I [25M] was out with my girlfriend’s [24F] friends on Christmas Eve and I met a guy she had hooked up with earlier. I don’t like the feeling but I know I would be wrong if I create an issue. I don’t know what to do about this feeling.

Am I overreacting/overthinking?

Yes.

She did nothing wrong. She's also a human being, and human beings hook up with people on occasion. And yes, in today's world we occasionally run into our exes, or have mutual friends and so see them regularly at parties or whatever. That's a normal part of being an adult in the world.

This is one of those "get over yourself" moments where you get to grow. You get to recognize that your girlfriend's sexuality doesn't begin and end with you, and that's a good thing: it means she's a fully formed human being with her own agency who is choosing to be in an exclusive relationship with you.

You have to interrogate your feelings a little bit. WHY does this bother you? Most people just sort of go, "IT BOTHERS ME! RUN AWAY!" and don't actually examine their own feelings - because examining your feelings is hard. Ultimately the reason why this bothers you is because you have some sort of false belief about your girlfriend - I don't know what that false belief is, you're going to have to do the work - but there's some way in which you don't see the person she really is and instead see this fantasy version of her, and being forced to confront that this guy exists pokes some hole in that fantasy.

So your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to figure out what the fantasy vision of your girlfriend that you're holding is, and find a way to accept that the real her is better than the fantasy version.

Also, understand that asking someone to cut a peripheral friend out of their lives is simply not realistic, since the only way she could do that is to cut out SF, and that's not a reasonable ask. That's building fences around her and cutting her off from her friends because you can't deal with reality, and that's no good and will destroy your relationship.

So instead do the work. Figure out exactly what the uncomfortable truth is that you're denying. What is the fantasy bubble that you had to numb yourself with alcohol in order to keep believing in?

You also don't have to hide this from her. So long as you're clear, "I'm not asking you to do anything different in your social life, but I want you to know that I'm struggling with AH, and I'm doing the work to get over it, I recognize that it's my problem, not yours, but hey, it may take me a little while to figure it out." You can turn your girlfriend into your partner in fixing this - not by building fences around her, but by inviting her into your thought process and letting yourself be vulnerable with her.

/r/relationships Thread