[asking]

I made up with the boyfriend I had the horrible fight with last month. I know! Maybe I've made a mistake. You'll probably think so when you hear the new problem.

So, we went on a week long trip with another couple who are friends of his of about three years. The woman seems very attached to him and he basically does whatever she says unless I specifically object. They are not inappropriate, like kissing or going off together. But she talks to him like I'm not even there and calls him to her side when she wants him. I didn't feel exactly threatened by her, but she definitely got on my nerves as it became clear that they are very fond of each other and spend a lot of time together. He would talk to her more than me on some days of our trip. She mostly ignored me when I said anything, and sometimes she ordered me around like I was a kid who needed guidance, which was weird since she and I are the same age--in our 50s. Her husband was much nicer to me.

The husband came right out and told me in so many words that he didn't mind her crush on my boyfriend. They've been together for 37 years and he told me his wife had been in love with another man a couple of years ago. He said, he was jealous at first, but realized it was harmless and was okay with it. This man she loved died and she talked about him constantly the whole trip. But she also seemed to have transferred her extra affection to my boyfriend, whom she met on a workshop at the same time she first met this other guy. They have all been going to workshops together for three years and live near each other. She made it clear that I was kind of an intruder, although sometimes she made an effort to be nice to me. I have been seeing my boyfriend for about 5 months now.

We were with this couple almost every second of every day for a week, but on the last night, my boyfriend said he and I were going to stay in bed instead of going out at dawn with her. She seemed upset by this. We agreed to meet up at 9am, a time she suggested. In the morning, when we went out to get coffee at 8 am, she was standing there waiting for us, taking pictures of us, even though her motel was about 7 blocks away. She said she had been walking up and down the street --apparently waiting for us to come outside. She walked us to a coffee shop, tried to get us to have breakfast with her at another restaurant, and insisted on buying our coffee. It was very difficult and awkward to get away from her.

The next day, after a 9 hour drive together in the same car, she offered to come over the next day to help wash the car and have lunch with us. And my boyfriend accepted! He gave her a really long hug, like he wasn't going to see her for a while--maybe 30 seconds? Seemed like eternity to me. That made me jealous and I had to fight with myself to not let it show later.

But, despite the long goodbye, she was at his house the next morning, very punctual, without her husband. We washed the car then took her to lunch to thank her for helping to wash his car. I tried to suggest we drive separately, but they both insisted we all drive together. During lunch, she asked ME when I was going home! I felt like saying, "whenever you are safely in your car and out of here, sweetheart." But I just said, "later on." I hung out with him and made sure she was really gone and her husband was home before I finally went home to my kids.

Tonight, my sweetie left me an email saying he is over at their house for dinner tonight meeting her parents. He got back really late and didn't call at bedtime like he usually does.

Am I over reacting, or is that a LOT of togetherness? What should I do? I already told him I thought she was not very happy to have me on the trip and that she wanted him to herself. That was one reason he said no to going out at dawn with her--which we had EVERY other morning of the trip. We were together about 12 hours a day.I didn't tell him I was beginning to feel pretty crowded by her, but I think he knows. I don't want him to feel like he has to choose between me and his friends, but this feels weird to me.

What do you think?

[asking]

I just calculated that they have seen each other every day for the last 12 days, basically all the time when she was not at work. She took a week off to take this trip with my boyfriend.

When I suggested we have dinner by ourselves one night of the trip, my boyfriend said that would be "strange." I said I thought it would be strange for two couples to be together constantly. We didn't argue, just acknowledged that we saw things differently. I didn't complain or get angry or make any demands. And we had dinner with them! But now it's just beyond weird for me.

I'm home with my kids and he's out with her again...

[asking]

So I have some savings I've been living on off and on. They are my safety net. Sunday morning he asked me to use "all that cash you have" to buy the empty lot next to his house cheap, so that he can declare bankruptcy later on and "keep it in the family." I felt uncomfortable with this casual request, which came with no information about the lot at all. He wanted me to buy it for the cost of the mortgage, but said he didn't know how much that was!

So I checked with my lawyer, who said this was a really bad idea and he should be telling me what the risks of doing that are and talking more seriously if he's going to ask me to do that. She said I could be accused of fraud if he declares bankruptcy, which he's said he might. When I told him she recommended against it, he was upset with me for consulting a lawyer without talking to him first. He said what I did was "weird." He said he'd already discussed it with his lawyer and my lawyer was wrong and he wouldn't put me in that position. But he hadn't said any of this when he brought it up, as if I was just buying something small from him, instead of an empty lot in a terrible market. No matter how cheap, it's still not a good investment if nobody wants it.

He also wanted to put his expensive car in my name, the second or third time he's mentioned this. I was uncomfortable with that too because it's a fast luxury car that his friends drive without his knowledge. I didn't want that on my insurance policy. He said that nothing would happen, but this week he got a summons because one of his friends had not paid a ticket he got while driving his car.

Thursday I finally told him about being upset about his married friend being so jealous of me and bullying me on the trip. He said he understood and that her behavior was unacceptable. He even said he'd witnessed some of it and knew it was true and had tried to intercede, which was true. His openness gave me hope. But he refused to talk to me about it further and he wouldn't accept any responsibility for encouraging her (grabbing her hand, hugging her for a long time, jokingly telling her he loved her, etc). I was hoping he'd at least consider not starting a business with her and I said I was afraid that if we couldn't resolve it would lead to us breaking up.

I asked if we could talk more, that I wanted to hear more about how he felt about this. I thought he was holding out hope to me that he would change his behavior with her. But he would not commit to anything specific, and he said he needed time to think. I wanted a more concrete answer. I tried to call him the next day but he was on the phone all morning (he is home, with no job). When I finally got him mid afternoon, he still didn't want to talk and I felt frustrated because I didn't want him to come spend the weekend with me and my teens if we were about to break up. He was willing to come spend the weekend with me, but not to talk about his friendship. At one point, he said he didn't have time for the relationship. I didn't think he meant that literally, but he did, because he wrote me a good bye email a couple of hours later. He said I insisted on an "answer" and that was it.

In my head, I know I need to move on because there are just too many things wrong, but I am having a hard time. A week ago, he was talking to me as if we were practically married. He has been "joking" about letting him move into my house for months and I have been resisting because I have kids and don't want them impacted by my tumultuous love life. On our trip together we were together a lot and he was constantly reaching out to hold my hand. He was so affectionate. And now he just walks away as if it's no big thing. In explaining why he was breaking up, he wrote, " i have so many pressures on my life right now that the only thing i can do is get the list down." And yet, right before that, he was trying to get me to go to a kids' soccer game on the weekend, even though he himself has no kids. In other words, he is not THAT busy. He said he was glad to have "met" me, like we'd just talked at a party.