Two angry young women are conspiring to break up my relationship with my girlfriend Christina.
Seriously, my girlfriend of four months sees right through this immature behavior, but she and are I both getting annoyed by these efforts. They started a few months ago when one of the pair tried to “befriend” my GF when our relationship was just starting. She’d tell her nice little things meant to build up her paranoia, like “He’s kind of weird,” or “If he ever does anything to you, let me know.” Christina fortunately didn’t fall for that, saw me as a nice guy, and we’ve been doing great. Incidentally, said female has shown Christina complete and utter disdain ever since. (Side note: this girl apparently had a crush on me last year. On the other hand, she’s a blatant codependent who develops a crush on anything with a Y chromosome.)
It’s starting up again, though. Said female’s friend came up to us today and “nicely” chastised me for talking to her while she was studying. She indicated that “certain men around here think women shouldn’t be in professional school, and us women need to show them.” (In other words, she’s trying to hint that I want Christina to be barefoot and pregnant. :mad: )
I’m not worried about the relationship (although I do wonder what kind of tactics they might try next), but she and I are pissed off that people would be so bitter as to try to break up someone’s happiness. Does anybody have experience in this area? What’s the best strategy for dealing with this?
Like others have said here, friends don’t try to break up friends’ relationships. They will be there for advice and comfort when and if needed, but they don’t actively try to kill relationships. There doesn’t seem to be anything more you or Christina can do except for Christina to tell them to back off in no uncertain terms. (As you probably know, it wouldn’t have the same impact coming from you, ResIpsa.)
Don’t be friends with either of them. Have Christina follow suit. I would chastise them about their apparant inability to trust in Christina to make a correct choice.
I’ve had this sort of thing happen to me before, and speaking from personal experience, I’ve found that the best thing you can do is sever whatever friendship you have with them. Then in a couple of days, weeks, or months, come back to them and tell them that if they still want some sort of friendship then they are going to have to recognize the fact that the both of you are mature adults and until an opinion is asked for, they can keep theirs right up their ass.
I’ve been in this sort of situation many times in the past and by far the best strategy I used was hitting them with shovels but YMMV
If you SO isn’t falling for their lies at all, what they are doing is probably making your relationship stronger. So ignore them, talk to your gf about how silly they are, and generally have fun at their expense.
My suggestion for handling them? Courteous disinterest.
Once again, manners come to the rescue! Whatever their motivations or agenda, they’re outsiders to the relationship. They’re interfering in something that’s simply none of their business. They’re banking on being able to provoke a reaction with their rudeness.
Deny 'em the reaction they want so badly. It’ll both leave you squarely encamped on the high ground and frustrate the living hell outta them at the same time. Sweet.
Practice a bland almost-smile. Then hit 'em with cool, unanswerable responses. “I love and respect Christina for a lot of reasons, but her common sense and kind heart are two of the best. I’m sure she’ll respect the privacy of our relationship and tell me if anything is bothering her.” Or, “Thank you for your concern but we respect each other too much to gossip about our relationship with outsiders.”
You get the idea. Adapt it into less formal language. But they’ll be stumped for anything to say that won’t insult your GF and/or make themselves look even more ridiculous.