Boyfriend using bulk of his holiday allowance for ‘secret’ holiday with his mate

[Alicew5]

I’ve been with my boyfriend since early 2025, we had discussed plans for this year in terms of going abroad on holiday etc as we didn’t go away last year. He has 25 days holiday and 6/7 days are being used up for weddings which is fine so in theory he has ample left.

He has revealed to me, after I’ve been on about getting something booked, that ‘before we were serious’ he committed to his friend that he’d go to Asia (Thailand specifically) with him in November this year. This has never been mentioned to me before. The issue? It will use up nearly 3 weeks of his holiday allowance, meaning he won’t have enough to go abroad for at least a week with me.

He said he promised his mate and won’t let him down. His mate is going anyway - he goes there every year, usually solo! My BF said there isn’t a compromise with him going for a lesser duration, as it wouldn’t be cost effective that way and he’d not seen everything there is to see.

AIBU to feel this is selfish? We have been in a relationship for over a year so I feel like he isn’t making me a priority.

I would assume his pal is a sex tourist and your bf is wanting to go along this year because he wants to give it a go too.

I would certainly be very wary of both your bf and his friend. And not being honest about the holiday in the first place is a bad sign in itself
.

Just let him choose his priorities and, if they’re not you then end it.

You can’t change him or make him want to choose you over this trip. If it’s a deal breaker for you that he promised you a trip abroad and now can’t deliver then have the courage to walk away!

Why did I know this was Thailand before I opened the thread?

OP, it's full of red flags. You're not his first choice of holiday partner 🚩, there are types of things he wants to do with his mate before getting serious 🚩, he chooses Thailand to experience these things 🚩, he doesn't care at all that the one thing you'd requested won't be possible 🚩...

I honestly think in overwhelming likelihood, this is not good news about your boyfriend's character or about his commitment to you.

Sex tourism and not necessarily with females of adult age either.

Young boys are victims of western sex tourism as well as girls and women.

The biggest issue here is that he's obviously lying about when he planned it otherwise it would have come up as soon as you started talking about possibly going on holiday together this year.

Plenty of people go there for other reasons you know. Strange that people who travel to the phillipines or Cambodia don't get labelled the same way and plenty of sex tourism goes in there also

I had to check the date of the OP because I swear I've read it before, some months ago 🤨

Edit: my apologies I was thinking of this thread...

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5407883-dp-lied-about-his-holiday-allowance-and-we-cant-go-away

I've been to Thailand. I went for a month in my youth. Bangkok is full of live sex shows, ping pong shows etc, lots of strip bars, lady boy bars etc as well as the obvious prostitution. I don't think two lads would be going to sightsee or visit temples somehow. It is a beautiful country and the people are absolutely lovely.

A signal that he keeps promises made to friends before he even knew OP?

Why should he let his friend down on a pre arranged trip, it’s perfectly possible to have a relationship and do things with friends too.

He wants to have an adventure with a mate.
Why would you try to stop that ? Just plan some nice weekends away with him, and make other arrangements for your own holiday.

Imy son has been twice He goes hiking in the mountains and swimming in waterfalls as well as visiting temples etc. He's in his 20s

There's also heaps of other things in Bangkok if you keep away from nana plaza, patong and some of KSR it's a whole other world

Not to be rude but he's not exactly going to tell his mum he is nailing prostitutes every night is he? 😂I'm sure he is a lovely boy and does do all his mountain climbing but I think a lot of women are really blind to this stuff. Its not the oldest profession for no reason. A lot of men are more than happy to do stuff like this when they aren't at home... especially somewhere that normalises it like Bangkok.

I think you are being very naive if you are in denial about the amount of men who visit Thailand for sex tourism.

Of course not everyone goes there for sex tourism, but not everyone is a young man travelling on his own to the same place every year. I know couples and friends who have gone there for normal holidays, but I also used to know a guy who would go every year as he knew he wasn’t attractive and it was easy to find women there who wanted to be his “girlfriend”

Same suspicion here.

I'd dump a guy who wanted to go to Thailand without me. His friend who goes there alone every year is going for one main reason and its not the beautiful scenery!

He'll be introducing your boyfriend to his hobby. It would be a no from me.

I really think this is utterly bizarre. A normal man would definitely not invite his partner of a year on a holiday with his friend. It would be a deeply weird thing to ask.

Secret holiday.
To Thailand.

Fuck that.

Bin.

I agree

It's an absolute state that so many people on here boil a country down to "sex tourism" and call people naive if they don't immediately shame anyone that goes there. Not saying it doesn't happen but people on here are just so myopic.

I thought the suspicions of men who solo travelled to Thailand were unfair, until the respectable relative who went on his own came back married to a woman half his age who he had bought a large plot of land for. She actively avoids spending time with him and always has.

I'm baffled at people thinking a year into a relationship is new... If my husband-to-be hadn't wanted to spend most of his annual leave with me after a year of dating, I'd have thought he wasn't that into me.
I don't see the point in relationships that aren't meaningful so would have ended it.
Appreciate that lots of people prefer relaxed relationships that don't go anywhere.

I mean let’s be honest there is only one reason a single male is going to Thailand for 3weeks!

If it was planned that long ago, it is odd that he didn’t mention it

Deeply weird? Why? After a year of dating my dh definitely preferred traveling with me to traveling with an old mate. If he wanted a fun trip with his sexual partner, that was me. I definitely took precedence over his old mates.