I’m jealous of his best female friend

I want my boyfriend to stop seeing a female friend of his. He says they have been mates for about ten years and that they used to hang out together a lot. He even told me that once or twice they have slept in the same bed but never had sex. I just don’t trust that. She contacts him a lot and they gossip about other friends. I don’t think it’s appropriate. He says that I am just jealous and that there is nothing going on – he doesn’t want to break up with me over it but he won’t end his friendship with her. I am so fed up of it all. I have even written a draft letter to her – to ask her to stop contacting him because she is causing so much trouble in our relationship – but I don’t know if I should send it. Am I right to tell my boyfriend that he should stop seeing his friend?

QOf course some feelings of jealousy are normal and it is understandable that you feel worried that they’re so close or that she secretly wants to be his girlfriend. However (and I know you will find this very difficult), if things were reversed and your boyfriend was writing to tell me how jealous his girlfriend was about a female friend of his, I would probably be advising him to consider ending the relationship. I’m

aI have been with my boyfriend for more than four years. At the beginning of our relationship our sex life was good, but since we moved in together it has gone downhill. I desperately want a baby but I no longer enjoy sex and keep making excuses to get out of it. When we do try, penetration is impossible and it hurts me. We use lubrication but I have read that it can stop you from conceiving. The situation is getting me down as I feel that this will stop my chances of having a baby.

QI want to reassure you that this is not an uncommon problem and, with professional help, it can be sorted out. It sounds as though you have wanted a baby

afor a while, but since you moved in together sex has gradually stopped being about having fun and started to become all about conceiving. When this didn’t happen, you became tense and gradually started to dislike sex. And because it has been painful before, you anticipate it happening again and the muscles around your vagina contract (known as vaginismus), making penetration difficult. Hopefully your partner is supportive, so have sex therapy and counselling together (either online or by telephone for the time being). You are probably avoiding all forms of affection because you worry that it will lead to intercourse, so put trying to get pregnant aside for now. Sex therapy will teach you how to get your emotional and physical connection back. Contact Relate (relate.org.uk), the College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists (cosrt.org.uk) or the Institute of Psychosexual Medicine (ipm.org.uk). afraid that your feelings of jealousy are in danger of driving him away. It is unrealistic to expect your boyfriend to end a friendship with someone he has been close to for many years. He would miss her and get in contact with her again – and even if he didn’t, he would in time start to blame you for the loss of a friend. It’s normal for people to gossip about their friends. If he was contacting her every day or spending much more time with her than he is with you, or prioritising her, that would be different. And, of course, now that you are together, they certainly shouldn’t be sleeping in the same bed any more. But if he wanted to be with her he would have had plenty of opportunity over the past ten years, so they probably are just friends. The question is whether you think you can learn to accept his friendship with her – some people could and some people couldn’t

– or whether you would find it too difficult. Jealousy often springs from low self-esteem or feeling very insecure in your relationship, so reading The Jealousy Cure by Robert L Leahy will help you understand this more. You shouldn’t send his friend a letter – he would almost certainly be really angry and she would probably tell him that you are jealous, controlling and not right for him.

Why is lovemaking so difficult for me?

If you have a problem, email Zelda at z.west-meads@you.co.uk. Zelda reads all your letters but regrets she cannot answer each one personally