My Girlfriend’s Male “Helicopter” Friend

What you should do if your girlfriend has a male “helicopter” friend who is always orbiting in the background.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a viewer whose girlfriend of eight months has a male “helicopter” friend who is always in the background. He’s a former boyfriend, and for a period of time was also her friend with benefits lover. She ended their romantic relationship once she realized she wanted something more than a casual hookup but kept him as a friend.

The problem is this male helicopter friend is always asking about their sex life and other intimate details of their personal relationship, that leads him to believe he still has romantic feelings and desires for his girlfriend. He asks how he should handle it. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

I’ve got an email here from a guy who’s been following my work for awhile. He’s read my first book, How To Be A 3% Man, several times. Things have been going well with his girlfriend for about eight months now, but she has a male orbiter, or “helicopter friend” as he refers to it, that’s always in the background. And the thing is, this is not just some average guy. This is a guy who actually at one time was her boyfriend and then later became a friends with benefits.

So, the thing he doesn’t like is this guy’s always asking her questions about their sex life and intimate details of their relationship. And she was the one who had ended things with guy romantically, because when they were just friends with benefits, she came to recognize that she wanted something more than just a casual hookup. So, obviously, it’s starting to especially bother him that this guy is asking intimate details. It seems like she’s telling this guy what’s going on in the relationship and he doesn’t like it, but he’s not sure how to handle it.

Those who don’t honor healthy boundaries, can’t be trusted and are disqualified from being considered for a monogamous exclusive type of relationship. If the average guy understood that, it would save them a lot of trouble and a lot of heartache. Because I see that in my phone sessions, lots of guys get into relationships with women and they’re months down the road before they find out what the woman’s really like. And by then, they’re all goo goo gaga, and they’re dopey about her and they make excuses and they rationalize her terrible behavior, thinking they’re going to be different, they’re going to be the white knight. They’re the guy that’s going to save her, change her, solve all of her problems.

Ideally, what you’re looking for is a teammate, somebody that can be an equal, somebody you can grow with, somebody that you can help them grow and achieve their goals, dreams and values, and vice versa. Not somebody that’s basically another child that you have to take care of and constantly hover around and wonder whether or not they’re doing the right thing.

Viewer’s Email:

Hey Coach Corey,

I’m a huge fan of your work, and proud owner of your book.  I am on my 4th read through and plan on reading a minimum of 6 more times. I have come across some concerns I wanted to ask your advice on.

I have been in an exclusive relationship with this woman I met a year ago. We’ve been in a solid relationship for 8 months and things have been well. I have noticed she has a ‘Helicopter friend,’ and I wanted to know how to best handle him. She used to date him, but broke things off when they discovered their values and religion don’t align. They remained friends with benefits after, but she broke that off when she wanted something real. They remained friends.

So, the important thing to understand about that is that she broke it off with the guy. And when we get in the next paragraph and you see the kinds of things that he’s asking her, it’s pretty obvious. Remember, just like the quote says, rejection breeds obsession. So in other words, she closed off access to the box from this other guy, and yet he stayed engaged in contacting her, trying to spend time with her.

And the reality is most guys, most self respecting men, who have choices and have options are going to be like, “Hey, it’s been great. Give me a call if you change your mind,” and they’re just going to move on with their life. And the only way they would really continue to be friends is if there were there were no romantic feelings between either one of them.

Typically, most times those people go their separate ways and that’s the end of it. And women that come from good families where they love their mom and their dad, these kinds of guys, they don’t keep around anymore. They just kind of disappear because they know it’s not loving, and they tend to have good, honorable people in their lives, not somebody that they kind of keep around with. If they get desperate or things aren’t going well, they just go and hook up with them.

Now, women that typically don’t have good relationships with their dads or nonexistent relationships with their dads, you’ve got to understand that they missed out, they didn’t get enough strokes, they didn’t get enough hugs as a child. And so, whether they realize it or not, they’re going to be seeking that attention and validation oftentimes in unhealthy ways.

That’s why when they didn’t get enough male attention and validation from a father figure growing up, when they become an adult and they start dating, they have that same vibe. They have that same emotional anchoring to that kind of behavior, and so, they fill that up, what they feel they’re missing by having several guys in their life that can fulfill those needs and stroke their egos. It may just be having an Instagram profile where they post very risque pictures, so they get all of the attention and validation.

I’ve got friends whose daughters are in college or in their early 20s, and it’s kind of funny. We’ve had these conversations, because of just what I do for a living. So, we’re all sitting around hanging out and we start talking. Obviously, eventually we end up on the dating topic. They’ll go on the dating apps, especially if a guy rejected them that they really liked or were hoping it would go somewhere with, they go into dating app and they don’t have any intention of meeting any of those guys. It’s just helps to stroke their ego and that, “Okay, guys do desire me.” But they never go out with any of those guys. So it’s interesting how that tends to work.

She was upfront and clear with him that she is in a relationship with me.

Notice what he says next.

He pokes around and keeps in touch, but I also notice he asks personal questions to her, “How are things in the bedroom?”

Well, why do you think he’s asking that question? In other words, “What’s he like in bed compared to me?” The only reason you’re going to ask something like that is that it’s obvious he doesn’t respect the fact that she’s in a relationship and has a boyfriend. And he’s obviously thinking about having sex with her again, even though she’s in a relationship.

“How was (insert sex act here)?” Her responses to him place our relationship in a positive light, but that’s my problem. She’s responding to those questions instead of telling him to mind his business. The fact that he asks implies to me he still has sexual feelings for her and is merely hovering, looking for a weakness. What should I do and how should I approach this? 

Thanks!

Bob

So, what she should be saying to him is, “Hey, that’s really not appropriate for you to be asking intimate details of my sexual relationship with my boyfriend.” He shouldn’t be doing those things, and your girlfriend should be setting and enforcing those healthy boundaries. And if he keeps violating them, then she’s going to say, “Now that I’m in a relationship, you keep asking these questions. I’ve asked you in a nice way not to, and yet you keep bringing it up. And it’s just not appropriate. Out of respect for my current boyfriend, we’re just not going to be able to talk or keep in touch.” That’s the right way to handle it.

And then you can always flip it around. It’s like, “How would you like it if I was talking to or I had an old girlfriend or friends with benefits that was contacting me and asking about our sex life and what you’re like in bed? You probably wouldn’t like that too much. You probably would get a little jealous about that. You’d probably be a little upset. It’s like, why is your ex girlfriend, or your ex fuck buddy, why is she asking these question? Why is she asking you questions about us? What business is it of hers?”

Because the idea is, the relationship is between the two of you, and allowing some other guy who used to be her lover at one time to ask these intimate questions is not loving. It’s not the kind of thing that shows her boyfriend, the guy that wrote the email, that she’s a good, loyal person. The fact that she’s entertaining these questions for this other guy shows that the intimacy between the two of them really is kind of like public knowledge.

And obviously, if you’re focused on building a strong relationship between the two of you, you shouldn’t be telling all of the intimate details of your relationship to an ex-boyfriend. And it’s obvious, just because of the kinds of questions, he’s comparing himself to her current boyfriend, because he obviously still has desire for and is hoping, at some point, to be hooking up with her again. That’s the only reason to be asking those kinds of questions.

Now, if the ex-boyfriend or the ex friends with benefits had a new girlfriend, and he was happy in that relationship, and he had integrity, he wouldn’t be asking any of these questions. He’d be like, “Oh, let’s go out on a double date and do fun things together.” But he would never want to spend time alone with her without his girlfriend present, and obviously her boyfriend being present, if he had integrity. That’s just the right thing to do. That’s the honorable thing to do, to do things in group settings.

Many times over the years, I’ve gone out and done double dates with old girlfriends of mine and their current boyfriends, and I’m with my new girlfriend, or girlfriend that I’m dating at the time, and everything is fully disclosed. But it’s like, we do things together as a group, like a double date. It’s not something to where she and I are sneaking off together and doing something, because there’s no honor in that. If you live your life from integrity, you don’t have to operate that way.

So, that how you need to handle that and you’ve got to see how she reacts. If three or four months from now after you’ve had this conversation you find out that he’s still asking these kinds of questions and she hasn’t pushed him away, that would give me reason to pause, to wonder, is she even a candidate to be in a long term relationship with? Because remember, you want to have a drama free zone in your life. And having a guy like this in the background, he’s bringing drama. He’s bringing things that are going to cause friction in your relationship between you and your girl.

And if you have made a good choice and your woman has integrity, and she loves you, and she respects you, and she’s a good person, she won’t want you to think anything inappropriate is going on, and she’ll set boundaries with this guy. But if he continues to violate it, then she’ll just stop talking to him. Or maybe there was a couple of guys, you know, because I know some women have multiple guys like this in their life. And it’s always best to handle this, especially once you become exclusive. You’ve got to see how they handle it, because sometimes women will agree to it. They’ll agree to set the boundaries and then they never will. And then when you find out that they’re doing it again, you confront them months later, they have an excuse, or they try to lie their way out of it, or they say they will this time.

That’s why it’s best, especially if you’re thinking about getting married or anything like that, you date somebody for a couple of years, so you have time for these kinds of scenarios to come up. Because once you get married and you get the government involved, if you ever want to dissolve that marriage, what a pain in the ass it’s going to be. So, you want to do your due diligence up front and have enough time before you move in together, you have kids together, you’ll get married, involve the government, that kind of thing.

So you can read “How To Be A 3% Man” for free and my second book “Mastering Yourself” at UnderstandingRelationships.com. All you’ve got to do is subscribe to the email newsletter. These “Drama Free Zone” mugs are available at Teespring.com in the Coach Corey Wayne store. And if you’d like to talk to me, whether it’s a personal or professional issue you need help with, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at top of your screen and book a coaching session with yours truly.

“Women who keep male orbiters and “helicopter” friends in the background who are former boyfriends and friends with benefits typically will monkey branch between them and their current boyfriend/lover when things are not going well, their attraction is low, or the future of their relationship is in doubt. Women who have integrity and who value loyalty, communication and commitment will keep their exes at distance, and if they do spend time with them, it will be in a group setting with their current lover present. Rejection tends to breed obsession, and guys who were pushed away, rejected or friend zoned typically will harbor romantic feelings and stay in touch in hopes of getting a second chance. That’s why it is important to always set and enforce healthy boundaries and see if people honor them. Those who don’t can’t be trusted and are disqualified from being considered for a monogamous exclusive type of relationship.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne   

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