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 :)

Yes? Doesn't matter how amazing your friends are, you don't ditch your wife at home to go on a jolly abroad without her blessing, for example. That's how you end up single. Most people don't tolerate being treated as second best in their relationships.

What wife?

You don't ditch a friend of 10 years to go on a jolly abroad with your new g/f of 2 months. Unless you are so selfish & arrogant that your existing arrangement with your old pal is less important than your new shag.

This is why male female “best” friendships don’t work
😂

Oh. My mates & I didn't get that memo.
Can you re-circulate it please @Blueberrywitch ?

Um that's what I said in my original post. You then decided to argue with me that partners never become more import than friends, so I gave you an example of how they can become more important.

YANBU
it’s not fair to demand you move the dates and be ok with a third person coming on your pre planned trip. I agree that I’d cancel rather than move to accommodate the demand. It would be different if it had been “hey can we move it so my gf can come and you can get to know her”

I think if you want the friendship to continue meeting the gf would be helpful, but also staying away from any drama such as the jealousy about the holiday. Just bat it all back to him…that his issue to deal with.

at the end of the day though the sign isn’t good if he’s allowing a gf of only 2 months to pressure him into cancelling holiday with a friend.

I think that he is BU for cancelling your already booked trip and should have told her he was going but would not go on future trips with you. I don't think she is unreasonable for not wanting him to go away with a female friend (aside from this one when they are only just dating and it's already booked).

He should reimburse you for any money you have lost.