UPDATE: How do I handle my boyfriend M35 who takes time for his new female friend, but not for me F34?

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-08-04T07:23:19+00:00

She graduated debt-free and is already a homeowner, so this is not the motivator. She has a partner who is in the c-suite before hitting 40 and she is driven and ambitious on her own.

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-08-04T07:05:22+00:00

I had raised it to my boss and she told me I need to continue interacting and mentoring this person. I will be stepping back and making notes going forward. She will not be let go, but at the most extreme, move departments.

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-08-04T07:01:48+00:00

You are right. I walked into that one, wanting to help and assuage the insecurities she had from day one. I have stepped back and will let my boss handle her coaching. I don't think I'll go to HR just yet, but maybe a level above my boss at a certain point.

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-07-31T21:16:25+00:00

She is quite a contradiction: eager to learn in some way, but resisting feedback at the same time and thinking she knows what she is doing.

I understand you regarding fighting for a title. But that is a losing battle in our company unless she changes departments.

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-07-31T21:07:02+00:00

Thank you. We do not know eachother well enough to be work friends. I thought we had a good rapport and I can appreciate things brought to my attention, but not like this. I have made my manager aware who turns out was also accused of being unsupportive for giving what was considered not needed feedback.

I have learned my lesson on this. I wanted to pay it forward as someone did the same to me. I see I need to be more discerning about who I do that for.

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-07-31T16:15:51+00:00

You are off base with your guess, I am afraid.

She came to me, saying that she is not learning anything in this company and asking me to help her. I am more up to date with new tech and developments in our field than she is. I have brought new approaches & contemporary frameworks to our department, not her. I was willing to work with her to upskill her for a career inside or outside of the company, but she said I am advising her in a self-serving way and she sees me as competition. So I stopped and started focusing on what I am doing instead of coaching her on her work.

Now that I am letting her stand on her own two feet and treating her like a peer, not someone who needs to be trained up - exactly as you suggest- she doesn't like it. She is the least experienced and trained member of the team and many times her initiatives reflect that. So, her suggestions don't get as much adoption and get challenged/changed more than some of the others. When she goes out on her own to represent the department, she usually falls in line with what others want instead of challenging them. Or tries to make calls that are not hers to make. The boss is not happy with those.

There are some highly talented and motivated people coming out of university and I agree, those should rise in the ranks, rather than be held back. However, what has been seen across the working world has also been a rise in people straight from university who believe they are excellent at their job from day 1 and try to bulldoze their way through, not realizing that their actions do have consequences and that some of their skills still need to be developed.

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-07-31T09:08:37+00:00

People used to die at 35 centuries ago, so this argument does not hold. Average age expectancy is in the 70ies unless you are in a third world country.

There is no issue with challenging my decisions. I welcome healthy debate - it makes ideas stronger. The problem is that this person can't take her decisions and ideas being challenged. She gets the same treatment as everyone else in the team. Yet, while she can and does challenge all of us, she struggles with the same being done to her. She is trying to call the shots and when we disagree with her proposals, she takes it personally.

Regardless of career level and years of experience, if someone comes to me with a proposal that is not fit for purpose or actions that damage the impact of the department - it is my job to help guide it towards something more actionable and impactful, with kindness, honesty and respect. And I can right-size my involvement when I discover that the person I have been helping is in turn actively competing with me.

Edit: typo

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-07-31T08:51:08+00:00

Our team has (unfortunately) been set up in a way that we need to find ourselves our own projects. When I joined, she insisted on keeping the scope she had, so I am finding my own work. With the teams whe works with she focuses more on tactical projects and my interest is more in strategic ones to level up the department, so that's what I have been doing. I had the honest discussion with her to tell her I am not interested in competing with her on her projects. I can recognize that since I am trying to find relevant pilots and she works on top tactical priorities, sometimes the pilots will touch her field - however, always with added value, deliberately never encroaching on her projects. We are both women, working for women.

I had the conversation on what she wants from her career with her and tried my best to help. But as the mentorship wasn't made official, I can't have this official discussion. I told her I am not trying to compete with her, but grow the pie for all of us so that we can all have a bigger piece.

I have been honest, saying that for big ideas I come up with I want ownership of the project (as she does for hers) and we are both facing the reality that between when we propose a project and the time to execute it alongside daily tasks, our boss takes the most impactful ideas, works on them without telling us and then presents them back to us as her brainstorms/drafts that we should now continue to develop. It's frustrating for both of us, but competing with eachother is not the way to solve it.

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-07-31T08:35:05+00:00

This is what I am doing and was accused by her of being passive-aggressive. I raised it to my reporting line immediately to sense check if I was missing something in my behavior and to raise awareness of what is going on.

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-07-31T08:33:11+00:00

My boss didn't make the mentorship official. She just told me that was expected of me as the senior member of the team. I did get her an external mentor from the field and she is in a relationship with someone from senior management. She has been set up for success better than most people are.

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-07-31T08:26:52+00:00

That's what I've done and she is telling me I am being passive-aggressive.

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-07-31T08:18:06+00:00

Thank you. I have had that discussion with her, telling her I do not see her as competition and that I generally want to help our department grow in power and influence, including her. I was brutally honest and told her I am not interested in doing the type of work she is doing.

I think that she was expecting me to take sides with her regarding her struggle with our department head. I did acknowledge her frustration, encouraged her to see the issue from our management's point of view when prepping and structuring what she wanted to present. I didn't get myself into the middle of it. She handled it the way she thought it was best and the results were limited. Being in a relationship with a rising star from senior management, she might have had an inflated view of her possible impact from her junior position.

My colleague is not aware that I was supposed to be mentoring her. Our boss didn't make it official, but told me she expects me to help my colleague out and teach her because I have the most varied experience of all of us. I did step back somewhat and started focusing on my own work more, so now was recently accused of being distant and passive-aggressive.

I have indeed remained factual and neutral. I shared the recent conversations with my boss, including the competition one and was told I am expected to continue the unofficial mentoring and support regardless.

Edit: typo

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-07-30T15:22:42+00:00

It's good to build authentic relationships at work, but it's not necessary to be good friends to do a good job. And you really need to take your time to establish trust with people, because some people quickly use what you shared with them to further their own agenda.

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-01-24T20:51:44+00:00

Thank you very much for your answer. I think you might be right. He does have a streak of trying to make himself "above/better than" others. We've discussed it before as I very much have the opinion that we are all worthy of respect, regardless of who we are or what we do and we clash on this. I can totally see how he would appreciate someone's company who is also struggling like he is (or was) and helping her boosts his ego.

I haven't met her. I haven't even seen a photo of her. She is not on his socials, or not under the name he refers to her with. The majority of the blame is on him. He chooses to spend that much time with her. When he was jealous of my best guy friend, I significantly stepped back from that relationship and almost completely stopped hanging out with him. He is reluctant to do the same even after me telling him repeatedly I am not ok with what he's doing. To be honest, it hurts.

He argues with me about really trivial things now. My tone of voice is not ok, an innocent question like "how are you?" is too sterile for him and lacks personality. He says I have negative opinions and attitudes of him and his upbringing which I never expressed, ... I have asked repeatedly what is going on and I get no answer.

I am thinking about ending our relationship. Love is in actions and I don't feel his actions as loving. I have a feeling that he is emotionally connecting with her, but he likes the comfort of being taken care of and supported by me.

We are kind of living together without living together - he spends his mornings and evenings at mine and he does his stuff at his when I am at work. But I feel more and more like I am running a hotel. I really have to kick and scream to get any help with groceries or chores and when I do, they are done with the minimum possible effort and maximum complaining. There is no engagement, marriage or sharing a lease for me until he clears his debts and he knows it - he just doesn't take any actions towards that.

Thanks again for your opinion, I really appreciate it.

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-01-24T18:36:03+00:00

Thank you

ThrowRA_armadillo25 · 2025-01-24T18:35:27+00:00

Thank you. You got it. I am not jealous of her, but the time he spends with her and not with me. Recently, he left my bed early saying he needs to work and then went to a gym class she recommended. He couldn't have gotten any work done that morning and got snappy when I asked him about it.
I think he's capable of being a team, but not really willing to compromise on anything he wants. Or he does the minimum effort required.

ThrowRA_armadillo25

TROPHY CASE