One of the unspoken rules of friendship is that you don’t date each other’s exes. Because even if everyone claims they’re fine with it, it’s almost guaranteed to make things more complicated and awkward than they need to be.
Unfortunately, one woman found herself in exactly that situation. After her ex broke up with her, one of her friends started dating him. And while she eventually moved on and found someone new, things got uncomfortable again when that same friend began making strange comments about her new boyfriend, joking that she might “steal” him too.
Eventually, the situation got too weird to ignore, and the woman snapped. But now she’s wondering if she was too harsh. Read the full story below.
The woman was tired of her friend joking about stealing her boyfriend
Image credits: Grinvalds (Not the actual photo)
So when things finally went too far, she snapped and put her in her place—but now she’s wondering if she crossed a line too
Image credits: yanalya (Not the actual photo)
Image credits: opalspice
Stealing someone else’s partner rarely ends well, even when the attempt actually works
For some reason, there are people out there who seem completely fixated on pursuing someone who is already taken. It sounds strange, but it’s actually common enough to have its own psychological term: mate poaching.
This refers to the act of deliberately trying to attract someone away from an existing romantic relationship. Some people do it for the thrill, some out of jealousy, and others simply because they want what someone else has.
Milly seems to fit that description pretty well. Not only did she date her close friend’s ex shortly after the breakup, but when her friend showed up with someone new, she could barely contain herself.
The comments started almost immediately, with Milly joking she might “take this one too.” And when she finally had the chance to get the boyfriend alone during her breakdown, she took it. It was a pattern of behavior that went well beyond bad taste.
Here’s the thing though. Even if Milly had succeeded, research suggests it probably would not have worked out the way she hoped. A study published in the Journal of Research in Personality found that people who are poached from existing relationships are often more problematic partners.
As Dr. Josh Foster, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of South Alabama and one of the study’s authors, told The Huffington Post: “They tended to be less committed to their future relationship; they tended to be less satisfied, less invested in the relationship.”
“In general, based on the qualities of relationship function that we measured, people who were mate-poached generally fared somewhat worse than people who were not mate-poached by their current partners,” he explained. So the prize at the end of all that effort is a partner who is practically guaranteed to look elsewhere.
Image credits: marymarkevich (Not the actual photo)
Anyone bold enough to make moves on your partner is probably not worth keeping around
Of course, it is ultimately a partner’s own responsibility to stay faithful no matter how much someone else pursues them. But that does not make it any less uncomfortable to have someone in your life who clearly has their eye on what is yours. So what do you actually do when that person is a friend?
Love coach and author Sujeiry Gonzalez has some practical advice for exactly that situation. Her first recommendation is to speak up immediately if you notice a friend making moves on your partner, and give specific examples of the behavior that has crossed the line. Staying soft or vague will only make it easier for the friend in question to dismiss your concerns.
If that does not work, the next step is to start limiting how much time you spend together, and crucially, how much access the friend has to your partner. Gonzalez also suggests keeping your home off limits entirely, since someone who has their eye on your partner can bring a kind of negative energy into a shared space that erodes a relationship over time.
In this story, the woman did eventually speak up and set some boundaries when things went too far. Whether calling Milly desperate in the heat of the moment was the right call is up for debate, but her frustration was clearly a long time coming.
So what do you think? Was she in the wrong for how she finally put her foot down, or did Milly leave her with no other choice?
Image credits: freepik (Not the actual photo)
Readers wanted more context, so the woman answered their questions in the comments
Most agreed that she wasn’t to blame for how she reacted
Though some felt she should have stood up for herself sooner
In the end, the woman shared that she decided to cut her friend off for good
