Katharina Buczek
This young woman and her boyfriend, Tom, have been dating for nearly three years, and while they’ve had both ups and downs throughout that time, she always thought their relationship was solid.
However, her boyfriend’s female best friend, Lucy, has recently become a problem for her.
Tom and Lucy had been close for years before she even met her boyfriend, and she was always respectful about their friendship – regardless of the moments when she sometimes felt like an “outsider.”
But more recently, she feels like Lucy has become a “shadow” encroaching on their relationship.
“It wasn’t just Lucy’s constant texting or the inside jokes they shared; it was what I discovered after a particularly rough week,” she said.
For some context, she and Tom had both started a savings account together as a “rainy day” fund. They didn’t have a ton of cash in there, but they viewed the money as a safety net that they could use to pay for either emergencies or a special occasion one day.
She had total trust in her boyfriend with their shared finances, too. But then, she found a receipt for an expensive bracelet that cost hundreds of dollars.
She didn’t hesitate to ask Tom about the gift, and he eventually revealed that he’d spent money from their rainy day fund to purchase the present for Lucy. What made her most angry was how Tom casually talked about it, reasoning that he bought the bracelet since Lucy had been having a “tough time,” and he wanted to do something nice for his best friend.
She immediately felt both furious and betrayed since Tom didn’t just go behind her back to buy the gift with their shared savings, but she also felt like he disregarded their priorities and future plans.
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