A Malaysian man in a long term relationship has found himself stuck between the woman he loves and the female friends he has known for years.
What started as a university romance has now turned into a relationship filled with emotional landmines, constant suspicion and repeated arguments over the same issue.
8 years together, but things are getting heavy
The couple has been together for almost eight years and is already discussing marriage. On paper, everything looks stable.
In an anonymous post on XUAN, the OP said he and his girlfriend built their careers and seemed ready for the next step. But the man admitted he is starting to feel overwhelmed.
Before dating his girlfriend, he had four close female friends from university. They were classmates who hung out together, watched movies and ate meals like siblings. His girlfriend knew them and even joined their outings at first.
Things only changed after she started feeling uncomfortable with how familiar everyone seemed.
She thinks his friends have no boundaries
According to the OP, his girlfriend often said his female friends had “no sense of boundaries.” She believed he was too casual with them, especially when he offered them rides or small favours.
He felt these were normal gestures among friends. She saw them as red flags.
One argument led him to lie to avoid a fight. Although he later apologised, that slip permanently damaged her trust.
From that moment on, every hangout request or group gathering became a trigger.
“Choose them or choose me”
Despite cutting down communication and even asking her permission before meeting his friends, he said the same situation would repeat.
His girlfriend would agree to let him go, only to get upset later and insist he “would have gone anyway.”
And whenever his friends invited him out, the question always returned: “Choose them or choose me.”
He explained that she had been hurt before and carried deep insecurity, but he also felt as if he was constantly being punished for one past mistake.
He says he has changed
The man said he put in effort to rebuild trust. He reduced contact with his female friends, he stayed transparent and he even brought her along to gatherings to make her feel included.
But her reactions stayed the same.
Any mention of his female friends caused emotional breakdowns. Even minor mood shifts from him would lead to accusations that he cared about “other women.”
He said he loved her but was exhausted from tiptoeing around her emotions. A simple meal with friends now felt like an exam he could fail at any time.
“Can love have both freedom and security?”
The man is now questioning the future of their relationship. He wants space to breathe without feeling guilty. He wants to have friends of the opposite gender without being seen as suspicious.
Most of all, he wants trust to exist without constant fear of being misunderstood.
He ended his confession with a difficult question: should he keep trying to fix the relationship, or walk away before marriage locks them further in?
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