Partner on holiday with a female friend!

"Being a woman" is not the focus of any of my friendships, with women or men! It's not even the thing that I bond with other women about. Frankly the most interesting conversations about "being a woman" and "being a man" are those I have with the opposite sex.

Men can certainly do rambling talks about things they're interested in, but again - long, rambling talks for hours on end are not what I'm looking for in my friendships.

if there's anything that forum should show you, it's that being a woman is nowhere near enough to be "close" to another woman 😂

I am much closer to a couple of my best male friends that I could ever will be with some of the posters on here.

There's no such thing as the sisterhood nonsense, you can be close to anyone, and have male and female besties! You only need 1 or 2 besties, and close friends are not gender related .

I feel the same way.
Two things are true at the same time here, you are insecure and don’t want him around female friends unless you’re there and he then feels the need to lie about the friend. If he’d been honest from the beginning what would you have said? Would you have given him an ultimatum of it you or her? I don’t think that’s very fair but you have your reasons and there are plenty of men who feel the same way about male friends, your not compatible so you are right to call it a day.

I didn't say that men and women have nothing in common. I said I can't understand how your closEST friends can be opposite sex rather than same sex. Another woman gets being a woman far, far more than a man does. I can imagine being fairly close friends with a man, but I cannot imagine ever being closER to a male friend than I am to my female friends. Unless the man is my partner, I have far more things to talk about with women. I also find that men don't do the long, rambling talks for hours on end that my female friends and I have.

If your man wouldn’t happily sit on a beach chatting about his favourite books/films/shows to a female friend then frankly you’ve got worse things to worry about than the friend as he seems to have no depth or conversational ability. Nor the ability to see women as more than sexual partners.

I’m glad you broke up with him as he sounds boring AF.

How on earth can you not imagine what a man and a woman have in common?

Music. Literature. Politics. Sports. Travel. Nature. Art. Food and drink. Cinema. Gardening. I'm just scratching the surface here. The entire breadth of human interests that aren't dictated by our genitalia?!

The things I like to do with my closest male friends range from gigs and festivals to hikes to fancy tasting menus to political protests. I do those things with female friends as well, and of course DP. My closest friends (men and women) are the ones I've bonded most with over the longest period of time, I guess?

Because people’s interests aren’t dictated by genitalia? In your world do women just shop and get their nails done boobily and men just box and gym testicularly?

My husbands best friends are women. All 4 of them. And they have been best friends since they were 12…they have decades of friendship and history and stories as a basis for ‘things in common’, several of them are keen gardeners and fantasy novel readers and they go rock climbing. As does my husband - he also hates most other sports, doesn’t drink and gets injured easily. Hardly a macho man.

My closest friends are female and so are his. Not a big deal.

The amount of people on here claiming that they and their partners' dearest and closest friends are opposite sex! I don't get it at all. How do you even have enough in common with them that they are closer than same-sex friends? I can't imagine being much closer with a male friend than any of my female friends, which is what's meant when people say "closest". It's very unusual, imo, for your closest and dearest friends to be opposite sex.

Exactly! 🤣🤣🤣

MN is funny
Posters who only take one part of the OP posts and then argue vehemently on how theyre better than the OP whilst describing a situation that is wildly different.

Like ‘my dh goes on hols with female friends’ forgetting the lying
Or ‘I have no issue with man-woman friendship’ whilst ignoring that woman is physically all over the OP’s (ex)DP, up to the point other people are commenting and warning her.

I don't at all see what the issue is with your response. Your boyfriend went on holiday with a group, this woman was present, he said she wasn't, then said she joined them later. This was a lie; one which, if he'd had nothing to hide, would have been unnecessary in the first place. I wouldn't have wanted to stay in a relationship with a deceitful man any more than you did. One thing I will not tolerate is a liar.

You have drawn your own boundaries, - and yes, boundaries are a good thing - considered whether or not you are willing to be in a relationship on this basis, and concluded that you're not. I'd say that adheres to the standard truism that you can't control the behaviour of others but can control your own. It's the very opposite of 'controlling'.

The fact that he's now trying to tell you that it is, and that it's your behaviour rather than this deliberate lies causing the problem here, tells you all you need to know. He's a waste of your valuable time and for me this would be the final nail in the coffin.

Kudos to you, OP, for getting rid. He's no prize.

I’m guessing that your husband tells you BEFORE he sets off on his holiday that his female friends are going too ?
Or does he wait until part way thru the holiday to tell you that the female friend “MIGHT” be joining him …. when in fact she’s already out there enjoying the holiday from the start?

The holiday itself wouldn't bother me provided seperate sleeping arrangements, but the lying would have ended it for me as well.

Oh calm down! I have never given a stuff about my partner having lads nights out and vice versa and at times we go out as couples. I've been with my partner and not even married so we are not insecure people in the slightest so don't be arrogant or think you have a superpower. But if you think the Instagram posts of the woman in over was fair then maybe you aren't so great towards your own partner. I also have make friends and I would never disrespect their wives, I'm not needy for their attention.

@Daisymay1000 based on your updates I know exactly the type of person this friend is and I wouldn't be happy in this scenario either (and I consider myself unbothered about male/female friendships).

I think you've done the right thing.

Man idk how anyone would be okay with this, even if he did say upfront because wtf. Why go on a holiday with some other woman """friend""" and not you. Fuck that. Then to lie about it, twice. Fuuuuck that.

So sweet of you to feel sorry for me! 🤣

Oh is being all over a man you know is with someone else a personality trait now?
I didn’t realise that getting physical (as in physical close contact, not sex) is a personality issue rather than a behaviour issue

I voted YANBU but not about the hols being 3 men and 1 woman.

Its the fact he has no respect for you

He lied.
And no it wasn’t case of ‘he was going to loose either way’. In part because no one should ever ‘loose’ in a partnership. Compromise are made, solutions are found, concerns are listened to and take into account. As soon as you hit ‘win-loose’ ground, then I feel you’ve lost it.
But more to the point, if you’ve reached the state where you have to lie to have a life, then you should be out.

But he also has no respect for you.
No man would let another woman all over him, in front of everyone! Whether it’s on the ring, in photos, on hols.
He could have stopped her behaviour agd out boubdaries but he didn’t. And he didn’t because 1- he has no respect fir you, 2- he probably enjoys the attention.

As for the ‘over reacting’ comment from him…
Well he is just unhappy he has lost his toy but still has no wish to either gain understanding or repair things.
That Akso tells you a lot about who he is.

And that’s regardless of her behaviour. Even if it’s shit, it doesn’t matter. What matters is his reaction to it!

DP and I both have friends of the opposite sex and we'd be fine with each other going on a holiday that included them.

Neither of us would be fine with the other lying about it though. Neither of us would be fine with a situation where one of us 'does not allow' the other to do something either.

So those are your massive red flags - he lies, and he controls you. Get rid and move on.

Genuinely I did read them all, but she's basically just said she doesn't like her personality.

It's a "lads' holiday" all right... 🤔

I'm surprised at how many people are defending it! It's not normal to disallow your partners to come on holiday citing it as a lads holiday and then take another woman that flaunts that fact all over Instagram that she's with your partner and your not! If you are taking a female friend then there's no justifiable reason not to take female partners along which is the nice and respectful thing to do!

Not doing it causes hurt, I guarantee it causes embarrassment when everybody starts gossiping about your partner being on holiday with another woman and telling you that he's cheating on you. It's annual leave and money lost on another woman which cuts down on the amount of annual leave and money you've got to spend doing anything together. I don't see what is decent or acceptable about taking one woman and not taking them all!

I don’t know if her going is necessarily wrong but him lying about it definitely is, how can he expect you to now trust him