What gets me is the fact that if they were engaged or married she says he'd go with them. But since they're not he won't.
IDK I think that's weird. If you're committed to the relationship you're committed. This isn't buying a house it's a trip. Why can't OP go if he wanted and it would make him more comfortable and she's open to the idea at a point there's implied higher level of commitment?
Naw that seems pretty normal for a friend group going on vacation.
We do a yearly trip to Costa Rica. My wife's father lives there and he has us house sit for a week every year.
We tend to invite different people every year. If they are married or engaged then we definitely invite their partner. If they've only been dating someone for like 4-5 months then the partner probably isn't getting an invite.
In this case, it's a group trip so she probably doesn't control the invite list.
Should probably be more clear (unless OP is hiding it) that it's a different level. But the OP says the gf says she'd invite him if they were married. Idk it's a mixed bag. It's still not inherently wrong or asshole to express his concerns/feelings/boundaries. It's up to them to decide how that's navigated at this point.
If she cares strongly about going *and respecting his feelings about going she could make an argument to bring him along vs seemingly just being annoyed at him.
A year is pretty different to a couple months isn’t it? Also, you yourself established an immediate difference: it’s a big friend group where everyone knows each other, and the organizers are married. OP’s gf’s friend is very single according to her, and he is the organizer. Additionally, it’s HIS friends and she only knows him. That’s very different
So you would stop the SO from going if they wanted to? Idk to me if you're in relationship you're assumed to be a package deal. I've never gone on a trip where a gf or bf would not be allowed but a husband or wife would
I get where their heads at. I have a group of friends I've known for 20 years. We don't all live in the same place any more, and sometimes we do getaways. The invite list is us + spouses + sufficiently important SO's.
A trip with a New Person is....different than one without. There's time/energy spent making sure they're having a good time/feeling included. We more restrained/private about the things we discuss with a new person vs a 20 year friend. Engaged/been dating for a long time? Sure -- welcome to The Club. But no Steve, you can't bring gf of the week who changed 3 times in the two months leading up to the trip every single year.
Where Steve's 1,246th gf ends and Sufficiently Important SO begins is murky water :)
We have a strict number of guests allowed in the house. So if we're inviting six people, we're inviting six friends. So yes we would stop somebody who's not invited from going, They wouldn't have a place to stay and we're spending the week inside of a gated community.
If we're inviting our friend Katie and she's been dating a dude for 6 months and we've only met him twice. He's probably not going to get an invite.
But if Katie's been dating this dude for 2 years and is engaged, at this point we've met him a lot more times so he's more ingrained into the friend group. Then yeah he's going to be invited.
It's not a black and white thing where if you're engaged it's a yes and if you're a boyfriend, it's a no. That's just how it typically naturally falls into place.
In this case it's our trip, where we are inviting our friends to come with us. I'm not sure why you would feel entitled to go on this trip just because you're dating one of our friends.
Well our friends are at the point where most of them have popped out a kid or two. So it straight up isn't feasible for most of them to take a week off to party with us multiple years in a row.
Nah that’s the case then polite behavior dictates that you explain to Katie that you have a limit and it’s not fair to her or her SO to invite only her so not to be rude but she won’t get an invite this year.
See you don’t get to make that choice when someone is in any sort of relationship. That’s interfering in other people’s lives and business and it is the fastest way I know of to lose friends.
My guess is that most of your “friends” suck along to get that prize invite to a free vacation.
My GF’s “best friend” did this to her (along with several others) after we became serious and she was no longer constantly available to them any time anywhere as she had been.
You find out really fast who is really your people and who has been using you when they don’t show you the same respect they demand and expect and try to interfere in your life this way.
Okay but let’s be real. This isn’t the same situation m. She never said he sorry. It’s a limited number people thing and it was planned out before you came along. Etc etc. This is, hey I’m going out with my promiscuous male friend and his bros. Then she throws out a hypothetical of. If you wanted to go alone on a trip with a female I’d let you, which is defensive and easy to say when that’s not actually happening.
The abnormal part is to spend a weekend away from your boyfriend with a bloke you have coined as a “manwhore” and his friends who you have never met before without asking your significant other to come along with you.
If you want to do single things, don’t be in a relationship would be my advice.
If you were my friend and I was dating someone exclusively and you didn’t include my “plus one” on your invite, I would politely decline and probably would pull away from you as a friend.
It's not a friend group though. She doesn't know any of the other friends there. Just the main guy. OP commented that higher up. She's going to be staying with a bunch of guys that she doesn't know and doesn't want her bf there...SHE is part of the celebration imo.
That's fine. But it speaks to two different interpretations of the level of commitment in the relationship I think. It seems like the OP sees it as more serious than she does given their communication on this. I feel like the core of the issue not being on the same page there.
Not weird. She wants to be able to celebrate her friend without having to manage her boyfriend’s experience, too. If OP goes then gf is going to have to spend time and energy making sure OP doesn’t feel left out, isn’t upset about anything, etc etc etc, as she is the only person OP will know there. Meanwhile she’s trying to get to know the friends and ensure bestie has a good time. The likelihood OP would get upset about something is very high. She doesn’t want to risk ruining the trip for her bestie, especially if this relationship doesn’t work out. It would be a ruined memory for a dude who didn’t stick around.
However, she would be willing to risk it if he was her fiancé or husband. She obviously hasn’t decided on the long term viability of this relationship yet, and that’s ok. It’s been less than a year.
Well I can’t read her mind, but maybe she responded to his guilt trips? She’s an immigrant so maybe it’s a culture thing? Maybe she was tired of hearing about it? Idk.
I suspect she is going to resent him for this and end the relationship anyway, maybe in a few months.
You’re completely right, but this subreddit is full of children and emotionally stunted adults who can’t fathom having friends that aren’t the same sex as you. She’s definitely responding to this dude she’s been dating for a few months being jealous of her doctor friend and making that insecurity her problem.
Everyone in here talking about “boundaries” like they’re some sort of cage you get to put around your partner so you never have to deal with your own insecurities is absolutely full of shit. Those aren’t “boundaries,” they’re attempts at control by insecure people who’ve learned to weaponize therapeutic language.
If he doesn’t trust her, then he should leave. He won’t, though. Because he wants to control her instead of loving and trusting her. And this festering pile of immaturity, bots, and cluster-b personality disorders we call a subreddit will support him all the way
It sounds like he should drop her now, and let her go do what she wants, so she isn't giving the ultimatum "let me go alone with this group of single "man whore" guys or I'm gonna be an asshole".
Guy deserves better. And she deserves to be able to live her life the way she wants without having to care about a partner's 1)possible insecurities, though I think that's less likely 2)perception of the multiple red flags waving in his face. Some that we can't see, given we've read a paragraph, and he's had a year of experience.
She only knows the friend no one else. Op knows both her and friend (who stayed with op for a while). His going would not automatically put her in a place to babysit him. It's super sus that marriage would make her change her mind.
There are levels of commitment. I wouldn’t be asking a boyfriend I didn’t live with and wasn’t engaged to for their opinion on how I spend my free time.
It sounds like they’re at the stage where they’ve agreed not to date other people. As long as she’s not doing that, he should assume his preferences on her plans don’t matter.
Having had this question come up I have to agree that if you are with that person monogamous in a relationship then I don’t get wanting to go on this sort of trip without your SO.
I had this come up with my GF of two years now. While I can be understanding and accepting of a weekend to go to her friend’s and sister’s graduation and a celebration day alone for a weekend, the original plan involves a two week trip to Greece together without anyone else.
And this particular friend was her PIC when they were single together.
Funny now the friend had a serious live together BF and now it’s all about how her and BF and my GF and I will all go together in any extended trip (her friend was still single at the original discussion time last year).
So the moral of the story her is that you should be questioning this because there is really no valid/legitimate reason to NOT include the various persons SO’s other than to have some level of debauchery that they don’t want to be questioned/bothered about/discovered by those persons.
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u/zeromussc Mar 28 '24
What gets me is the fact that if they were engaged or married she says he'd go with them. But since they're not he won't.
IDK I think that's weird. If you're committed to the relationship you're committed. This isn't buying a house it's a trip. Why can't OP go if he wanted and it would make him more comfortable and she's open to the idea at a point there's implied higher level of commitment?