My boyfriend's friends don't like me - what to do?

Submitted by harshnoisebae t3_yim1fr in relationship_advice

I (22f) have been in a loving relationship with my partner (25m) for 2.5 years now. We are both friendly people, but the overwhelming amount of our social interactions involving friends have been spent with mine. I met his three best friends probably 6 months into our relationship, and I cannot say it went well despite my thinking it did.

They are generally macho/standoffish people but I've heard from others that they have had rude experiences with these 3 friends. So I braced for that and tried to act as friendly towards them as possible. However, during a temporary rough patch I had with my boyfriend 6 months ago, he told them about our fight and since then they've made less than zero attempts to even feign friendliness with me. It's to the point where they don't want to hang out with my boyfriend if I am there.

Obviously, this has really upset me because I hate drama and would love to hang out with everyone worry-free. My boyfriend has reacted to my concerns with "give it time, they'll loosen up" but I don't see any effort being made despite my trying to make small talk if we wind up in the same place. I am becoming more and more discouraged about our relationship because this is making me realize how important friends' support is to me. I feel like they are just waiting for me and my partner to break up, honestly. I am not sure what to do and who is most in the wrong.

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itsameluigee t1_iujavwf wrote

You say macho. I read as probably tools.

But it's worth asking what was the fight over? How serious was it?

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harshnoisebae OP t1_iujczv7 wrote

It involved me having a moment of insecurity where I looked at his phone for the first time and stumbled across his friends making mean jokes about me to him (I started going to therapy for my insecurities shortly thereafter and have been doing fine since). That same weekend, our emotions were high and we weren't sure about the future of our relationship, so my play-hitting him (as we'd both done to each other before) was read as me hitting him out of jealousy. He went straight to his friends about it instead of communicating his impression of the situation with me (which resolved it afterward), so his friends thought I was a POS for that. My boyfriend has since then apologized for going to them about it without talking to me first, but the damage was already done since I guess it just gave them confirmation bias. I've gone to the friends once since then to try and apologize and indicate that I'd like to move forward, but now it's been over 6 months and nothing has changed. They were pretty uncaring about it.

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itsameluigee t1_iujd9jy wrote

Do they have relationships of their own? I'm assuming no.

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harshnoisebae OP t1_iujdjy8 wrote

Two of them are in a relationship together but it's not exactly a model relationship from what my boyfriend tells me, which makes the whole thing pretty hypocritical.

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itsameluigee t1_iujdy10 wrote

People are excellent at hypocrisy.

I don't know if there's a magic fix to this. Sounds like you weren't going to fit the mold if what they were looking for anyway. But then whatever happened with that just solidified it.

Just be civil. Hopefully you'll grow on them and things will get better. Bur you can't force them to like you.

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harshnoisebae OP t1_iujeeej wrote

That is what I've concluded I would do in therapy. Just give it time, because I've kind of been doing everything I can. I guess it really just wears down on me since it's been months now. But thanks for the sound advice, you're right - I can't force anyone to change.

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