Selling Sunset: How to deal with not liking a friend’s partner

It’s supposed to be a TV series about the biggest, most beautiful houses in Los Angeles, but the people who sell them often steal the show. And the latest episodes of the Netflix reality series Selling Sunset, now in its ninth season, have sparked a debate about how to deal with a friend’s “toxic” partner.

Two stars of the show, real estate agents Chrishell Stause and Emma Hernan, have been fighting on and off camera over Emma’s boyfriend, Blake Davis, who Chrishell doesn’t like.

It boiled over during a season finale reunion and led to online debates about how, or even if, you can remain friends with someone whose partner you don’t like.

We spoke to a woman with first-hand experience of that dilemma and two relationship experts about what to do in this complicated situation.

On the show, Stause, 44, says she never approved of Hernán’s relationship with real estate developer Davis. She claims he “love bombed” Hernán early in the relationship and that there were “big red flags.” Love bombing often involves someone showering their partner with gifts, attention, and various promises.

Hernán told Netflix’s online publication that she “doesn’t blame” Stause for trying to protect her, but that she would like Stause to “take a step back and realize” her level of love and support. She has also said, “I’ve enjoyed my time with him… Everyone can say what they want, or they can love him or hate him. But ultimately, it’s my choice who I end up with.”

Some of us will have experienced similar situations firsthand.

Hannah, who did not want to give her last name, told BBC News that she fell out with her long-time friend, Georgia (not her real name), over a partner.

Hannah says Georgia “had a history of dating not very nice people” and moved out of London with a new partner who “proposed to her pretty quickly, I think in about a year.”

It felt like Georgia was “under his spell,” and then, on a night out before the wedding, Hannah says, Georgia’s fiancé made sexual comments about Hannah. “He came up to me and started telling me all the things he wanted to do to me in a very graphic and explicit way.”

She says the experience was “very uncomfortable” and “came out of nowhere.”

When Hannah told Georgia a few days later, Georgia “tried to downplay it and was saying things like ‘he does that with all his friends,’ and I was trying to explain to her that he was saying really inappropriate things,” Hannah says.

Relationship expert and counselor Anna Williamson, who works as a dating expert on Channel 4’s Celebs Go Dating, says trying to support a friend if you’re worried about their partner can be difficult.

It’s important not to judge them or tell them what to do, he says. Judging your friend may make them act defensive, but finding the line between supporting and judging is a “real challenge.”

“We need to be very careful about compartmentalizing our own emotions and not projecting them onto a friend, as they might not recognize that we are in a toxic relationship,” he tells the BBC. “They could be carrying feelings of shame and masking them.”

She advises starting a conversation with a friend by saying something like, “I care about you a lot, but I want to check in because I’ve noticed that you seem very stressed lately.”

Williamson adds that it’s important to “stick to the facts” and discuss with them only the things you’ve observed. He recommends avoiding phrases like “I don’t really like them,” “I think they’re toxic,” or “I think they’re abusive.”

If you still want to see your friend but don’t want to be around their partner, Williamson says you can handle it delicately. “I would say something like, ‘I really care about you, but I need to take some space away from your partner because I’m not comfortable with their behavior, but I really want to spend time with you.'”

It’s also important to make sure you have support around you, as having to look after someone else all the time can be exhausting, she says.

Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar, a relationship and trauma counselor, says that when watching Selling Sunset, part of the tension comes from cast members talking behind each other’s backs and then confronting each other about it later.

“Avoid gossiping and talking about your friend or their partner with other people which may cause hysteria,” Shaheen-Zaffar tells the BBC. She says it’s important to “stay safe” because anything you say “could be taken out of context or used against you.”

What happens if you disagree with the opinions or values ​​of a friend’s partner?

In Selling Sunset, Stause and Hernán argue over Davis’s views on politics.

Davis was scheduled to appear in the ninth season of Selling Sunset, but his scenes were cut after another storyline involving Hernán was deemed more relevant. It is not known if any of the scenes featured disagreements between Davis and Stause, but Hernán has denied that Davis expressed “political opinions” in front of Stause.

Shaheen-Zaffar says that ultimately, “you have to respect individual people’s decisions” and “try to be civil” if you still want that friend to be a part of your life. “I think we’ve developed a culture where if someone doesn’t agree with what we think, we don’t like them,” he says.

This isn’t the advice she says she would give if someone is being openly “bigoted,” but rather if they simply have views you don’t agree with. “It takes a lot of self-development and digging to understand and accept other people’s opinions,” he adds.

Whether you can cope with the conflicting opinions of a friend’s partner depends on what “aligns with your values,” he says.

Sometimes your partner’s actions can be too much for you and can break the friendship completely.

After what happened with Georgia’s partner, Hannah came to the conclusion that she would not be able to see her friend again if she decided to stay with him.

“I told him, ‘I love you, the door is always open but I can’t have him in my life’; it wasn’t a good, healthy presence and I felt very uncomfortable and scared,” Hannah adds.

She says that she and Georgia haven’t spoken since and that the end of the friendship “really hurts.” She and Georgia “were friends for a long time and had a lot of fun together,” although, in retrospect, she wouldn’t have done anything differently, she says.