My [24F] boyfriend [29M] has been increasingly going out for drinks with a mutual acquaintance/friend [26F], and I'm questioning if my thoughts and feelings about this are truly valid.

To be specific, we have both known this woman for several years. Honestly, I think she's a good person. She just has a very different lifestyle than mine: she's always seemed more adventurous, and has been going out to bars and seeking more casual hookups as she recently ended a long-term relationship. At least, these are details provided to me from my boyfriend.

My boyfriend and her have spent a lot of time together over the last 2-3 months. They decided to complete a particular research project together as well, so I can 100% understand them spending more time together as a result. Over time, it went from a brief mention of the project or her, to me hearing about her or something she did almost every day, which certainly can be natural if the two spend a lot of time together. My boyfriend also decided to try to work out with her everyday as their schedules permit. For this I was happy for him; she is very physically fit and likely has a wealth of advice for him to finally lose weight and improve his health, as my previous tries to help him become more active (as a beginner/intermediate to fitness myself) have been unsuccessful. So again, between the project, hanging out, and workouts, they spend a lot of their semi-free/free time together now.

What drives me to ask my question was what occurred this past Friday night. On Friday night, I came over to his place to finally watch the Antman movie with him on Netflix essentially as a date night, which he appeared excited about. Of course, prior to the movie he mentioned the woman texted him to come out to a bar with her friends and drink. This has happened multiple times before: sometimes where its just the two of them drinking while I have another obligation, so I actually have yet to go drinking with the two of them together. However, my boyfriend and I both had an exhausting week, so on Friday night at that time he texted her that he was planning to stay in and watch a movie with me. I appreciated this, though I did ask him if he wanted to actually go out, to which he replied he did not. This was a relief for me at that time, as I actually was operating on 3 hours of sleep and didn't really have it in me to go out and risk getting a migraine. So, excited to spend time together, we watched the movie and I was truly so comfortable I fell hard asleep towards the end. The next thing I know, I half-wake up (I'm a heavy sleeper) and he's moving around his apartment looking for things. And lastly, went I finally wake up again (3-4am) he's suddenly talking about the amazing night he had at the bar with the woman and her friends.

Now, before I go further, I want to say that I truly believe he 100% has the right to spend time with his friends alone and that we do not have to be "attached at the hip" to each other for every social event.

On Saturday, I had a long talk with him about how the nature of their relationship was beginning to make me uncomfortable. His response has been largely to the affect of this is what people do with their friends. What also has come up is that unlike him, I don't spend a lot of time out drinking with friends, and I need to leave my comfort zone more (which may certainly be true) to better understand their casual drinking relationship.

In an effort to patch things up, he invited me today on one of his and the woman's trail hikes. I agreed to join and we all met up. I truly was able to spend time with this woman just fine (again, I don't think she's a bad person), but eventually the hour-long hike ultimately turned into them talking about their wild Friday night adventures despite my attempts to interject every-so-often. So following the hike, I again explained to my boyfriend the awkwardness I felt in that entire situation, and ultimately right now I told him I need some time alone from him to think.

I guess from all of this, I was curious for outside opinions and communication/boundary-building advice. Questions in my mind include:

1. Am I crazy or missing something obvious here? (I really would like to know if I seem irrationally jealous or something!)
2. Is feeling hurt by the Friday night situation and today's hike irrational?
3. What steps can I take to finally communicate what is normally OK and not OK with friends without seeming like I'm out to control his social life?

If you made it this far, truly I thank you. I just need some outside input, and I am absolutely open to *constructive* criticism!

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TL;DR: Boyfriend spending lots of time with a mutual acquaintance/friend, including late night drinking at bars and I'm starting to wonder I'm way too jealous?

Submitted March 31, 2019 at 02:15PM by FundipChic https://ift.tt/2U7vBoo