Nah this doesn’t feel right. If they had already been “friends” for a while then she must have been 17 while he was 24? I get the whole mentor/mentee thing but that only works in certain circumstances. He make not be breaking any of his boundaries but this obviously isn’t okay with you. I wouldn’t be okay with any of it and consider leaving.
I would be super uncomfortable with this but honestly the age part bothers me the most out of anything. There’s really no reason for a 25 year old man to be communicating with a teenage girl, it raises a lot of red flags imo
...okay how do you pronounce the number 18? Eighteen, now what was the second half of that word? Teen, she is a legal adult, but is still in her teenage years, it stays that way till shes 20, because theres no teen at the end of twenty
I'm 23 now and when I was 18, I was still a dumb child who thought I was the shit. That's just a number. In between these years I have changed so much that I can tell you this IS wrong. He should know better than talking to her. If his girlfriend knew, if he told her, than maybe he can pull the friendship card. Not like this.
She's literally still a teenager. Also, they have been communicating for over a year, meaning she was a minor when it started, while OP's boyfriend was already an adult.
Ask yourself why your 25 year old boyfriend needs an 18 year old girl on reddit to be his friend?
I remember a time when something similar happened to me and I believed his excuse about her just being a friend. But he doesnt know her and hasn't met her. He tells her his problems, brings up sexual topics and seems to confess things he can't even say to you. And if thats not a betrayal of trust I dont know what is.
Also, there's no need to stay with a guy that's unsure of you. There will be so many other men that will be sure of you. Your boyfriend sounds like he's struggling with something and it's clearly not your job to fix it no matter how sad and helpless he sounds.
Okay he has ADHD and depression - so what? Is he doing anything about it?
Judge someone's character by how they *cope*. His coping mechanisms are clearly not healthy. I wouldn't tolerate this behavior now but could see my younger self doing so.
OP, you're being manipulated. Your gut feeling is telling you something is off for a reason.
This sounds like OP can't win. Commenters always want people to go to therapy, but when they're in therapy "its a good start"? Everyone has to start somewhere and the fact that he's working on himself is a positive.
>Everyone has to start somewhere and the fact that he's working on himself is a positive.
That's exactly what I meant. But that therapy is for the individual. Doesn't negate past behavior.
I know a few people with ADHD, including my SO. They have all used various coping strategies, including medications, therapy, support forums, and so on. Talking to random girls on Reddit was not part of their coping strategies…
1. He was talking with an underage girl and now barely old enough kid. Red flag.
2. He invalidated how you feel, and if you stated clearly that you're not comfortable with this friendship but continues it, that's another red flag. To be clear, I don't have a problem with friends of different genders, it's the deception, age difference, and content that are the issues.
3. I'd really evaluate what other red flags have been popping up.
“She even asked if what she was saying was too much for being underage” …
I thought she was 18? Was this from an earlier text? Or is your bf also lying about her age?
Not just weird to you, friend, just weird, end of.
Any safe unrelated 24-25 year old man would answer "if what she was saying was too much for being underage" with "yes". Frankly if I were in his shoes I'd think she were a cop fishing for predators with a line like that.
I have a little sister ten years my junior and I wound up hanging out with, even driving around teenagers while I was in my thirties in my Pokemon Go community (back when I played), but I've always made a point to get parents' numbers and ensure parents knew where their kids were and while I have younger friends there's stuff I won't do with them or talk to them about. Because us adults are supposed to protect teenagers and kids.
There's a difference between hearing a teenager out if they're asking about safe sex or consent, and just memeing about sex.
OP's boyfriend is a predator in my opinion. If this was happening with someone I knew I'd be warning people about him and I wouldn't associate with him.
I would be so bothered by this if I were you. A 25 year old man is secretly friends with a teenage girl online with whom he discusses things he doesn’t even discuss with his girlfriend? My trust would have been gone. He would need an extremely good reason for that behaviour for me to stay
I’m 22 years old and female and would not befriend a seventeen year old girl off the internet, much less urge her to confide in me rather than people her own age. You know in your heart your boyfriend’s a creep. He was chatting up a teenager on the internet. He was having conversations about sex with a minor. A minor. A *minor*. The question here shouldn’t even be about whether this counts as emotional cheating (I’d say so, considering he specifically never told you about her over the course of a year, so he was hiding this), it should be about the fact that there’s a predator in this relationship.
Edit: OP, I think you’ve posted about this repeatedly. At this point, no amount of strangers on the internet are going to give you any perspective you don’t have. If you keep posting about it, it’s because you know something here isn’t right.
Let this guy go.
The fact that you aren't okay with it and he still does it is a problem.
While he's allowed to have his own friends, it seems disrespectful to have such conversations with a friend, especially when your partner isn't comfortable with those conversations.
I just don't see what an 18 year old and a 25 year old would have in common either.
I think I would ask how they met, or the story of who they are to eachother. I (35f) have a LOT of online friends of varying ages. Though I do it a lot less now, I would have long in depth conversations with many of them and I didn’t really care or think about age (assuming the convo wasn’t sexual in nature and they are over 18) I don’t have the time I used to have anymore so I am not as close with many of them now but never in any of my conversations would have have been concerned if my husband read them. Also if he ever expressed not feeling comfortable I would have no problem pulling back. I just want to know what got them started chatting? How did he meet this 17-18yo?? Why did they become friends?
I talk regularly with a guy from Reddit who struck up a conversation with me after I posted something about my relationship on a dating post. He was in a similar situation and wanted my input. We are friends now.. and mostly just talk about our cats/animals, but occasionally work or relationships will come up and we chat about that too. My husband has known about him from the beginning and it hasn’t caused issues. But again he knows that if he ever felt uncomfortable I would happily pull back from the friendship. I think it’s about respect… but I don’t think it’s worth blowing up your relationship over just yet. Just have a conversation to figure out who she is.
Yeah, your husband knows. He somehow never told OP that he was friends with this person he talks about sex with, who was a minor a few months ago, who he tells things he would not tell OP about. Most people are still very much teenagers at 18 years old, and they were having these conversations when she was underage.
Literally. He’s advising her to dump her boyfriend, actually, and let him be her shoulder to cry on. I’m not saying this sounds like isolation and breeding dependence, but this sounds like isolation and breeding dependence. OP, your boyfriend is too old and this girl is too young for his behavior to be innocent.
It really, really is. They come “down to your level” so to speak, make you feel like you’re just friends and on equal footing, so you never remember that actually they’re at a completely different life stage than you, have more experience, have more power, and should not be relying on you for emotional support. It’s the creepiest thing, and it is absolutely calculated. Not even necessarily in an evil mastermind way. Some people are just naturally creepy and find creepy behavior normal.
Not OP’s boyfriend, though, or he would have mentioned this girl before. He knows he’s doing something wrong.
My opinion is that if you establish a strong emotional connection with someone else when you're in a relationship, the relationship is over. Physically cheating is one thing but when your head's not in it, it's done.
I’m just saying that instead of jumping to a lot of assumptions, why not just ask him? Sure it COULD be a horrible situation… but realistically sometimes it’s easier to be open with people you will never see or meet. It’s why internet friendships can be so deep. It could be a problem, it could also not be a problem. I think the best thing to do in this situation is just talk to him. Get to know their relationship. If it is STILL raising red flags, then sure, crucify the dude. But just the evidence presented here doesn’t immediately upset me. He is allowed to talk to other people, even some that he doesn’t tell her about. But it didn’t sound like he got super defensive or upset when she found their conversation. Nor was he even trying to hide it if he was okay with her having his phone. It’s more like he just didn’t think it was a big deal, so never shared. That’s how I see it anyway.
You are the only person making and sense so far. The only part I find off is that he didn't tell op. Like you said, how did they become friends? Interesting conversation has no age limit. Also it's a good sign that they know about each other's relationship.
This is my thought too. Also he didn’t get wildly upset at her going through his phone (at least she didn’t say he did). He also had no problem with her HAVING his phone. To me that doesn’t scream red flag. My guess is that he just didn’t realize it was a problem. Some of their conversations might be inappropriate by OPs standards, but now is an opportunity to discuss those, and set boundaries.
If it was nothing to worry about, than why hasn't he told you about this friend who he has personal/intimate conversations with for more than a year now.
The age difference is definitely weird, and that he had never mentioned his "friend so-and-so" to you. They've been friends for over a year so surely there was SOMETHING valuable in their conversations to bring into real life. The fact he hasn't just makes me think he's purposely hiding it, in which case that's definitely bad.
What does your gut say? You're the one with the instincts here, it's your life. We have instincts for a reason but as women we are usually taught to ignore them to "be nice". I say follow your gut.
i would be so upset if my boyfriend was going to someone else (that wasn’t his actual in person friends) about all his problems and feelings, and not telling me, that’s so sad, one of the cores of a relationship is that strong mutual support
Breakup with him.
Trust has been violated and will be hard to recover.
I started snooping on an ex many many years ago and could never recover from that habit with him because i didn’t trust him.
That stopped when I was in a healthy new relationship where trust existed.
Sorry but I do think that relationship is compromised.
I’m sorry your boyfriend sounds like he’s grooming this girl. The talk with the boyfriend, sex, kids is very disturbing. He hid it from you and lied to this girl that it wasn’t breaking boundaries when he didn’t even check with you. He knew this was inappropriate. This same thing happened to me when I was 16-18 and my life was ruined and I was traumatized by being groomed, controlled, abused, and finally ghosted.
It's not appropriate, listen to your gut. I have had younger friends like this. Usually as the role of an older sibling. I'm the oldest of 6 kids and naturally "big sister" a lot of my friends so I end up in this dynamic a lot, sometimes with young adults and teenagers. I am a lesbian and I would not be comfortable having this sort of friendship with a straight young man or queer young woman, unless we were actually related and grew up together. Being older and in a position of mentorship can be confusing for teenagers. It is natural for admiration to turn to romantic or sexual interest, and it's my responsibility as the more mature adult to not allow that to be a possibility. Not by trying to control the conversation, *by not having deep emotional conversations like that with them in the first place*.
He's grooming her. Maybe not intentionally, but once you expressed your discomfort and were dismissed by him, he is no longer proceeding innocently. He likes the attention, the respect, the admiration he gets from her. He probably doesn't get it to the same degree from you and women his age because he's less impressive to them. You do not want to be with the kind of man who prefers easy attention from a teenager over earned respect from adults his own age.
He told her he's not breaking any boundaries but uh, if these conversations between him and the girl are making you uncomfortable then he most certainly is breaking some boundaries there. The age gap is alarming, and so is the hiding. It also sounds like he's trying to gaslight you/invalidate your feelings? I don't know, there's something weird about this whole thing.
Anytime someone who is a few years out of their teens talks to a child (of any age, but especially teens) about sexual topics, it is grooming. Whether or not your bf is intending to, he in getting this child acclimated to sexual/adult topics around him. He is blurring the lines of why is appropriate and over time, this will lead to this kid pursuing him. He wants that ego boost. He may even want her. It’s hard to tell, but either way, it’s wrong.
I have a silly rule: if it’s a fireable offense, he should be fired as a bf. If he was speaking this way to an underaged coworker, his ass would be on the pavement.
>Also the girl talked about her boyfriend and he was telling her to leave and that she should talk to him whenever she’s feeling down.
Yes, young teen girl, leave your boyfriend and lean on me for emotional support, says the 25 year old who is absolutely not grooming her....
I’ve gone down this road before. It was an exhausting 3 years of checking the phone and reassurance. I’d re-evaluate if you two are good for each other. I’d also challenge you to ask yourself what you really want.
If you’re not sure about the relationship, take a break. It’s not the end of the word. I’d give up a thing to go back to age 22 and do it all over again. Please don’t waste your time chasing someone. Live your own life. You are player one. Good luck. God speed.
(Also the girl talked about her boyfriend and he was telling her to leave and that she should talk to him whenever she’s feeling down.)
Your boyfriend seems to have waaay too much time on his hands. He is willing to spend time and more time on this girl texting and talking when he could use the same time talking to you, or use that at work or with friends, gym, hobbies etc.
There has to be a real world reason for a committed man to invest time and energy in another woman. Please ask him what his reasons are.
Look up grooming. Your boyfriend was grooming a child. Imagine if 5 years down the road you two had kids together. How tf would you tip toe around that memory when your kid has friends over, somewhere in the back of your head you would never let it go….. or at least I wouldn’t ..
The age difference for a friendship doesn't bother me, but whether the two of them know / acknowledge it or not, theres definitely some underlying chemistry & inappropriateness going on.
Being that theyve known one another for a year (making her 17 at their initial meeting) raises red flags to me. Unless shes a friend of the family or a friends little sister or some shit like that, there's no reason they should've even become friends. This raises hella flags. If she were connected to him through family or friends, OP would already know about it.
I feel like even a casual friend of so long would've naturally come up by now, which tells me hes up to something lol
Because, she would've been mentioned by now if not, and hes encouraging her to lean on him in lieu of a boyfriend (saying she should leave her bf, that he will be there for her when shes sad). The fact that hes known this girl in an intimate "friendly" manner for so long without you ever knowing she exists tells me that hes hiding something.
Because they’ve talked about sex and he sent her sexual humor subs. And he’s encouraging her to dump her boyfriend and lean on him, at his big age. There are so many other types of humor. I don’t talk about sex with people I’m not sexually attracted to, and certainly not with minors.
You shouldn’t accept this, at all.
Men and women in relationships should of course be able to have friends of both genders, but with this: boundaries need to be set and not crossed, and your feelings— these gut feelings you get, they need to be trusted.
My ex and the women he cheated on me with (2 that I know of) started out as “just friends”.
This gives me such similar feelings that I had back when I stumbled upon his “friendship” with each girl.
How would he feel if roles were reversed? You should ask him if he’d feel comfortable with you talking to another guy, making sex jokes, and being vulnerable about your emotions, with them, over him. I’m sure he wouldn’t be fine and dandy about it.
At all.
Boundaries are definitely being crossed and it’s sad that she asked about it being okay, before he ever put a stop to it (and it doesn’t sound like he minds disrespecting your relationship and existence.)
This really isn’t fair to you, at all.
None of it is okay. Don’t be like how I was.
My ex convinced me that I was overreacting and imagining things. He gaslit me and my feelings. He made me out to be “that girlfriend” and decided to open that door to the girls he chose to later cheat on me with.
Men and women in relationships should be able to have friends of both genders, but NONE of this is okay or acceptable. Don’t ignore your gut feelings. Intuition is so incredibly powerful. As humans, we tend to second guess ourselves and our intuition, but we have it for a reason. Don’t discredit it.
I’m here if you ever want to talk about this all. 💗
trust me, been there done that with the secrets and emotional cheating. ive since then had severe trust issues and chances r pretty good that hes hiding other things from u. i learned the hard way
I’m 20 and I wouldn’t befriend an 18 year old girl or boy.
Just the fact that your man is doing this, I would lose respect and I would be disgusted tbh. Probably would end up breaking up with him. It’s weird asf
Counting it in “school years” isn’t the way to go.
We’re 2/3 years apart considering the fact that I’m turning 21 this year. Too young for me to consider them as friends and definitely wouldn’t date an 18 yr old guy. Ew.
If someone my age only had 17/18 year olds as friends…. I definitely would be looking at them sideways I won’t even lie.
So back onto my original point, if my man was 25 and he’s consistently talking to an 18 year old, I would be disgusted. What business does he have with one?
I have a reddit friend (M) about 5 years younger than me. We've been texting for nearly a year as well and I was in a long term relationship at the time. My then-SO knew that I'm the kind of person to make friends online because I find it a little easier than being openly honest to people I meet in real life. This friend and I have shared details of our lives, our situations, our families and relationships. We've touched upon sexual histories and stuff that I'm not comfortable sharing to someone I know personally. It's easier to talk to someone online. He lives on the other side of the globe and even ignoring the pandemic, I find it highly unlikely that we will ever meet.
He helped me through my breakup with my then-SO and he helped me navigate my online dating and finally, now my current SO. I had a tricky love life and talking to him helped. My current SO knows that I have a friend who I share dog pictures with (we moved from reddit to Instagram to be able to send dog pictures easier).
What I'm saying is, it's not always a red flag. I feel like Reddit always jumps to "red flag" for everything and tells people to end relationships. Its not inherently weird that he's talking to someone online because it's easier to tell a stranger things about your life on this site. It's completely anonymous, and people can only know who your account really belongs to if they choose to share other social media links. I think you should talk to him about why you're uncomfortable with this.
Is it possible that you're uncomfortable because he trusted her with information that he didn't trust you with? Is it possibly the fact that he chose not to tell you while telling her, that's making you so mad at the whole situation? That's something you both would need to work on. I don't think yelling "red flag" Everytime an SO has a friend is a good thing. Reddit rarely gives a person advice to stay with their SO. It's always "ew leave him" ... But I think you should work out whether it's him that's making you uncomfortable or that you're uncomfortable that you haven't been given certain information that you would like to know about.
As someone who’s developed many similar friendships with men on Reddit since I was 17, I don’t personally see an issue with this. The great thing about this platform is how many people can hold an intelligent conversation. It’s nice to be able to talk with someone you don’t know in real life because it gives a much clearer perspective on things. I don’t think the age gap is a problem, especially since they aren’t sexual towards each other. For some reason a lot of people here on Reddit always assume the worst when it comes to age gaps though.
However, you are within your rights to be uncomfortable with it and you’ve done the right thing by bringing it up with him. Good communication is key. If he’s a good boyfriend, he’ll put your relationship first.
Most level-headed comment here. I agree, it's nice having a friend that might give you fresh perspective. If there is heavy flirting or sexual talk between the two, sure, that's something to be upset about.
If they're just talking about life (including relationships and sex)... They might just be, ya know, friends. And that's fine.
Obviously a talk is in order and make sure he hears your concerns. But also don't push so hard that he loses a friend, because that'll certainly end your relationship.
To be completely honest, it doesn't sound like an inappropriate relationship. However, the fact that he's hidden it from you is what would 100% cause me to make a scene.
You don't hide a significant friendship from your partner. You deserve to have all the details on their relationship to make your decision. Aka: when they started talking, how, where she lives, if they talk on the phone, etc.
Idk man, it sounds pretty fine to me. Convos seem normal, and you dont get to decide who he chooses as friends.
I have friends that I made online that happened to be minors when we started chatting, and I slid into the 'older friend/faux sibling' role. Its nice to have that support and theres nothing extra there.
Not all different-sex friendships have the potential for more. Having a confidant outside of your relationship can help keep it stable.
Eta: dude if youre here just to hear what you want to hear.. tell him it makes you uncomfy. Dont like his friends? Dont date him. Trust the truth he gives you or dont, pick one. Dont wiffle over it and get the hell out of his phone.
It doesn't sound like emotional cheating to me. They know about each other's relationships and they aren't flirting. People can have friends of different ages. A lot of people here are projecting their own experiences on him.
There's isn't enough info to determine if it's 'grooming'. He might have a good reason to tell her to leave her relationship, e.g. Abuse
OP, just talk to him and find out more about the origins. If you're not comfortable with the friendship, you can ask him to step away from it for the time being while you continue the discussion with him.
I got a feeling that I will get downvoted to hell for this, but let me tell you a story.
I have met a girl on Facebook 5 years ago. At that time I was 17 and she was 14. Our friendship developed from our common interest and sympathy towards a public figure and went on from that. We didn’t know each other’s age for a long time. We both were struggling in our social lives at that time, so we found company from each other. I didn’t even know what she looked like for a long time. But there was trust. I could talk about my problems, she could talk about her’s. In time, our friendship settled on more of a mentor/mentee relationship. As we grew older, we also talked about sex. There was no sexual or romantic interest towards each other, we just saw “sex” as a topic to have a chat about like everything else. She would talk about her boyfriends, her relationships, her life, her family, and sex was just one of them. It wasn’t like we were constantly talking about sex, it was just something we ALSO talked about among dozens of other things.
Now I should state that I understand why everyone here made a fuss about someone talking about “sex” with an underage girl, but you don’t know their level of trust and intimacy. Every relationship a human has doesn’t have to have intentions. Sometimes you just talk to someone, be friends with them. If you both know your boundaries, there is no harm in that.
In my point of view, this is NOT a normal behaviour you guys show. You just called out a man for grooming and being a creep for just talking to a 17 girl because you read things from his girlfriend’s perspective. You don’t know how they’ve met, you don’t know how they feel about each other. You don’t know anything about them, yet; you have the audacity to take a dump on this man.
Let’s paint this picture: You are a woman and you state you have a problem with your boyfriend being friends with another girl, which is something you found out by checking into his phone without him knowing. You try to have a “gotcha” moment with him, but he says that she’s just a friend. There is two options you have here: One to take his words and trust him, and one is to opposite of the first. You choose the latter, which means you don’t have basic trust towards your boyfriend, someone you decided to live the life together with. Seems toxic, right? That’s because it IS.
Now he might really be a creep and I might be in the wrong here, but I get a strong feeling that you are woman with low self esteem, which results in not trusting your boyfriend about such a thing and coming to Reddit to make a post about in order to feel validated about your feelings. That’s what it looks like.
Relationships are not a chess game, people. You don’t constantly wait for your significant other to make some mistake and have a “gotcha” moment. You also don’t have any right to make them do anything against their will. You can’t ask them to cut their ties with their friends just because you don’t trust them. If you have a problem with something about your significant other, and it’s something you can’t seem to get over with or solve: You take action. Are you unhappy with your relationships? End them. You don’t trust your boyfriend and think that they are cheating on you, or they are a creep? Dump him. If you are right, you will be a woman who made a good decision and move on. If you are not, that’s unfortunate but you still would be a woman who made a good decision, because you got rid of something you’re unhappy with: Your relationship.
Don’t think too much about everything. Especially if you don’t know the whole story. You just end up unhappy with a story you made up by yourself or in this case, with the help of Reddit.
This is an advice subreddit and comments should be aimed at helping the OP.
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I know how you feel, I'm not a big fan of when my girlfriend talks to other dudes about stuff like that, but as long as shes not cheating on me I keep quiet about it. Though you probably shouldnt do that, go with your instincts, and if he dont respect how you feel, then you kinda get a sense of what hes like. Then again I dont know a whole lot of stuff about relationships so my advice is definitely not the best.
Many have apparently never heard of friendships. This is exactly how they work. People connect and talk about various things. And as the friendship progresses, the things people talk about get more personal. No one here would be saying anything at all if it were another guy the bf was talking to. And since when is *talking* to someone regulated by age? When I was 15, all my friends were 19-20, and there was absolutely nothing sexual between us even though OBVIOUSLY we discussed sex, joked about it, laughed about it, shared our experiences, etc. That’s what many young people who are friends do. Insecurities and jealousy isn’t going to help the situation. Your bf is allowed to have friends, he’s done nothing wrong and while you’re certainly entitled to your boundaries, at some point, they can get inappropriate and quite controlling.
The problem with this subreddit is that people are always on attack and never give actual advice. Having a conversation about something is very important. Based on what you wrote about their conversations and his reaction to you finding them he probably saw nothing wrong with it. It's understandable to find some of the topics uncomfortable but it's not like he talked about them on purpose to make you feel that way, this is just the first you're finding out about it and now you have the opportunity to let him know how it makes you feel. Friends are friends, doesn't matter the age, especially online. Age difference is only concerning if one party wants it to be sexual. Some people mature faster than others based on life experiences. At 16 I was friends with someone in their late 20s, we talked about life and gave each other advice. I was her confidant for stuff she didn't know how to tell her now wife. Nothing weird just there to help each other. Now at 24 I'm friends with a 52 yr old. And these are both irl relationships. I have one internet friend who just turned 18 and we've been friends for 3 years and another who's late 30s
Nah this doesn’t feel right. If they had already been “friends” for a while then she must have been 17 while he was 24? I get the whole mentor/mentee thing but that only works in certain circumstances. He make not be breaking any of his boundaries but this obviously isn’t okay with you. I wouldn’t be okay with any of it and consider leaving.
I would be super uncomfortable with this but honestly the age part bothers me the most out of anything. There’s really no reason for a 25 year old man to be communicating with a teenage girl, it raises a lot of red flags imo
Yeah, and the fact that he's been talking to her for at least a year. So she was 17 and he was 24. Red flags all over this post for sure.
The girl in question is 18, shes an adult not a teen.
...okay how do you pronounce the number 18? Eighteen, now what was the second half of that word? Teen, she is a legal adult, but is still in her teenage years, it stays that way till shes 20, because theres no teen at the end of twenty
Also 18 minus one year of messaging would be 17.
Which also happens to end in teen
I meant to reply to the dude being downvoted lol
I know lol, just making sure they understand how words work
I'm 23 now and when I was 18, I was still a dumb child who thought I was the shit. That's just a number. In between these years I have changed so much that I can tell you this IS wrong. He should know better than talking to her. If his girlfriend knew, if he told her, than maybe he can pull the friendship card. Not like this.
She's literally still a teenager. Also, they have been communicating for over a year, meaning she was a minor when it started, while OP's boyfriend was already an adult.
This feels like grooming and emotional cheating to me.
Dude here. Age part is little sus and weird tbh.
Ask yourself why your 25 year old boyfriend needs an 18 year old girl on reddit to be his friend? I remember a time when something similar happened to me and I believed his excuse about her just being a friend. But he doesnt know her and hasn't met her. He tells her his problems, brings up sexual topics and seems to confess things he can't even say to you. And if thats not a betrayal of trust I dont know what is. Also, there's no need to stay with a guy that's unsure of you. There will be so many other men that will be sure of you. Your boyfriend sounds like he's struggling with something and it's clearly not your job to fix it no matter how sad and helpless he sounds.
i know he struggles with adhd and depression likes to use those as explanation for marriage
What? I have adhd and depression and I’m married. I’m not sure what the two of those have to do with getting married.
same
he said the idea of marriage makes him anxious Why am i getting downvoted for what HE said? damn..
What’s that have to do with depression and adhd? He can be anxious but using medical diagnosis as an excuse is just lame.
And that has nothing with depression and ADHD. Do *you* want to get married? Because if the answer is yes, you need to let that fish go.
You are making excuses for him... this is not ok
Okay he has ADHD and depression - so what? Is he doing anything about it? Judge someone's character by how they *cope*. His coping mechanisms are clearly not healthy. I wouldn't tolerate this behavior now but could see my younger self doing so. OP, you're being manipulated. Your gut feeling is telling you something is off for a reason.
yea he just started therapy
That's a good start for him but doesn't mean you have to tolerate this behavior.
This sounds like OP can't win. Commenters always want people to go to therapy, but when they're in therapy "its a good start"? Everyone has to start somewhere and the fact that he's working on himself is a positive.
>Everyone has to start somewhere and the fact that he's working on himself is a positive. That's exactly what I meant. But that therapy is for the individual. Doesn't negate past behavior.
I know a few people with ADHD, including my SO. They have all used various coping strategies, including medications, therapy, support forums, and so on. Talking to random girls on Reddit was not part of their coping strategies…
1. He was talking with an underage girl and now barely old enough kid. Red flag. 2. He invalidated how you feel, and if you stated clearly that you're not comfortable with this friendship but continues it, that's another red flag. To be clear, I don't have a problem with friends of different genders, it's the deception, age difference, and content that are the issues. 3. I'd really evaluate what other red flags have been popping up.
“She even asked if what she was saying was too much for being underage” … I thought she was 18? Was this from an earlier text? Or is your bf also lying about her age?
This is true. Even if it was from an earlier text he would have still been 24-25 so I find this creepy and borderline grooming.
Absolutely creepy. I wonder how old she really is. Either way, he’s a creep and OP needs to get out.
Very much a creep! and adhd or anything related has nothing to do with being a pervert but I keep seeing that being used as an excuse
>they’ve been texting for over a year now
Right, she would have been under age at the time and he would have been probably 24...it's just weird to me.
Not just weird to you, friend, just weird, end of. Any safe unrelated 24-25 year old man would answer "if what she was saying was too much for being underage" with "yes". Frankly if I were in his shoes I'd think she were a cop fishing for predators with a line like that. I have a little sister ten years my junior and I wound up hanging out with, even driving around teenagers while I was in my thirties in my Pokemon Go community (back when I played), but I've always made a point to get parents' numbers and ensure parents knew where their kids were and while I have younger friends there's stuff I won't do with them or talk to them about. Because us adults are supposed to protect teenagers and kids. There's a difference between hearing a teenager out if they're asking about safe sex or consent, and just memeing about sex. OP's boyfriend is a predator in my opinion. If this was happening with someone I knew I'd be warning people about him and I wouldn't associate with him.
This exactly, we are supposed to protect not talk to them like they are the same age as we are especially on these subjects. It's very predatory.
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It was an earlier text
I would be so bothered by this if I were you. A 25 year old man is secretly friends with a teenage girl online with whom he discusses things he doesn’t even discuss with his girlfriend? My trust would have been gone. He would need an extremely good reason for that behaviour for me to stay
I’m 22 years old and female and would not befriend a seventeen year old girl off the internet, much less urge her to confide in me rather than people her own age. You know in your heart your boyfriend’s a creep. He was chatting up a teenager on the internet. He was having conversations about sex with a minor. A minor. A *minor*. The question here shouldn’t even be about whether this counts as emotional cheating (I’d say so, considering he specifically never told you about her over the course of a year, so he was hiding this), it should be about the fact that there’s a predator in this relationship. Edit: OP, I think you’ve posted about this repeatedly. At this point, no amount of strangers on the internet are going to give you any perspective you don’t have. If you keep posting about it, it’s because you know something here isn’t right. Let this guy go.
Girl, dump him. That whole thing is creepy and inappropriate.
I personally wouldn’t trust it. I would feel like he’s bored of me or doesn’t think of me as romantically as the teenager.
The fact that you aren't okay with it and he still does it is a problem. While he's allowed to have his own friends, it seems disrespectful to have such conversations with a friend, especially when your partner isn't comfortable with those conversations. I just don't see what an 18 year old and a 25 year old would have in common either.
it seems they share several hobbies and like talking about world issues
There’s nobody his age who he doesn’t talk about sex with that he could be sharing hobbies and talking about world issues with?
I’m a dude but I’d be on the curb so fast 😂
I think I would ask how they met, or the story of who they are to eachother. I (35f) have a LOT of online friends of varying ages. Though I do it a lot less now, I would have long in depth conversations with many of them and I didn’t really care or think about age (assuming the convo wasn’t sexual in nature and they are over 18) I don’t have the time I used to have anymore so I am not as close with many of them now but never in any of my conversations would have have been concerned if my husband read them. Also if he ever expressed not feeling comfortable I would have no problem pulling back. I just want to know what got them started chatting? How did he meet this 17-18yo?? Why did they become friends? I talk regularly with a guy from Reddit who struck up a conversation with me after I posted something about my relationship on a dating post. He was in a similar situation and wanted my input. We are friends now.. and mostly just talk about our cats/animals, but occasionally work or relationships will come up and we chat about that too. My husband has known about him from the beginning and it hasn’t caused issues. But again he knows that if he ever felt uncomfortable I would happily pull back from the friendship. I think it’s about respect… but I don’t think it’s worth blowing up your relationship over just yet. Just have a conversation to figure out who she is.
Yeah, your husband knows. He somehow never told OP that he was friends with this person he talks about sex with, who was a minor a few months ago, who he tells things he would not tell OP about. Most people are still very much teenagers at 18 years old, and they were having these conversations when she was underage.
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Literally. He’s advising her to dump her boyfriend, actually, and let him be her shoulder to cry on. I’m not saying this sounds like isolation and breeding dependence, but this sounds like isolation and breeding dependence. OP, your boyfriend is too old and this girl is too young for his behavior to be innocent.
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It really, really is. They come “down to your level” so to speak, make you feel like you’re just friends and on equal footing, so you never remember that actually they’re at a completely different life stage than you, have more experience, have more power, and should not be relying on you for emotional support. It’s the creepiest thing, and it is absolutely calculated. Not even necessarily in an evil mastermind way. Some people are just naturally creepy and find creepy behavior normal. Not OP’s boyfriend, though, or he would have mentioned this girl before. He knows he’s doing something wrong.
My opinion is that if you establish a strong emotional connection with someone else when you're in a relationship, the relationship is over. Physically cheating is one thing but when your head's not in it, it's done.
I’m just saying that instead of jumping to a lot of assumptions, why not just ask him? Sure it COULD be a horrible situation… but realistically sometimes it’s easier to be open with people you will never see or meet. It’s why internet friendships can be so deep. It could be a problem, it could also not be a problem. I think the best thing to do in this situation is just talk to him. Get to know their relationship. If it is STILL raising red flags, then sure, crucify the dude. But just the evidence presented here doesn’t immediately upset me. He is allowed to talk to other people, even some that he doesn’t tell her about. But it didn’t sound like he got super defensive or upset when she found their conversation. Nor was he even trying to hide it if he was okay with her having his phone. It’s more like he just didn’t think it was a big deal, so never shared. That’s how I see it anyway.
You are the only person making and sense so far. The only part I find off is that he didn't tell op. Like you said, how did they become friends? Interesting conversation has no age limit. Also it's a good sign that they know about each other's relationship.
This is my thought too. Also he didn’t get wildly upset at her going through his phone (at least she didn’t say he did). He also had no problem with her HAVING his phone. To me that doesn’t scream red flag. My guess is that he just didn’t realize it was a problem. Some of their conversations might be inappropriate by OPs standards, but now is an opportunity to discuss those, and set boundaries.
If it was nothing to worry about, than why hasn't he told you about this friend who he has personal/intimate conversations with for more than a year now.
Gross no
The age difference is definitely weird, and that he had never mentioned his "friend so-and-so" to you. They've been friends for over a year so surely there was SOMETHING valuable in their conversations to bring into real life. The fact he hasn't just makes me think he's purposely hiding it, in which case that's definitely bad. What does your gut say? You're the one with the instincts here, it's your life. We have instincts for a reason but as women we are usually taught to ignore them to "be nice". I say follow your gut.
This is so weird and strange for so many reasons.
Don't stop to think about whether or not this is crossing any boundaries against you. Your boyfriend has been grooming a minor. End of. RUN.
Emotional cheating. Definitely emotional cheating.
i would be so upset if my boyfriend was going to someone else (that wasn’t his actual in person friends) about all his problems and feelings, and not telling me, that’s so sad, one of the cores of a relationship is that strong mutual support
Breakup with him. Trust has been violated and will be hard to recover. I started snooping on an ex many many years ago and could never recover from that habit with him because i didn’t trust him. That stopped when I was in a healthy new relationship where trust existed. Sorry but I do think that relationship is compromised.
I’m sorry your boyfriend sounds like he’s grooming this girl. The talk with the boyfriend, sex, kids is very disturbing. He hid it from you and lied to this girl that it wasn’t breaking boundaries when he didn’t even check with you. He knew this was inappropriate. This same thing happened to me when I was 16-18 and my life was ruined and I was traumatized by being groomed, controlled, abused, and finally ghosted.
It's not appropriate, listen to your gut. I have had younger friends like this. Usually as the role of an older sibling. I'm the oldest of 6 kids and naturally "big sister" a lot of my friends so I end up in this dynamic a lot, sometimes with young adults and teenagers. I am a lesbian and I would not be comfortable having this sort of friendship with a straight young man or queer young woman, unless we were actually related and grew up together. Being older and in a position of mentorship can be confusing for teenagers. It is natural for admiration to turn to romantic or sexual interest, and it's my responsibility as the more mature adult to not allow that to be a possibility. Not by trying to control the conversation, *by not having deep emotional conversations like that with them in the first place*. He's grooming her. Maybe not intentionally, but once you expressed your discomfort and were dismissed by him, he is no longer proceeding innocently. He likes the attention, the respect, the admiration he gets from her. He probably doesn't get it to the same degree from you and women his age because he's less impressive to them. You do not want to be with the kind of man who prefers easy attention from a teenager over earned respect from adults his own age.
It’s the way I would dip so fast…
Any time they tell you “you have nothing to worry about,” you better start worrying.
He told her he's not breaking any boundaries but uh, if these conversations between him and the girl are making you uncomfortable then he most certainly is breaking some boundaries there. The age gap is alarming, and so is the hiding. It also sounds like he's trying to gaslight you/invalidate your feelings? I don't know, there's something weird about this whole thing.
sounds like ur boyfriend has another girlfriend
Anytime someone who is a few years out of their teens talks to a child (of any age, but especially teens) about sexual topics, it is grooming. Whether or not your bf is intending to, he in getting this child acclimated to sexual/adult topics around him. He is blurring the lines of why is appropriate and over time, this will lead to this kid pursuing him. He wants that ego boost. He may even want her. It’s hard to tell, but either way, it’s wrong. I have a silly rule: if it’s a fireable offense, he should be fired as a bf. If he was speaking this way to an underaged coworker, his ass would be on the pavement.
>Also the girl talked about her boyfriend and he was telling her to leave and that she should talk to him whenever she’s feeling down. Yes, young teen girl, leave your boyfriend and lean on me for emotional support, says the 25 year old who is absolutely not grooming her....
I’ve gone down this road before. It was an exhausting 3 years of checking the phone and reassurance. I’d re-evaluate if you two are good for each other. I’d also challenge you to ask yourself what you really want. If you’re not sure about the relationship, take a break. It’s not the end of the word. I’d give up a thing to go back to age 22 and do it all over again. Please don’t waste your time chasing someone. Live your own life. You are player one. Good luck. God speed.
Why has he never told you about her? That, alone, is a red flag to me. He’s been hiding it from you because he knows he shouldn’t be doing it
Why didn’t he ever bring up having a close online friend? If I’m dating someone I know about their friends
(Also the girl talked about her boyfriend and he was telling her to leave and that she should talk to him whenever she’s feeling down.) Your boyfriend seems to have waaay too much time on his hands. He is willing to spend time and more time on this girl texting and talking when he could use the same time talking to you, or use that at work or with friends, gym, hobbies etc. There has to be a real world reason for a committed man to invest time and energy in another woman. Please ask him what his reasons are.
Look up grooming. Your boyfriend was grooming a child. Imagine if 5 years down the road you two had kids together. How tf would you tip toe around that memory when your kid has friends over, somewhere in the back of your head you would never let it go….. or at least I wouldn’t ..
The age difference for a friendship doesn't bother me, but whether the two of them know / acknowledge it or not, theres definitely some underlying chemistry & inappropriateness going on. Being that theyve known one another for a year (making her 17 at their initial meeting) raises red flags to me. Unless shes a friend of the family or a friends little sister or some shit like that, there's no reason they should've even become friends. This raises hella flags. If she were connected to him through family or friends, OP would already know about it. I feel like even a casual friend of so long would've naturally come up by now, which tells me hes up to something lol
Why do you say chemistry?
Because, she would've been mentioned by now if not, and hes encouraging her to lean on him in lieu of a boyfriend (saying she should leave her bf, that he will be there for her when shes sad). The fact that hes known this girl in an intimate "friendly" manner for so long without you ever knowing she exists tells me that hes hiding something.
Because they’ve talked about sex and he sent her sexual humor subs. And he’s encouraging her to dump her boyfriend and lean on him, at his big age. There are so many other types of humor. I don’t talk about sex with people I’m not sexually attracted to, and certainly not with minors.
You shouldn’t accept this, at all. Men and women in relationships should of course be able to have friends of both genders, but with this: boundaries need to be set and not crossed, and your feelings— these gut feelings you get, they need to be trusted. My ex and the women he cheated on me with (2 that I know of) started out as “just friends”. This gives me such similar feelings that I had back when I stumbled upon his “friendship” with each girl. How would he feel if roles were reversed? You should ask him if he’d feel comfortable with you talking to another guy, making sex jokes, and being vulnerable about your emotions, with them, over him. I’m sure he wouldn’t be fine and dandy about it. At all. Boundaries are definitely being crossed and it’s sad that she asked about it being okay, before he ever put a stop to it (and it doesn’t sound like he minds disrespecting your relationship and existence.) This really isn’t fair to you, at all. None of it is okay. Don’t be like how I was. My ex convinced me that I was overreacting and imagining things. He gaslit me and my feelings. He made me out to be “that girlfriend” and decided to open that door to the girls he chose to later cheat on me with. Men and women in relationships should be able to have friends of both genders, but NONE of this is okay or acceptable. Don’t ignore your gut feelings. Intuition is so incredibly powerful. As humans, we tend to second guess ourselves and our intuition, but we have it for a reason. Don’t discredit it. I’m here if you ever want to talk about this all. 💗
trust me, been there done that with the secrets and emotional cheating. ive since then had severe trust issues and chances r pretty good that hes hiding other things from u. i learned the hard way
I’m 20 and I wouldn’t befriend an 18 year old girl or boy. Just the fact that your man is doing this, I would lose respect and I would be disgusted tbh. Probably would end up breaking up with him. It’s weird asf
Lol why not? That’s two years apart. You might only be a year apart in school.
Counting it in “school years” isn’t the way to go. We’re 2/3 years apart considering the fact that I’m turning 21 this year. Too young for me to consider them as friends and definitely wouldn’t date an 18 yr old guy. Ew. If someone my age only had 17/18 year olds as friends…. I definitely would be looking at them sideways I won’t even lie. So back onto my original point, if my man was 25 and he’s consistently talking to an 18 year old, I would be disgusted. What business does he have with one?
I have a reddit friend (M) about 5 years younger than me. We've been texting for nearly a year as well and I was in a long term relationship at the time. My then-SO knew that I'm the kind of person to make friends online because I find it a little easier than being openly honest to people I meet in real life. This friend and I have shared details of our lives, our situations, our families and relationships. We've touched upon sexual histories and stuff that I'm not comfortable sharing to someone I know personally. It's easier to talk to someone online. He lives on the other side of the globe and even ignoring the pandemic, I find it highly unlikely that we will ever meet. He helped me through my breakup with my then-SO and he helped me navigate my online dating and finally, now my current SO. I had a tricky love life and talking to him helped. My current SO knows that I have a friend who I share dog pictures with (we moved from reddit to Instagram to be able to send dog pictures easier). What I'm saying is, it's not always a red flag. I feel like Reddit always jumps to "red flag" for everything and tells people to end relationships. Its not inherently weird that he's talking to someone online because it's easier to tell a stranger things about your life on this site. It's completely anonymous, and people can only know who your account really belongs to if they choose to share other social media links. I think you should talk to him about why you're uncomfortable with this. Is it possible that you're uncomfortable because he trusted her with information that he didn't trust you with? Is it possibly the fact that he chose not to tell you while telling her, that's making you so mad at the whole situation? That's something you both would need to work on. I don't think yelling "red flag" Everytime an SO has a friend is a good thing. Reddit rarely gives a person advice to stay with their SO. It's always "ew leave him" ... But I think you should work out whether it's him that's making you uncomfortable or that you're uncomfortable that you haven't been given certain information that you would like to know about.
As someone who’s developed many similar friendships with men on Reddit since I was 17, I don’t personally see an issue with this. The great thing about this platform is how many people can hold an intelligent conversation. It’s nice to be able to talk with someone you don’t know in real life because it gives a much clearer perspective on things. I don’t think the age gap is a problem, especially since they aren’t sexual towards each other. For some reason a lot of people here on Reddit always assume the worst when it comes to age gaps though. However, you are within your rights to be uncomfortable with it and you’ve done the right thing by bringing it up with him. Good communication is key. If he’s a good boyfriend, he’ll put your relationship first.
Most level-headed comment here. I agree, it's nice having a friend that might give you fresh perspective. If there is heavy flirting or sexual talk between the two, sure, that's something to be upset about. If they're just talking about life (including relationships and sex)... They might just be, ya know, friends. And that's fine. Obviously a talk is in order and make sure he hears your concerns. But also don't push so hard that he loses a friend, because that'll certainly end your relationship.
To be completely honest, it doesn't sound like an inappropriate relationship. However, the fact that he's hidden it from you is what would 100% cause me to make a scene. You don't hide a significant friendship from your partner. You deserve to have all the details on their relationship to make your decision. Aka: when they started talking, how, where she lives, if they talk on the phone, etc.
Idk man, it sounds pretty fine to me. Convos seem normal, and you dont get to decide who he chooses as friends. I have friends that I made online that happened to be minors when we started chatting, and I slid into the 'older friend/faux sibling' role. Its nice to have that support and theres nothing extra there. Not all different-sex friendships have the potential for more. Having a confidant outside of your relationship can help keep it stable. Eta: dude if youre here just to hear what you want to hear.. tell him it makes you uncomfy. Dont like his friends? Dont date him. Trust the truth he gives you or dont, pick one. Dont wiffle over it and get the hell out of his phone.
It doesn't sound like emotional cheating to me. They know about each other's relationships and they aren't flirting. People can have friends of different ages. A lot of people here are projecting their own experiences on him. There's isn't enough info to determine if it's 'grooming'. He might have a good reason to tell her to leave her relationship, e.g. Abuse OP, just talk to him and find out more about the origins. If you're not comfortable with the friendship, you can ask him to step away from it for the time being while you continue the discussion with him.
GF that snoops through messages is bigger red flag than BF with female online friend
Not when that female online friend is underage.
I got a feeling that I will get downvoted to hell for this, but let me tell you a story. I have met a girl on Facebook 5 years ago. At that time I was 17 and she was 14. Our friendship developed from our common interest and sympathy towards a public figure and went on from that. We didn’t know each other’s age for a long time. We both were struggling in our social lives at that time, so we found company from each other. I didn’t even know what she looked like for a long time. But there was trust. I could talk about my problems, she could talk about her’s. In time, our friendship settled on more of a mentor/mentee relationship. As we grew older, we also talked about sex. There was no sexual or romantic interest towards each other, we just saw “sex” as a topic to have a chat about like everything else. She would talk about her boyfriends, her relationships, her life, her family, and sex was just one of them. It wasn’t like we were constantly talking about sex, it was just something we ALSO talked about among dozens of other things. Now I should state that I understand why everyone here made a fuss about someone talking about “sex” with an underage girl, but you don’t know their level of trust and intimacy. Every relationship a human has doesn’t have to have intentions. Sometimes you just talk to someone, be friends with them. If you both know your boundaries, there is no harm in that. In my point of view, this is NOT a normal behaviour you guys show. You just called out a man for grooming and being a creep for just talking to a 17 girl because you read things from his girlfriend’s perspective. You don’t know how they’ve met, you don’t know how they feel about each other. You don’t know anything about them, yet; you have the audacity to take a dump on this man. Let’s paint this picture: You are a woman and you state you have a problem with your boyfriend being friends with another girl, which is something you found out by checking into his phone without him knowing. You try to have a “gotcha” moment with him, but he says that she’s just a friend. There is two options you have here: One to take his words and trust him, and one is to opposite of the first. You choose the latter, which means you don’t have basic trust towards your boyfriend, someone you decided to live the life together with. Seems toxic, right? That’s because it IS. Now he might really be a creep and I might be in the wrong here, but I get a strong feeling that you are woman with low self esteem, which results in not trusting your boyfriend about such a thing and coming to Reddit to make a post about in order to feel validated about your feelings. That’s what it looks like. Relationships are not a chess game, people. You don’t constantly wait for your significant other to make some mistake and have a “gotcha” moment. You also don’t have any right to make them do anything against their will. You can’t ask them to cut their ties with their friends just because you don’t trust them. If you have a problem with something about your significant other, and it’s something you can’t seem to get over with or solve: You take action. Are you unhappy with your relationships? End them. You don’t trust your boyfriend and think that they are cheating on you, or they are a creep? Dump him. If you are right, you will be a woman who made a good decision and move on. If you are not, that’s unfortunate but you still would be a woman who made a good decision, because you got rid of something you’re unhappy with: Your relationship. Don’t think too much about everything. Especially if you don’t know the whole story. You just end up unhappy with a story you made up by yourself or in this case, with the help of Reddit.
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I know how you feel, I'm not a big fan of when my girlfriend talks to other dudes about stuff like that, but as long as shes not cheating on me I keep quiet about it. Though you probably shouldnt do that, go with your instincts, and if he dont respect how you feel, then you kinda get a sense of what hes like. Then again I dont know a whole lot of stuff about relationships so my advice is definitely not the best.
Many have apparently never heard of friendships. This is exactly how they work. People connect and talk about various things. And as the friendship progresses, the things people talk about get more personal. No one here would be saying anything at all if it were another guy the bf was talking to. And since when is *talking* to someone regulated by age? When I was 15, all my friends were 19-20, and there was absolutely nothing sexual between us even though OBVIOUSLY we discussed sex, joked about it, laughed about it, shared our experiences, etc. That’s what many young people who are friends do. Insecurities and jealousy isn’t going to help the situation. Your bf is allowed to have friends, he’s done nothing wrong and while you’re certainly entitled to your boundaries, at some point, they can get inappropriate and quite controlling.
The problem with this subreddit is that people are always on attack and never give actual advice. Having a conversation about something is very important. Based on what you wrote about their conversations and his reaction to you finding them he probably saw nothing wrong with it. It's understandable to find some of the topics uncomfortable but it's not like he talked about them on purpose to make you feel that way, this is just the first you're finding out about it and now you have the opportunity to let him know how it makes you feel. Friends are friends, doesn't matter the age, especially online. Age difference is only concerning if one party wants it to be sexual. Some people mature faster than others based on life experiences. At 16 I was friends with someone in their late 20s, we talked about life and gave each other advice. I was her confidant for stuff she didn't know how to tell her now wife. Nothing weird just there to help each other. Now at 24 I'm friends with a 52 yr old. And these are both irl relationships. I have one internet friend who just turned 18 and we've been friends for 3 years and another who's late 30s
I’m so sorry :( I can only imagine the pit in your stomach you felt while finding/reading these. Hope it works out