I (31f) asked my bf(32m) to reflect on the company /friends he keeps around
He is basically interpreting it as I’m banning him from seeing his friends or cutting them off entirely. He has a group of friends since high school; they play card games together, 2-3x a week; every play date lasts up to 7 hrs, ending at odd hours of the night 2-3 a.m. + etc. We don’t live together, so initially I didn’t care or put thought into it; they started this weekly meetup approximately 7 months ago. What caught my attention was that he would disappear for many hours, and I’d message and get a reply every few hours; it ended up frustrating me and bringing it up. Now I don’t know these friends, never met them, but from what he’s told me, they are “the boys”; it seems they are comfortable making jokes about women and belittling other people and/or racist jokes or remarks or saying “gay” as a joke. Using slurs like retarded, etc. I even asked “would these men be safe and comfortable to be around your daughter?” And he hesitated to answer and eventually said no. My bf is not like that in the time I’ve known him (3 years now), but he seems too comfortable in that type of environment, and I’ve asked him to reflect if that is a good group of people to be around. We were planning on moving in together at least in the talks. But I brought up how you are who you surround yourself with; he has defended this group of men saying he is not cutting them off and as if I’m basically asking him to leave them. The end goal is marriage; the friends never seemed a problem (he rarely saw them in the beginning), but now they’re a part of his weekly routine for the past 7 months. It makes me think if we do move in together and get married, these guys will be a part of our life or at least his, but to my understanding, when you marry someone, you become 1. So idk how I feel about it.
The fact that they behave like this, and he's seeing them more is really concerning (he may be reasonable and accepting-ish now, but people get radicalized all the time, especially when they're around and putting up with this sort of behavior...). If you feel he's a good guy and worth it, then I would give him some space and time to process. I think we all tend to be a little defensive and prone to resisting change, so his reaction could just be a poor reaction, but one that evolves given some reflection. That said, I think your concerns are more than valid, and I would not want to move forward with someone like this. Beyond anything else, he can excuse and defend behavior like this, and I wouldn't want to merge my life, much less raise a child, with someone with those sort of weak morals.
