What It’s Like When Your Husband’s Best Friend is a Woman – Part 2

It’s Not the End of the World As I Know It and I Feel Fine

I’ve decided to continue this blog because I’m sure there have to be other spouses out there that have this issue in their relationship.  People that have a best friend medeling in their marriage.  The funny thing is I actually have a better than average marriage.  My husband is a great husband.  I can’t imagine wanting to be with anyone else.  It’s just been this issue that’s driven me up the frigging wall for 11 years and  I have my faults too.  For instance I don’t have the most patient personality.  I’ll be ready to leave a Barnes and Noble and my husband won’t be that will usually make me cranky.  It’s something I’ve had to work on.

Anyway, when I ended my “friendship” with Amethyst instead of coming from a place of anger it came from a place of sanity.  I also knew if I didn’t end the friendship that either she would or that we’d just stay in the same sick cycle of making each other mad and making up.  I love her like a family member; we just can’t seem to be in the same room without disagreeing about something.  It doesn’t make us bad people, we’re just two very different types of women.

I know that Amethyst doesn’t want to talk to my husband for awhile and I think that’s a good thing.  I wonder if it’ll giver her space to see we are not the origin of  all of her problems.  Also I wonder if it’ll give Guy enough space to see that being that close to her wasn’t the best thing for our marriage.  Like I said before they’ve never done anything inappropriate, at least not since my husband and I have been together and that’s been 11 years.  It’s just that there were times when they were way too close.  It felt like she was on my lap, or in between us trying to push me away.

For example, we’d be out on a date to the cheap movie theater right after the Christmas season, we’d just celebrated New Years Day maybe a few says before.  We hadn’t had much time together at all since November because he was an assistant manager of a store and everyone knows what the holiday season is like.  Well, that same night Amethyst wanted to meet us at a bar.  We said not tonight and she yelled at my husband.  It never occurred to her that he may need some alone time to reconnect before getting to her.  The thing is, my husband and I can’t have a peaceful marriage if we constantly answer to his best friend as to our where abouts.  As much as we love her we didn’t make vows to her, just each other.

Are all other opposite sex best friends of spouses this way?  I don’t know.  I’m not sure if Amethyst was so possessive of my husband because it’s simply her nature or if this is that way all female best friends of husbands act.  I’d like to think they aren’t all the same.

I wish we could’ve stayed close, but not like this.  It seems that the only way to really make Amethyst happy is to see her every week and that’s just not going to happen.  I like Saturday nights alone too, and honestly it doesn’t make anyone want to see her any sooner when she has a temper tantrum.

Well, that’s it for now. I have a nasty cold and I start working (the doc said one arm only) again tomorrow.  I’d better rest so that I won’t be too sick to do my demo thing.

What It’s Like When Your Husband’s Best Friend is a Woman – Part 1

The End of a Eleven Year “Friendship”

The first time I met her was eleven years ago while my husband (then boyfriend) and I were out on a date.  She and her husband met us “accidentally on purpose” at a local park by a river.

My first impression of her was why the hell is this woman glaring at me?  Why is she so invested in my man when she has one of her own?  I was afraid she had something strange going on with my boyfriend.  It felt like she was “the other woman” in our new relationship.  In a way my instincts were correct but she wasn’t his lover she was his best friend.

I had a hard time dealing with this at first.  I’d never had a boyfriend with a female best friend before.  It was a dynamic I wasn’t used to.   I was used to male best friends that made rude comments about me; but as  long as they had stuff to do or they had a girlfriend or wife they weren’t as demanding as a woman could be.  Female best friends are a whole other ballgame.

I wanted time alone with my new lover; but Amethyst (not her real name)  wanted us there at her house several nights per week. I didn’t feel safe around her I felt like I constantly had to compete with her for my boyfriend’s affections.  To be fair she felt the same way about me; but I felt that Amethyst had a man why did she feel the need to compete with me for my man’s affections as well?

Time passed and my boyfriend constantly assured me of his love for me but that he also wanted to maintain a friendship with Amethyst.  Keep in mind through all this they were not doing anything sexual.  She and I still continued our emotional tug o’ war.   We decided to be friends since we  had this man in common shortly before my now husband proposed to me.

I thought that maybe now that we were friends and she knew I wasn’t going to take her friend away she wouldn’t feel the need to see us every weekend. Nope.  She continued her campaign to see us every weekend and I really began to resent it.  We’d be at her house for a few hours and I’d want to leave because I wanted some alone time with my fiancée. She’d watch me talking to him and interrupt by saying “you’re not leaving already are you?”.  She want to make plans for the next weekend so that we’d be with her all the time.

I began to feel trapped I couldn’t leave her house until she was darned good and ready for me to leave and if I didn’t say OK to next weekends she’d threaten tears, or pout till I agreed.  I dreaded going over their after awhile.

Then my husband and I married I thought maybe she’d respect the fact that I was my husband’s wife and that our marriage would come first.  Instead,  Amethyst informed me that she knew my husband first so she felt that I needed to respect her and my husband’s friendship. This really made me mad I told her that, and she repeated this phrase many times to me.  Even after she stopped using that dreaded line, she continued to act as though she believed it.

So we continued being “frenemies” until a couple of weeks ago. I mentioned that we were going out for my birthday with my family.  Well then Amethyst mentioned “oh gee we should do something this weekend”!  I used to hate it when she’d do that.  It was like a sort of sick competition. She felt like if someone else was getting time or attention she wanted the same thing.

I piped down because it had been awhile since we’d been over.  We’d not actually said yes to her plans but we hadn’t said no either. Then our dog, Foster got sick.  He ate an entire loaf of Challa bread and it gave him vomiting and diarrhea. Since we didn’t want to clean up vomit and feces and in case Foster needed to go the the vet my husband suggested we stay home. We apologized but Amethyst had a fit.  She said that Foster was just an excuse, he was just a dog not a child, and that he wasn’t really sick.

She’d begun to be rude to me some weeks before in texts.  She forgot my birthday and had me apologizing to her .  She even “accidentally on purpose” sent me a text meant for my husband saying I text messaged too much and didn’t I know how important she was since she had kids.  So I reduced and then stopped my texts and left her alone for a couple of weeks.

When I checked in on her in two weeks she was still extremely rude.  She said I still text messaged to much and why didn’t I leave her alone?  Then she accused me of somehow being responsible for her anxiety disorder.  Did I mention she also forgot our anniversary?

The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was when she said it was hard for her to mention that we were responsible for I assume all of her problems.  It’s never her fault.

So I decided to end the friendship. I feel a little sad about it but I’m at peace too.  I’m relieved I don’t have to go to her all night Halloween party; I absolutely hate all night parties.  Anyway, we’re toxic for each other.  I hope we’ll find other married friends to have fun with.  Maybe I’ll feel like I’m on equal footing that way at least.