My friend is currently dating a guy younger than her. Let’s call him A. There is another guy who is interested in her, let’s call him B, but she has no interested in him. B has been very persistent with his attempt to get her to like him and she has been trying hard to push him away. It doesn’t seem to work as far as I can see.

The thing is, from what my friend told me, A is really “prone to suspicion”. It seems like every time she has an interaction with someone of an opposite gender, A would start asking questions about who that person is and why the conversation even takes place to begin with. A lot of her complaints about him just boil down to “he is afraid that person would take me away from him”. Today she talked to me about how B went to her house to give her a present even though she already declined in text. She was annoyed by B, but also afraid A would get the wrong idea. I told her to just be honest with A and tell him how she had resisted B’s attempt. I also suggested that she should also show A her texts to prove her point. She then told me that she had already deleted the texts with B because she was afraid A would see the messages by accident and get mad. She revealed to me that when B initially offered to give her the present, she refused then deleted the messages because she was afraid A would see them. So right now her phone only has the part where B announced that he had already come to her home to deliver the presents. So she can’t show the messages to A because that would only make her more guilty. She also said that she did tell A about her situation with B in the past but he told her she was “giving B opportunity”.

Something about A just doesn’t sit right with me. From what my friend told me, A seems like a really toxic person who just wants to own his lover. Before the present incident, I did bring up how I don’t approve of A’s controlling behavior. My friend just brushed it off saying “it’s just part of a romantic relationship”, then brought up how gentle and caring A is around her. I have never been in a romantic relationship before, but everything just sounds really suffocating to me. What do you think about this? Do you think it’s normal for lovers to behave this way?