant flirt or anything like that the minute you agree to be in a relationship. But I do agree with her not saying anything to him about it at the time, when I saw it I was so stunned I couldnt say anything, and when she didnt say anything it made me feel like she was letting him know it was okay. But she talked to him about it, and I guess they now have boundries, which I dont know cause im not there, but I trust her that they arent doing anything

[pytsip]

well, I'm just going by personal experience, but your situation is very similar to my life. One of my best friends is a guy that I have a sexual history with (see my ldr story in the ldr story section). He lives 5 minutes away from me and I hang out with him pretty regularly. However, I truly don't have any feelings for him other than friends and I have to say that if my boyfriend told me to not hang out with him anymore, that I'd get pretty upset also. I understand your situation and I know that it's probably hard to believe her that they are just friends, but she's probably telling the truth. The reason why she's getting so upset and telling you to suck it up is because it's basically telling your girlfriend that she can't be friends with someone. You really do just need to trust her on this.

[Caitlin2009]

well flirting with someone else is not a big deal unless it goes past hugging, the unclipping her bra and her telling you to suck it up is a bit suspicious to me as well, she should have at least said "dont worry were only friends, nothing is gonna happen" the other words she said is not very intune with your feelings and honestly i wouldnt trust her, the trust has been broken already when she told you to suck it up

[Zephii]

well they aren't ex's, and they have never had sex...but they do have a sexual past. He's cheated on 2 of his girlfriends with her, which tells me Amanda comes before the lady in his life...and im not okay with that. And if I get to the point to where I have to limit what she does, the relationship is over. She should know what she can and cannot do because of our relationship. It should be assumed you cant flirt or anything like that the minute you agree to be in a relationship. But I do agree with her not saying anything to him about it at the time, when I saw it I was so stunned I couldnt say anything, and when she didnt say anything it made me feel like she was letting him know it was okay. But she talked to him about it, and I guess they now have boundries, which I dont know cause im not there, but I trust her that they arent doing anything

Not everyone has the same deffinition of cheating, so it's unrealisitic to think that a person should instinctivly know what they can and can not do. And there's things that whilst aren't cheating, can be seen as crossing boundaries to some people. For example, I like to be naked, and if I'm naked and want to go outside I wouldn't have thought twice about it before being with Obi. Everyone is naked under their clothes, we're all born naked, don't like it don't look, etc. But Obi has much different views. My naked body is his, and his alone (excepting for doctors or my family) and no one should get to see it even accidently. I'm not "cheating" if I hang out my washing completely starkers, but it still upsets him, so I know not to do it.
My point here is never assume. If it helps you both to set rules and deffinitions together, by all means do so.

[mynameiseric]

its just hard to trust with a combination of my past and their past...both of them go through my mind constantly. But I do trust her,and thats getting easier every day. I know she loves me and wouldn't hurt me..its just hard to look past the past

[MoonWatcher]

After reading your other posts, I thought I would share with you a situation with a group of my close friends.

A big group of us have a cook-out every weekend, and we used to do this at our friend Aaron's house. Anyway, one member of our group, Matt, had a sexual past with Aaron's girlfriend, Ashley (as in they had slept together multiple times and had been in a serious relationship a couple years before). Aaron knew this, and still allowed Matt to come into his house, and even played games and ate with us. Sometimes Ashley would come and join in too. Shortly after that, Aaron and Ashley got engaged. Even then, they would still hang out and all be good friends.
I didn't know that Matt and Ashley had a history until shortly before the wedding, just because there wasn't any hint that anything had happened between them. I only found out when I asked why everyone but Matt was invited to the wedding. It was because although Aaron was fine with them hanging out and even Ashley and Matt being friends, he didn't like the idea of Matt being at their wedding. Matt expressed to me that he thought highly of Aaron and the way that he handled knowing their past (Aaron had never had a girlfriend before, kiss anyone, etc.), and that he understood it was a big deal and he was okay with backing down.
Aaron and Ashley have been married 3 months now and are doing splendidly.

I don't know if that helps you at all... just thought it was a good story

[LadyMarchHare]

its just hard to trust with a combination of my past and their past...both of them go through my mind constantly. But I do trust her,and thats getting easier every day. I know she loves me and wouldn't hurt me..its just hard to look past the past

May I suggest therapy, then? If it's hindering you that much, you need to seek help beyond us to get over it and learn to trust her despite her past and your own so that the relationship doesn't die. All relationships require heaping amounts of trust and like Zephii said, compromises can be made to keep you guys happy. It's just a matter of communicating this.

[mynameiseric]

I do appreciate that story...but with the flirting and the whole bra thing in the beginning means, to me anyway...that he has or had or whatever no respect for me or my relationship, so whenever I HAVE to be around him, im really fake. And thats not me at all, but when him and I "get along" it makes Amanda happy. And I did look into therapy, but all they would tell me is that I have to trust her and tell me things I already know. I know what I have to do, I just have to do it

[LadyMarchHare]

What sort of therapy was that? To me someone would've told you how to be more assertive towards saying you don't like the guy and coping with your trust issues, not telling you that. You're doing both of you a disservice by acting fake to make her happy. If you honest to goodness don't like him, you can be civil, but she shouldn't be putting you in situations where you have to get along to make her happy. It's your relationship, you have to be happy too. I wouldn't like the guy either if he was unclasping my gf's bra in front of me or at all, knowing their history. The past may be the past but this guy isn't leaving some behavioral habits there where they belong, friend or no. I think someone mentioned setting boundaries for you guys and I think that's a good idea. Compromise. She doesn't have to stop hanging around him, but certain behavior has to stop for your happiness, not because you believe she'll cheat. In turn you won't be rude and if there are certain behaviors similar she doesn't like, she can ask you not do them for her happiness.

[mynameiseric]

I didnt go, I just looked into it...I know what I have to do, I just have to do it. And according to her, they do now have boundries and their friendship has changed. And trust me, I do tell her when they do things that make me uncomfortable, which doesn't happen as much anymore. I am getting a lot better, which makes both of us happy. Its just hard for me to be civil with him because even if they didn't have a past, I still wouldn't like him because of just how he is. But im not going to sit here and bash my girlfriend's good friend, god knows i've done enough of that. I just want to get over this as quick as possible so Amanda and I can move on in our relationship, and I know it'll eventually happen

[LadyMarchHare]

Well if you don't like him, you may never like him even if you meet him in person. At least they've set boundaries and it's on him if he doesn't obey them or acts rudely in your presence. You are trying, there's simply no quick fix to all of this.

[noodle]

Trust is somethin that is hard to gain yet so easy to lose.
After readin all the entries Im not sure if I got the situation right etc but I think you have to decided yourself what you'll tolerate and what not and of course talk to her about it.
My SO and his ex are friends as well now but they dont fool around and I know there wont ever be anythin cause they never had anythin but kissin and I know that my SO really loves me (I was one reason why he broke up with her).
So check how she's actin when she's with you, how she's actin when he's with her and so on. Cause yes you want her happy but what if she is happier with him than you? It would only cause you pain.
And I think the most important thing when it comes to a problem (no matter if its in a LDR or not) is talk it all out.
All the best Eric

[mynameiseric]

I have already met him...and like I said, even without the problem, hes just not the kind of guy that I would ever hangout with. When her and I are together, the way she looks it me, I can tell shes in love. All she does is smile and giggle and she can tell when I look at her too. there is nooo way shes happier with him, plus its a different happy. She's happy with him because they are friends and they hangout, she's happy when we hangout because she loves me and loves spending time together. And we are very good at communicating, thats the strongest part of our relationship..like you said this is just going to take time

[vixx360]

I don't know if my experiances will help but I'll share them just in case they do...

I have an old friend who I've known for many years and while our relationship has never been physically intimate, we have been emotionally very close, to the point that he was refered to as 'my defacto boyfriend', whenever either the pair of us were single, well you could pick us out in a crowd as together and people generally assumed us to be a couple, to the point where most weekends were spent at each others houses and often in a shared bed by virtue of falling asleep on uncomfortable couches and then waking up in need of a comfy bed.

Regardless of whether or not we had an intimate relationship, our friendship has often been a threat to new partners. Even though both of us respect each other enough to recognise a need to back away somewhat when the other is in a relationship, old habits built over the years still surface and it's these things that cause problems, i'll walk into his house, put the kettle on and offer his girlfriend a cup of coffee, it a routine and i don't notice until it's too late that i've just walked into his house like I live there and she's the guest, he comes to mine and sits next to me on the sofa, that's his seat, not quite how my boyfriends have seen it but what i'm trying to say is we do things around each other that various partners see as highly inappropriate, including hugs and kisses that are born of a deep affection for each other but the fact that we are so comfortable with each other has raised red flags.

The difference here though is that over the years we have learnt that regardless of our intentions these actions hurt our and each others partners and so in turn I will hurt my best friend if I can't curb my actions. We both back off from each other when either of us is in a relationship, we've never had to have a conversation about this it's been a natural learning curve but it has taken a good 6 or 7 years and a couple of failed realtionships that can be directly atributed to our friendship before we learnt to get it right. This isn't a ceasation of the friendship just an adjustment of our actions.

In this instance, trust and envy have been huge issues and that's without an intimate past and a totally innocent friendship (he did fancy me 10 years ago but I managed to keep avoiding him whenever he got up the courage to try to ask me out, he got over it after a couple of years and another couple after that so did his family lol). These worries are completly natural and the one thing that is unlikely to help is to not trust her, there is no way for that to turn out well even if you had reason to, it still won't improve the relationship. It's ok to worry and to feel jealous, it would be weird if you didn't but how you chose to deal with and act on those feelings is the important thing.

If you chose to trust her, well then you need to do so, this doesn't mean ignoring red flags or allowing poor behaviour from her or her friend. It sounds like you're managing the situation fairly well and you also have to allow her to manage the situation at her end. But if things don't improve or change somewhat then you still need to have a conversation about respect, both your GF and her friend should respect your relationship and stick to some boundries, remembering that some habits take alittle time to get out of (just don't allow this to be an excuse for things to not change because over time they should and they need to).

I hope you work it out

PS.

Ooops sorry for the long post, seems I'm in a chatty mood tonight

[mynameiseric]

this post has helped me the most..my only thing that I want to talk about is respect. you and the guy have respect for the relationships that you two get into, and you dont cross those boundries. within the first week or 2 of her and I dating, they were still flirting, and he undid her bra on skype. that shows that he has 0 respect for me or my relationship, and respect for me is VERY important and is not just earned back. im not to the point to where I can forgive it yet because its still so fresh in my mind. their relationship sounds a lot like yours and your friends, and I respect that..but I only respect FRIENDSHIP. I dont want to have to worry about boundries or anything being crossed, but the thing that always runs through my mind is well, you did it once, why shouldn't I think you'd do it again? please respond vixx...you are helping