Last weekend, my girlfriend and I were at dinner with two of her friends when one of them joked that I need “three business days to process my emotions.” I laughed. It’s a good line. I know because I’d used it a few weeks earlier in a personal conversation with my girlfriend. When I asked her friend where she’d heard it, my girlfriend said she’d shown them our messages. She said it right there at the table, like it was something I already knew.
I’m 26, she’s 24, and we’ve been together almost two years. I knew she talked to her friends about us sometimes. What I learned at dinner was that she’d been sending screenshots of our arguments to a group chat with three friends for months. They’d read whole exchanges, including things I’d only felt comfortable saying to her.
At home, I told her I understood wanting to talk things through with friends. I asked her to keep the actual messages private. She said I was overreacting and that her friends were her support system. Then she mentioned that sometimes they help her figure out what to say back. I thought about how carefully I’d worded some of those texts, sitting there waiting for her reply while three other people were weighing in.
I asked how she’d feel if I sent our texts to my friends. She said she wouldn’t care. I’m still having trouble picturing that. She also pointed out that I vent to my best friend, which I do. He gets my account of what happened. He’s never read one of our arguments off my phone or helped me text her back.
Yesterday I asked again if we could agree to keep screenshots of personal conversations between us. She said she couldn’t promise that and felt like I was trying to cut her off from her friends. Later, one of those friends texted me to say couples shouldn’t expect each other to keep everything secret. Now my girlfriend is barely talking to me, and I’m going over how I brought it up. Was I asking too much when I asked her to keep the screenshots to herself?
