My Friends are Jealous of my Boyfriend

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Visitor's Question:
Since the 8th grade, I've had this best friend. We did everything together. We have both dated guys all throughout high school, but neither of us have had a real serious boyfriend, until now. I met this amazing Christian guy, who I have soo much fun with everyday. I have more fun with him than I ever did with her, because she was always only concerned with herself, and her needs, as well as a lot of my other friends.

I have a job, I'm in a sport, and i'm going to school, and somehow i still manage to see him everday as well as take time out to spend with my friends, but for some reason it's not enough. Not only her but all of my friends have started treating him badly, and discluding me from things. From the get-go, they all automatically assumed i'd be ditching them for him...and even though I think I have a great balance, I know i'm losing their friendship.

I'm a senior in High School, so I know that this wont all matter when I go off to college, but it still hurts me everytime I'm with them, because they've all gotten colder with me. I feel so lost, and depressed and worn out from trying to balance everything out in my life i just don't know what to do. When I try to talk to them about it, i feel like I have no arguement at all.

What should I do?? And how can I fix this?

Our Suggestion:
In essence your friends are simply jealous. All this time you've all had casual guys, but they've never been real "best friends" which is what you really aim for in a relationship. Now you have in essence found a great partner in life, and the others see that and realize that you have something they don't. And in general it sounds like your life is going rather well, between having a job, sports, this guy *and* friends. So undoubtedly they're jealous about that too.

I could maybe see their point if you had just dropped them completely. Sometimes when a person does the 'head over heels' thing they get obsessed and completely stop seeing their friends and only see their new love. This is really unhealthy, and your friends would have a right to complain if that was the case. But you're NOT. You're making sure to have time for them too.

It's definitely true that people tend to move to an entirely new circle of friends when they leave high school. You tend to maybe stay in touch with one or two people, but you build an entire new group once you hit college and it's that college group that will stay with you for much of your life. So you're right in knowing that really, in a year none of what these girls are doing now will matter at all. Still, it's not easy to deal with while you have to live with it!

Think of it in this way. Say there's a group of four women who all hang out drinking after work. They laugh about jerk-guys and dream about being married with kids someday. Then say one of those women actually does find a great guy and gets married. She may make the same attempts to go out with her old friends, but the old friends may not want her around now, because now this married woman is a constant reminder of what they lack in life. It's hard to complain that there are no good guys when one of the group is perfectly happy with her hubby and is planning to start a family. It's not that the married woman is wrong, or even that the 3 single women are wrong ... but they've just grown apart.

Friendships are in two directions. And you're certainly doing MORE than your part in trying to make sure the friendship survives and grows. Your "friends" are not being much of friends at all by putting their own needs and jealousies and insecurities over the friendship you had shared. I bet if your boyfriend mistreated you and dumped you that they'd welcome you back with open arms and say "I told you so!" It's the fact that you're happy and have found such a great match that continuously bothers them. How come YOU got to find this great guy? Why can't THEY?

Anyway, there aren't that many months left in school. You really do have quite a lot to be thankful for. See if your college has any pre-admission gatherings or get-togethers and focus on those. You'll find in general that friends in college are a lot more mature and self-sufficient than those in high school, and I bet you'll find a group of friends that is much more supportive.

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