My (25/M) girlfriend (29/F) hit me across the face last night for continuing to associate with a friend (27/F) of mine that she doesn't like and doesn't trust around me and my other friends just kind of watched it happen without saying a word before or after.

We've been together for two years. It's the same old story. She wasn't like this at the start but slowly her insecurities and all of that started coming out. I've talked to her about her controlling behaviour in the past. About a year and a half ago. She said she didn't like that I was so close to one particular friend of mine who happens to be a girl. I explained that I'm allowed to be close to any number of friends that I want and that she is also allowed to do that, because that's normal ... and because friendships are just that to me. It shouldn't matter if this friend is a girl but to my girlfriend, it matters quite a lot apparently.

As far as this friend is concerned, we don't hang out one-on-one and we don't really contact each other outside of the ten person group chat where all of our other friends are also included in the conversation. In fact she had a boyfriend until a few months ago. A guy she was engaged to marry and still loves a lot even though they couldn't make it work.

We were at a dinner party this past weekend. My girlfriend was also there and everything was okay at first. But as soon as I went up to open the bottle of wine that I brought with me, which was located in the kitchen where that particular friend was on a work-related call, my girlfriend snapped a look at me so fast, it was a miracle her head didn't go flying off in my direction. I ignored it because ... well, what else can I do in that situation? Wait for my friend to finish her work call and then go up to open the wine bottle so that we're not alone in the kitchen at the same time for ten seconds? That's insane. If my girlfriend is that worried that something's going to happen in ten seconds, she could very well have risen from her chair and followed me to help out.

Instead she came bolting into the kitchen as I was opening the bottle (my friend still on the phone) and put her hands on her hips and just looked at me as if I had done something wrong. When I asked if she could hand me the wine glasses on the counter she ignored the question and continued staring at me, really hard. My friend eventually ended her call and just sort of awkwardly stood there for a second before trying to squeeze past so she could return to the table (and give us some privacy for the oncoming argument that was clearly going to take place in three, two ...) but my girlfriend blocked her path and glared at her, too.

That was when I put the bottle down and asked my girlfriend if she wanted to speak to me in the hallway. She said okay and my friend was given a way out. About five seconds into the conversation my girlfriend was already shouting at me, loudly enough that my friends could obviously hear from the dining room. She kept saying things like, "Are you trying to embarrass me? Why would you isolate yourself with her when you know how I feel about the friendship? You don't see the way she looks at you. When you're a little older you'll get it. Why don't you take me seriously when I tell you how this makes me feel? How hard is it to just drop her? Is she that important to you? Why can't you stand with me on this? If any of my friendships made you uncomfortable, I would at least distance myself from those people."

When I reminded her that this friend is already quite distant from me and that we don't hang out alone and that we don't really speak outside of group situations, she pretended like she couldn't hear me and carried on. To be fair she was a bit drunk by this point. But that's no excuse for what happened later.

I apologized for making her uncomfortable (even though I didn't have to) and then I asked her nicely if we could go back to the table and just end the night on a good note. She said she didn't want to because everyone had obviously heard her shouting at me. When I asked if I could at least go back and tell them that we were going to leave early, she said okay. I went back to the dining room to speak to them and she went over to the door to put on her coat and shoes. Admittedly, I took a little longer than I probably should have explaining to my friends that we were leaving. I didn't say it was because of her but they all knew it anyway.

When that one friend said, "Tell her it's okay and bring her back. Let's just all have some wine and enjoy tonight," I guess my girlfriend heard it. She sent me a string of text messages asking me to hurry up and asking why that one friend thinks it's okay to even utter her name. I fully didn't understand why she was so deeply upset. But I knew it was better to leave than to bring our drama into the dinner party. I said bye to my friends and went over to the door and unbeknownst to me until a couple of seconds later, three of my friends followed me to the door to try and convince us to stay. My girlfriend started crying and assumed that I had intended to embarrass her and that I asked my friends to come along. She dug her fingers into my arm and tried to pull me through the door. When I yanked my arm back (because it hurt and because my coat and shoes weren't even on yet) she stumbled a few steps and looked at me in shock and then slapped me across the face.

Hard.

Somehow all of my friends were there now. They all saw it. No one said anything. I looked at my girlfriend in shock. Never in any of my relationships have any exes of mine ever hit me. Not once. I couldn't believe it. I just stood there for a second waiting for her to apologize, and she did, but I was done by then anyway. I put my coat and shoes on and walked right past her and drove myself home. She had her phone and bag on her and is capable of calling a cab. At that point I didn't give a single fuck.

Since then I've talked to my friends and they're all just like, "She seemed really sorry. Maybe give her another chance. It's not that big of a deal. Look at how small she is." One of them agreed with me that it was wrong and asked if I was okay. The friend that my girlfriend doesn't like. I get that because I yanked my arm away, my girlfriend could have drunkenly confused that as something aggressive and then reacted in defense. But hitting someone in the face is never okay. That's disrespect ... nothing else. And the only reason that I had yanked my arm away was because she had grabbed onto it and tried to pull me through the door before I was ready. To me that's aggressive.

It's been two days. I haven't said a word to her but she has sent me a string of text messages saying sorry and telling me that she's going to try and work on her insecurities in therapy. That's great if she wants to do that. But she can do that on her own. I don't have to be there in support. Although I haven't ended it yet, I will when I'm ready to speak to her again.

What's more fucked up to me is the way in which nearly all of my friends have reacted to the situation. Just because I'm a guy, they think it's okay and that I should give her another chance. As if she hadn't destroyed the dinner party all on her own. Over something that doesn't exist.

I really don't know what to do about my friends. This is a lot to process.

tl;dr There's nothing going on with this friend. My girlfriend has slowly been letting her insecurities come through in the two years we've been together. After hitting me in the face, I'm pretty much done with her and I don't feel bad about it. But the way my friends are reacting, telling me that it's not a big deal and that she's small anyway, is what truly bothers me. I don't know what to do about them. The only friend that thinks it was wrong of my girlfriend to hit me is the same friend that she doesn't like.

Submitted July 15, 2019 at 08:56PM by kindofapr0blem https://ift.tt/2k05nn5