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My bf and I have been in an open relationship for almost 4 years and it’s never really been a problem until recently. We met another guy who seemed nice to hang out and have sex with together. This guy and I were texting a lot and we even had lunch on our own one day where we commiserated about some of our relationship problems. I was complaining about some of my bf’s issues and he was telling me about his ex. He said that I should break up with my bf but I don’t want to do that at all. I asked him to please not mention any of the things we talked about to my bf as we were working on things ourselves, I was just venting.
Well the two of them got together alone behind my back at my bf’s apartment and this guy told him everything I said to him in confidence and even showed him our text message history, just the negative things of course, none of the positive stuff I said. He told my bf that he should break up with me and started badmouthing me to him. He accused me of causing my bf to drink too much and of being the kind of guy who would threaten suicide to get my way and all kinds of other bullshit, clearly trying to break us up. We also learned that the guy has a recent history of dramatic and violent relationships, including going to jail for hitting his ex.
Of course I was really upset and asked my bf to stop seeing him. My bf seems to understand that this guy is bad news but still wants to hang out with him anyway because he doesn’t have a lot of gay friends his age to talk to. He says he loves me and that our relationship is always priority; he told this guy he doesn’t want to pursue anything serious with him. But the guy still poisons his mind against me and my bf lied when he said he would stop seeing him. I feel really disrespected and it’s been causing me terrible anxiety like I’ve never had before.
My bf finally agreed to stop seeing him for 2 months or until I feel more secure in our relationship again. But he’s not happy about it and says that I need to trust him to make his own decisions and make his own mistakes. But he’s already lied to me about seeing this guy and I feel like my boundaries are being disrespected. I’ve never tried to control who he sees or spends time with, but I feel like not wanting him to spend time with someone who is actively trying to break us up is a reasonable boundary to ask for. The compromise was that they would still text each other and keep to a plan they had to plant some flowers at the end of the month, which I’m not happy about.
Do I put my foot down on this or do I let go and let him make his own choices and mistakes? Is it wrong of me to ask him not to see this guy?
That's really hard to say.
My partner would never maintain that friendship in the first place and doing so would concern me greatly as a departure from the person I know.
I don't think I'd be comfortable with my partner being friends with someone that toxic and I'd very seriously wonder if they care more about maintaining that "friend" than about my feelings.
Its hard for me to put myself in that hypothetical, but you'd absolutely be justified in saying that you're not okay with it.
Hey OP.
I've challenged you on your thinking about the appropriateness of talking to this person in a reply elsewhere, but I do want to address your question directly.
You're not wrong. At all.
People that are actively working to damage your primary relationship should probably be off limits for both of y'all. I would never maintain any form of relationship with anyone like that, much less with a violent person.
Your partner is also within their rights to want to keep talking to them, even if they shouldn't.
You can only control you, so the question really is... are you willing to cut things off if your partner doesn't respect your request?
No, they don't, not in this context.
Look, even if they were more friend than sexual partner, they were still a sexual partner.
That means they're not just a platonic friend. They might be mostly a platonic friend, but that's not all they are.
That might mean more to them than it does to you. Some people don't handle ENM well, some are always going to be trying to isolate one or the other to see if they can get more or just to cause drama.
The lesson to learn here is that you can't be sharing relationship issues with anyone that is anything more than just a 100% purely platonic friend.
That's it, that's the rule.
Edit: removed portion of comment after seeing an edit.
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I hear you.
You can ignore us if you want on this point, but I'd suggest that the only topic off limits for fwbs is flaws in your existing relationship. In ENM its called being a "bad hinge".
It just tends to suggest that there is weakness, which leads some to think that they could put themselves into a position to break you up.