The girlfriend and the best friend

[Curzy]

My best friend is male; I am female. We have been best friends for just over 10 years having originally met at university.

He has recently (2 months ago) started dating someone new who is uncomfortable with us going on holidays together. As a result he effectively provided an ultimatum that she would have to come on the trip (this would have entailed moving the dates of the trip as well and therefore paying a fee to move the flights) or he would cancel (the trip was a long weekend in a European country). I have never met his girlfriend (she lives abroad). There is an enormous difference I think between a trip where everyone on it is a friend and a trip where you have to play third wheel to a couple. That aside, I have severe anxiety and I know I would not do well on a holiday, albeit a short one, with someone I don't know at all. I therefore said that I would prefer that he cancel than move the dates and bring his girlfriend.

I obviously want my friend to be happy and I don't want to damage his new relationship. However all of this raises some more fundamental issues for me about our friendship. Holidaying together seems to me a natural thing to do with a friend: I also often go on holidays with other friends and I very often go with just one other person because of difficulties coordinating a larger group to be free at the same time and also because I actually prefer 1:1 interactions to larger groups anyway.

From my perspective, I feel that my supposed best friend has handled things pretty badly. He hasn't managed to get his girlfriend's trust; he has completely disregarded my feelings; he has put me in a position of making a choice he would have known was impossible for me, particularly because I haven't met her, and he apparently doesn't care enough about our friendship to put down any redlines for his girlfriend about not dictating what he can do and how he can spend his time.

I feel very strongly that it is wrong to treat someone differently because of their gender and it seems to me that his girlfriend is not uncomfortable with him holidaying with a friend but specifically uncomfortable because I am female. It also seems to me that this could be only the tip of the iceberg in terms of things she will eventually not allow him to do with me and if he is unable to put a line down somewhere it is, I think, ultimately impossible to maintain a friendship with someone you can't ever spend time with.

The questions are:

1. am I being unreasonable - if your best friend did this to you, would you be rethinking whether this person cared about your friendship or would you just think it was completely natural that they no longer wanted to go with you?
2. do you guys have any constructive ideas about what I should/could do going forward if I want to maintain this friendship and not just allow it to slowly fade away?

Thanks for taking the time to read this :)

It's normal that ' when someone starts dating someone that they have less time for their friends and that 1 to 1 time tends to become less.'.

What isn't normal is for a new partner to demand previously booked holidays are cancelled unless they come too.

How is this not controlling behaviour?

I think make/female friendships can be tricky when partners come into the equation.
The girlfriend is questioning his trust and has got her own way by the holiday not happening.
You need to get to know her separately so she doesn’t see you as a threat. Tricky as she lives abroad.
After 8 weeks he may know that he has feelings for her.
Also I think I would be unsure about a relatively new boyfriend going on holiday with another woman.
She needs to know she can trust him.

Well, if it is wholey that he would rather spend that time with the new girlfriend, then it stands that he is not a good friend.

Good friends don't ditch plans purely because they'd rather be with someone else. That's basically saying " I've found a better option"

Over the years I've learned that when it comes to friends and their new partners, there are two types of friend.

The kind who bins all their mates off the minute they have a new squeeze. They only pop back up when they're single. (Distinct correlation, 10 years on, from the friends who ditch all their child-free mates in favour of their new mum friends the minute they have a child.)

And the kind who still makes time for their mates, who doesn't enter the couple-bubble to the exclusion of everyone else, who tries to integrate their partner into their social circle.

The latter friends are the real friends.

Oh, and his new girlfriend's suspicion about you just because you're female is obviously wildly unreasonable. But he shouldn't be giving in to it. When I was dating, any man who told me I couldn't hang out with or go on holiday with my male friends was immediately dumped.

I think you need to accept that when he has a partner the dynamics between you will change.
It won't necessarily be his partner forcing the change either.
Hard as it may be for you, it will likely be his own preferences. There's every possibility he wants her on the holiday and genuinely wants to spend time he previously spent with you with her now. Some people even drop same sex friends for partners as intimate relationships are a poweful draw. It softens it a bit to say she has a problem with it.
Of course, she might be making it difficult, but i think its unfair to jump to the conclusion of poor man not being allowed to see female friends.
That said, given he has only been with her two months I think its early to be renaging on arrangements with a long term friend, but he's a grown man and has made his choice. I'd cancel.

It's a trip that's already booked and paid for. It's massively bad form to cancel. It's not respectful to bin off his friend. Your insecurity about a platonic friendship is something you need to get over. She's an old best friend. She's not competition.

It is a boundary of some people to not want their partner doing things solo that are usually typical of couples with other members of the opposite sex - sharing beds, holidays, intimate dinners etc. It’s not everyone’s boundary, but it’s not wrong, and it’s far too complex to be boiled down to ‘controlling’.

It clearly might not be your boundary, OP, but it is your friend’s GF’s, so it needs to be respected if he’s going to be with her. I can see why you’re hurt and I do think it’s a little strange for this to happen at only two months in, when the holiday is already booked, but the girlfriend is entitled to her boundaries - and this isn’t a strange one.

Time will tell on how far this might go - if the girlfriend begins to suggest you are cut out almost completely, then yes, that’s when I think it gets unreasonable, but right now it’s your run of the mill ‘I’d prefer for you not to go on holiday with another woman alone’, which I think a lot of women, and men if the situation were reversed, would agree with.

He has ditched your weekend for a two month relationship?

So rude.

I think you need to take this new information on board.

This will be how things are with him in a relationship.

Don't make any further effort and focus on other friends.

He's flakey.

I think you should have agreed to change the dates and put a good face on it for meeting her. If he's your best friend then why aren't you happy for him and why are you wanting to exclude her? The more you try that the more the GF will feel insecure and you'll be pushed out of any friendship until/if they split up.

When you have a male best friend the only way to continue that friendship if they enter a relationship is to also make friends with the gf.

I wouldn't want to 3rd wheel a holiday, just cancel or take someone else . him doing this to you for someone he's known 2 months is odd. I wouldn't want to date someone who was that possessive after 2 months,

My best friend is a man, we had a week in NYC together when I was early stages of dating my now husband.

I still have the same best friend, and now a husband.

It can work, I know my husband was a bit apprehensive and raised an eyebrow at first. But my best friend is like a brother and would be really REALLY weird to have anything more than that. He soon realised this and that the relationship was harmless.

I'd be upset, but he has to be the one to set the record straight with the girlfriend, and I would have a Frank call with him to say where does this leave us long term as if you're seen as a threat now that needs to change or the friendship won't last sadly.

I think he's dealt with this badly.

It's normal for friendship dynamics to change when someone becomes coupled, even if only in the short term, but usually long term. But it shouldn't mean you stop being friends. As he's only been seeing her a couple of months, and this was already booked, it was poor form of him to cancel. His gf may have been unreasonably demanding, but it was his choice to placate her.

He is in lust as pp have said. It may last, it might not. If it lasts, things may well change between you for good (if a long standing partner planned a city break with his female friend instead of me I don't think I'd be happy, unless there was a specific hobby-related reason they were going there). That's just how things go - and not because of your sex necessarily. People tend to see less of their friends male and female once they couple up.

So, I think he's dealt with it badly, but if they stay together - or when he meets someone new and serious - expect your friendship to change.

This is par for the course with many people.

They are simply not OK with their partner spending one on one time on trips/breaks etc with someone if the opposite sex. To them that is a couple activity.
Perhaps OK (though odd) if they're both single, but not ok & inappropriate if one or both of then are not single.

We can debate this all day but the fact remains that lots of ppl ard like this. She's one of them and your mate is not, in any way, prepared to end the relationship or insist the trip goes ahead with just the two of you.

You don't sound like you want tk play gooseberry, not many would, in the proposrd trio with its totally different dynamic so I'd simply have one of you two use the tickets, if possible, withh another friend.
Sounds like you would be the best bet to use them since dates don't suit his gf.

Suggest that to him diplomatically.

Anyway now you know he he'll act if a gf doesnt tolerate him going on trips with a female best mate.

I'd get a new best mate, and retain him as one of your friends only.

Do you have any other friend or sanity member who could go on those dates?

Is it remotely feasible to change the tickets to them?

*If he's your best friend then why aren't you happy for him and why are you wanting to exclude her?

Op doesn't want to go on a holiday with a couple.

Not many ppl would.

And it's not really excluding when the gf was not included in the plans & booking because she's only been on the scene 8 weeks.
Itcwould he excluding her if they were new plans.

He has ditched your weekend for a two month relationship?

He hasn't even ditched it; he's trying to make op change the dates to suit his new gf ... with expenses involved in that (take it hes expecting you to pay part if those expenses, even though its not you who's changing the dates) and trying to make op go on the break with a new, possibly loved up couple.

He's pretty selfish.

Best mate of 10 yrs ... he's not really tho, sorry.

*This will be how things are with him in a relationship.

Don't make any further effort and focus on other friends.*

This.

2 months? He's fuckstruck and thinking with his little brain.

If she lives away the relationship is unlikely to go the distance, so personally I'd just pull back, take someone else if that suits you, and wait for things to settle down.

If it gets to 6 months then I'd make an effort to meet her.

If you have spent any time on here, you will know that very few women actually believe that a man and a woman can be platonic friends.

Your frien’s gf/partner will not take well to this idea and I would expect that she will give him some ultimatum around that. You won’t see him as much and very certainly not on his own for trips together.

it’s not that he is a shit friend. Or that he doesn’t care about you. It’s about a culture where many many men stray, can’t get over their ex etc… so very few women will ever accept friendship (let alone close enough to go away together). The reason being that too many men used that reason to hide an affair (physical, emotional….)

‘Yes because heterosexual monogamous love trumps all other love, that between friends or family members, no matter how close you are or how recent the relationship is. It must be elevated and preserved at all cost.’

This.

Pair of fucking idiots.

The answers on this thread are so interesting. If you expect someone to change when you meet them and ditch/fade out all their friends or cancel plans that existed before your relationship did then you have issues - and yes, if you reverse some of the answers that's exactly what they're saying.

You’re acting like you should be his #1 priority.

No she isn't, @AnAfternoonWalk !
She's acting like a holiday that has already been planned, agreed AND BOOKED should be a priority.

Suppose the friend was female, & had a new b/f of 2 months.
It would be OUTRAGEOUS to then ring up OP & say "Oh - you need to accept that my new shag who you have never met is coming along, OR you need to cancel our holiday".

It's a breathtaking bit of railroading & selfishness.

Being asked to play gooseberry to a partner you have never met, or cancel your holiday is not a "compromise" @amylou8

It's an imposition.

What kind of friend issues an ultimatum?

He's pandering to new girlfriend and totally roughroading you to achieve that.

Don't go on holiday with them, it'll be awful. Take somebody else or he can take her and pay whatever fees are due and distance yourself from him.

How is it "possessive" to make a confirmed arrangement to go on holiday with your mate, & then feel pissed off when they unilaterally decide to bring a brand new g/f along, & tell you to cancel the holiday if you don't like the idea?

Yes, it is common for platonic friends to go on city breaks, country breaks, hobby weekends, to visit other chums together ..."alone together", as you put it, in the scandalised tones of a Victorian maiden aunt.

Whether the OP has a partner or not is immaterial. She's not proposing to dump a partner on her friend, or abandon her friend's holiday for a new shag.

You can't imagine platonic friends having holidays together, & expect partners to be jealous of opposite-sex friendships. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, or that other people have the same hidebound, knee-jerk responses to simple friendships.
YOUR scenario is the one where somebody is acting "possessive". OP is being nothing of the sort. You are projecting your own insecurity on her because you subscribe to a very conventional thought process about the value of male/female platonic friendships.