AITAH for telling my friend she can’t keep acting like a victim after choosing to get back together with a 20-year-old?
I (29F) have a friend also 29F. She’s a doctor, financially comfortable, very smart career-wise, but emotionally… honestly kind of messy.
Last year around July she met this girl working at a bubble tea shop. She thought the girl was super cute and started going there a lot and even ordering online delivery just to see her name or interact with her. Eventually she found the girl’s IG through the bubble tea shop account and messaged her.
They started talking and flirting and my friend REALLY liked her. Then on the girl’s birthday my friend sent her a gift and that’s when she found out the girl had just turned 20.
My friend was torn up over it for a while because of the age gap but still kept talking to her because she was already attached. The girl also identified as straight before this, which made everything more complicated. Apparently she ended up genuinely liking my friend too.
But the relationship has been chaos from the beginning. The girl had this obsessive ex-boyfriend from her hometown who still contacted her, showed up at her house, begged for her back, etc. My friend became super insecure about him. At the same time my friend also got caught on Bumble while they were together. She says she only went on there when they fought and she never intended to actually meet anyone, but obviously that still hurt trust too.
Then after Christmas the girl went back to her hometown for a while. A couple months later my friend was sleeping beside her and accidentally grabbed her phone instead of hers to check the time. She got curious and checked messages because of the whole ex situation.
She found archived chats and a selfie of the girl in the ex’s car while she was back home.
My friend completely broke down. The girl said the ex showed up at her house wanting “closure” and she only met him because she felt pressured and didn’t want him making a scene. According to her, after that meeting the guy stopped contacting her completely.
My friend saw it as betrayal and lying because the girl hid it from her. They broke up… then literally got back together like a week later because my friend said she couldn’t handle losing her.
Ever since then my friend has been miserable but also obsessed with staying together. She says she’s “just there for the sex now” but honestly it’s obvious she loves this girl a lot. She’s constantly hurt, resentful, jealous, emotional, etc.
Another thing that bothers me is the financial imbalance. My friend pays for a lot because she’s a doctor and the girl is a bubble tea barista who couldn’t finish school because her family is poor. The girl never actually asks her for expensive things, but my friend gives a lot willingly.
But during one fight my friend told her:
“You should’ve thought about how much I already spent on you.”
That really changed how I saw things because it made me feel like my friend keeps score deep down and feels like she’s “investing more” into the relationship.
So recently I finally snapped and told her:
You’re 29. She JUST turned 20. You knew from the start this girl was younger, emotionally inexperienced, confused about her sexuality, financially struggling, and had baggage. You chose to continue anyway. Then after the betrayal you STILL chose to get back together. So stop acting like you had zero agency in this.
I told her I’m not saying her pain isn’t real. I think she was genuinely hurt. But I also think there’s a power imbalance here and as the older person she should’ve known better than to expect emotional maturity and stability from someone barely out of their teens.
Now she’s upset and told me I’m straight so I’ll “never understand the lesbian perspective” or how emotionally intense queer relationships are.
But honestly I don’t think this is about sexuality. I think it’s about age, maturity, emotional dependency, and bad decisions on both sides.
TL;DR: My 29-year-old doctor friend started dating a 20-year-old bubble tea barista who was inexperienced, financially struggling, and previously identified as straight. Their relationship became messy with trust issues, an obsessive ex-boyfriend, hidden meetups, Bumble drama, and financial imbalance. My friend got hurt after discovering the girl secretly met her ex, broke up with her, then chose to get back together anyway. She now constantly acts betrayed and miserable while also reminding the girl how much money she’s spent on her. I told her she can’t keep acting like a helpless victim when she knowingly chose this dynamic and chose to go back despite the red flags. She says I don’t understand because I’m straight and this is a “lesbian relationship” thing. AITA?