I Chose My Friends Over My Boyfriend, And I Regretted It

When I got a new boyfriend, I was desperate for him to get along with my friends. Sadly, that wasn’t the case and I felt torn between the guy I really liked and the women who’d had my back for years. I chose my friends over my boyfriend, but I actually regret that decision.

  1. They didn’t get along? that’s an understatement. Seriously, my boyfriend and friends hated each other. It was so awkward being caught in the middle of their comments to each other and heated debates. It always left me feeling drained and I didn’t know what to do.
  2. I tried to separate them. I thought the best thing to do would be to avoid being in the same room as all of them. I’d see my boyfriend during our couple quality time and then hang with my besties when my boyfriend was out with his friends. I felt like I was striking a balance but it was really tough.
  3. My friends just weren’t convinced. My friends were always complaining about him. I felt like I couldn’t share my relationship happiness with them because they disliked my boyfriend so much and kept saying I could do better. It sucked not being able to share things with them.
  4. My boyfriend didn’t want to hear about my closest girls. When I told him I was hanging out with my friends, he got upset. He kept saying that he didn’t like them and was worried about their negative influence on me. I was stuck between a hard-ass boyfriend and tough girlfriends. This wasn’t going to go down well.
  5. After a while, my friends started to wear me down. I loved my friends and they were complaining about my boyfriend so much that sometimes I found myself agreeing with them. An example of when this happened was when my boyfriend went away for the weekend and didn’t bother telling me. I had to confide in my friends – what are friends for? – but they weren’t nice about it. They kept telling me he was acting like a jerk.
  6. During a heated moment, I told him so. It was so wrong for me to do and I wish I could take it back. When I confronted him about his behavior, I mentioned that my friends agreed with me about how crappy he’d been treating me. We had a huge blowout and I ended up crashing at one of my friend’s house because I didn’t want to go home and be alone. I was so upset.
  7. I felt the pressure to let him go. He was angry with me because I was taking my friends’ side and I was angry that he wasn’t meeting me halfway. In the middle of this drama that was stressful enough as it is, my friends were pushing me to break up with him. I was in such a vulnerable position and pissed off with my boyfriend that I thought they made sense. It’s so weird how that happens. Get a room full of female friends together badmouthing a guy and it feels so real and so true.
  8. I ended things and it felt great. To be honest, the relationship had been so stressful and my boyfriend hadn’t been meeting me halfway for a while, so it felt freeing to bid him farewell. He didn’t seem to care, which made me further think what I’d done was good. But…
  9. The feeling didn’t last. After a few days of being single, I started to miss my ex-boyfriend. I started to become consumed by “what if?” thoughts, like “What if I had thrown him out too soon?” and “What if we could’ve fixed things?” Generally, he’d been a great boyfriend.
  10. The drama surrounding us was too much. I realized that the drama with my BF and friends not getting along was really the thing that had weighed me down during our relationship the most. If it hadn’t been for that, maybe things could’ve been different for us, and maybe we could have worked through our issues.
  11. My friends were the last people I should have taken dating advice from. During a night out with my friends, I realized that I really shouldn’t have allowed them to crawl into my head like that and pressure me to break up with my boyfriend. Yes, they supposedly had good intentions because they wanted the best for me, but it also felt like they just wanted me to be single with them. They were so blasé about the end of my relationship, and I realized that it’s so bad to take advice from others. I was the only one who should’ve decided my future.
  12. I left the party. They wanted to know why I was being so antisocial and I told them I was missing my ex. They badmouthed him again and it further made me realize that they couldn’t have given me the right advice because they were so biased. I’d messed up, but because I’d allowed myself to be swayed by my friends, there was no going back. Besides, my ex wasn’t replying to any of my messages. We were done and it was all my fault.
Giulia Simolo is a writer from Johannesburg, South Africa with a degree in English Language and Literature. She has been working as a journalist for more than a decade, writing for sites including AskMen, Native Interiors, and Live Eco. You can find out more about her on Facebook and LinkedIn, or follow her on Twitter @GiuliaSimolo.
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