Dear Anna,

I’ve been with my girlfriend for about a year. Things have been great overall. But lately she’s become fixated on one of her close friends, not in a romantic way — more in a spiral of comparison. Her friend is pretty, but so is my girlfriend, except when she makes self-deprecating comments about how she “could never compete” and “no wonder people always notice her first.” I’ve done my best to reassure her, but nothing I say seems to land.

Then something really strange happened. A few weeks ago, I got a flirty DM from this friend — nothing explicit, but enough to raise an eyebrow. When I mentioned it to my girlfriend, she admitted she’d asked her friend to send it as a “test” to see how I’d respond. She said she needed to “prove” to herself that I wouldn’t take the bait. I

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