My (F29) best friend of two decades (F30) proposed to me. Only problem is, we're not dating. We're both straight. And we both have partners. How do I even begin to approach this?!

OH my god, longtime lurker here but I never thought I'd end up as one of these questions... how do I even begin? I don't know what to make of this at all. Sorry for the extremely long post.

Hayley (not her real name of course) and I met each other at school a VERY long time ago. Some time in the 90s, so yeah it's been forever. We have been through everything together, middle school, high school, different colleges but still kept in touch, then I moved to my current city about 5 years ago for work and she happened to also be living here. It was like no time had passed. We have had disagreements, mainly about my taste in partners - I keep making a string of terrible decisions with men according to her, and she's not exactly wrong.

Thing is, I'm a Super Type-A personality, always working hard, always organized, and my partners have always been kind of a side thing, a way of relaxing while I trying to get my demanding career under way. The guys I choose have been shitty for a reason. They know the deal. They're not marriage material. They don't even want to be.

Somehow, the conflict with Hayley that has simmered for all these years, came to a point a month ago where I admitted that. They're not marriage material. She suddenly stopped arguing with me about it and everything was peachy for weeks until about 7 hours ago, when she and I had a private dinner (something we do regularly) but it was at a more upscale restaurant than usual and she was dressed up to a T. I should have had alarm bells maybe? But how could I possibly have guessed? She didn't make a huge show of it, but she DID have a ring. I'm not materialistic in that sense, but even I could tell it was a nice one. She wasn't joking. She was dead fucking serious.

I was outside my own body for most of the conversation, but r/relationships is my one daily escape, so I was immediately thinking about how I've responded to other posts in the past and what other people have said. So I asked questions.

• Is she serious?

Yes. 100%.

• Does she expect us to leave our boyfriends?

She does. She's suggesting we break those relationships off and marry each other. She brought up the fact that I was voicing dissatisfaction with my current partner the week before, and she's not wrong. He's not a keeper, but he hasn't done anything wrong per se.

• Is she okay with leaving her boyfriend just like that?

She apparently already did, this morning. They'd only been dating 4 months and things apparently had been just kind of average. She was completely honest about breaking it off to propose to me, and he was 'not exactly blindsided' (? I'm like, what?) and in fact he said that makes sense

• Can I see any proof of that?

She showed me some texts that appeared to corroborate that, but the main conversation was in person apparently

• Like what the hell, why though? Why should we get married?

She made a case for this that mainly focused on how compatible we are, how she knows I want to focus on my career, and that having a non-shitty stable partner who will always be loyal and always have my back would help stabilize the back end, where, admittedly, I've been bordering on some nervous breakdowns. It sucks to work 80+ hour weeks while my supposed boyfriend of the hour is posting pics to FB of him partying with girls (and friends I don't know) [this isn't the current guy though he isn't exactly a faithful puppy]. That's just one example. It's always unstable and awful. She insists that even though I claim I don't care and that 'it works for me,' it doesn't actually work for me. I'm actually super unhappy outside of work. She is tired of doing emotional labor for me as a best friend and wants to 'get in there and get her hands dirty' to just do it herself (it being acting as the stable partner I need). Maybe it was just all the wine I'd had but at the time, that actually felt very compelling and like I was ultra cared about.

• But that's all about me. What does she get out of it?

She opened up about how she's always felt pushed into a caretaker role in every relationship she's been in. Somehow she always ends up as the nurse/mom of the guy she's with, until I snap her out of it by using my 'nerd logic' (meant positively) to show her that doing cooking, cleaning, laundry, mopping, vacuuming, etc while also working 40 hrs a week and the guys are not contributing nearly as much is no way to live. She has also made some terrible choices in men, and we did commiserate on that for a bit. But she explained that Super Type-A as I am, I always handle my own everything. I am ultra disciplined in my own little space, and I don't need any looking after. In fact I absolutely reject it. I've shown her nothing but loyalty, support, and care for like twenty years and never asked for a thing. Of course to that I was like what, no, YOU are the one who is always doing emotional labor for ME without asking for anything.

• I work 80+ hour weeks. How would she deal with that?

That would be a relief for her. She's a socializer and community builder and wants to have quite a bit of free time for that. She said she always felt bogged down in the nurse/mom role because she's exhausted doing that, becoming insular and irritable when she'd much rather be at an art class, or biking, hiking, climbing, etc. (Some of those things I've done with her and she really shines when she's in a group nature outing)

• And of course, last but not least. DUDE. WE'RE BOTH STRAIGHT. What do you expect to happen here, physically? Are we supposed to be in some tangled open relationship situation?

She said she can't control what I do, but she intends to be 'faithful to the marriage.'

• Faithful to the marriage? What does that mean?!

She reiterated she would remain faithful to the marriage and not stray outside of it, and if anything did happen between us, well then so be it.

• Happen between us?! Like what would happen between us? What exactly does she intend?

To that, she insisted I keep the ring and just think about it and give me an answer when I'm ready. She claims we will remain best friends no matter what I say, but I'm not so sure I believe that.

Now it's 4 am, I've been making pro and con lists about this for three goddamn hours. I'm out of my mind! And wine! R/relationships, you've been my daily escape for years, now I call upon you. Help me!! What do I do? What do I say? How do I avoid imploding my life and lifelong best friendship?

---

tl;dr: My lifelong best friend proposed to me out of nowhere even though we're both straight and dating other people!!

Submitted August 31, 2022 at 01:06AM by BestFriendProposed https://ift.tt/GP3wr9Q