I am NOT OP. Original post by u/jesustunafish in r/relationship_advice

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mood spoilers: OOP does an awesome job standing up for herself

ORIGINAL - 11th August 2019

My boyfriend wanted to go on a vacation this summer to his mom's friends' house in Hawaii with me and his two best friends (25M and 29F). We had been planning on this all spring, and at some point, 25M dropped out of the trip, leaving just the three of us.

For context, my boyfriend and I have been going out since November, and it's been serious. We had (and still have) been talking about moving in together and he has said, and I agree, that this is a long-term situation and that we are in it for good.

In early June, once 25M unexpectedly dropped out of the trip, 29F called my boyfriend and told him that now that it was just the three of us, she didn't feel comfortable with me going on the trip, since she didn't know me that well and she didn't want to be a third wheel. She said that if I were to go, she wouldn't go on the trip. Without telling me that this was happening, they changed the plans and made it a trip just the two of them and they changed the location to a beach in Costa Rica.

I was trying to figure out when to ask for time off this summer and hadn't heard news about the plans, so I asked my boyfriend which week in August I should be setting aside for the Hawaii trip. He let me know that, actually, he had talked to his friend and that she didn't want to go if I were going, so he was going to go alone with her to Costa Rica. He said that we could go another week later maybe to Mexico City or something.

I was upset, and tried to talk with him about how the situation made me feel, especially since this wasn't a case of a separate trip being set up ahead of time -- this was a case of me being invited and then uninvited from a week-long tropical vacation with a girl friend of his who I had never met before. We eventually decided to do a trip together to Copenhagen, which we have both wanted to visit, as some sort of compensation. I also asked to meet her, so that I could feel more comfortable with the trip.

We spent the 4th of July going to see her and her boyfriend in the city where they live, and although it was nice to put a face to a name, it was ultimately a very cold trip and she was not at all welcoming to me. My boyfriend remarked on how unfriendly she was -- to both of us, he thought -- and said that he was surprised that she didn't act warmly to me. I went out of my way to try get to know her and her boyfriend (I'm very outgoing and friendly and usually this would be easy), but it didn't really click, even after several days. They were somewhat cold to each other as well -- they bickered a little bit about their future and his own 3 week trip without her that was scheduled for the same time as their trip (this had been scheduled before ours had).

This had been my effort to feel better about the trip, so I told my boyfriend that I still didn't feel comfortable with things, and that I was feeling insulted by the way that it was handled. I had tried to make things smooth between all of us, and I asked him to please come up with something that could help me feel better about the trip.

On a visit to his family, they asked about the trip and they were all shocked that he would have arranged it this way, and let me know that they would have been furious if they were in my position, which triggered a fight in which I asked him to please help come up with a strategy to make me feel better and more secure about them going together without me. He said that he would never do this kind of thing again, which feels like not much to offer, since this is kind of a once in a lifetime trip to begin with. He kind of offered to not go on the trip, but he had already paid for the tickets and made arrangements and I didn't want to stop their trip and be resented by both him and his best friend.

He asked me to give him ideas of how to make me feel better and wanted me to just tell him what to do and stalled and stalled until it was finally the day of the trip. He bought me a bag of peanut butter cups and I drove the two of them to the airport.

I feel so disregarded and disrespected in this situation. I want to break up with him, but I don't want to burn up something that has otherwise been really good.

TL;DR - I (28F) was uninvited from a vacation with my boyfriend (29M) and his best friend (29F) and I can't get over it. I want advice on how to talk with him about this.

UPDATE - 20th August 2019

I was really upset the day I dropped him off and he was texting me but I wasn’t responding. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I didn’t want to do anything at all in the state I was in. I waited until the next day, and then I sent him a thought out text letting him know that I didn’t feel safe or loved in the way the trip was handled and that I would be dropping his things off at his place and leaving his keys with the neighbor. He called but didn’t leave any messages and then he messaged me that he didn’t understand.

The rest of the week, he called and messaged me, but I couldn’t bring myself to pick up or text back. On Thursday, I think that he realized that I was serious, and he asked me some questions about logistical things — I told him which neighbor his key was with, etc.

When he got back and saw all his things at his place, he got pretty frantic and called and left me a long message. I was working all day, but also I still didn’t want to respond. He asked me to explain because he didn’t understand what was going on. The next day, I sent another text making it clear that it was over, and he got upset and sent me a bunch of texts in a row about how he didn’t understand why I was throwing away everything that we built. He left me a voicemail that was really angry that said he had no idea why I was upset and that he did not accept the break-up because he had no say in it and that he wanted me to tell him the evil story that I had made up about him to his face.

I wasn’t going to respond to him and I wanted to remain calm, but this upset me. So I sat down to write him this letter. It’s long, so skip over if you want. I tried to call him but I started crying and told him I’d just send him an email instead. This is what it said.

“The time that we have had apart has given me some good space and time to think. I have had a chance to think about the things that are important for me in a relationship and I see that we should not be together. I am sorry that I have been asking for you to change things about your life that you shouldn’t have to change at my or anyone’s behest.

From the very start, this trip was made in an insanely disrespectful way in which it started out from you being given an ultimatum by your female best friend who I had never met that either she goes or I go on this trip, and you picked her. You didn’t offer to have her meet me (theoretically I was your long-term partner, so this would have made a lot of sense), you didn’t encourage her to find someone else to come, and you didn’t consult me at all. That’s enough for most people to have a deal-breaker, right there. However, I stayed.

This is a person who you have a history with that is not entirely clear to me. Here is what I understand: some bad rumors got started about the two of you in which you spent an entire night out with her on an acid trip while you were dating someone else. Nothing happened. The other thing I understand is that you were interested in her romantically at some, theoretically other, point and that she started dating her boyfriend and that closed the door on things for you. According to what I also understand, it took a long time for 29F’s boyfriend to feel comfortable with you being around, but you apparently worked to ultimately make him feel comfortable with you after I’m not sure how long. This is the completely unknown person who shut me out of a trip that I was originally going to go on (unilateral decision). You did not tell me this was happening until I asked when the trip to Hawaii would be.

You purchase tickets in another very disrespectful situation in which I have cooked dinner and have guests present, and you choose to go into my room for well over an hour to select tickets with her, and in which I repeatedly ask you to please come to dinner because you say it will just be a few more minutes each time. There is absolutely no reason for doing it at that time and in that situation, seeing as how she is in the same time zone as us and has a 9-5 job. This makes me feel sick to my stomach.

So, to make myself feel better about this whole arrangement, I tell you that I want to meet this person. On my request, we arrange a trip to go meet her and her boyfriend — a brief trip in which they are (and you explicitly agree) inexplicably cold. The first conversation that we have is one in which 29F and her boyfriend argue about how she dm’ed him while he was already in a relationship and got him to date her instead. You tell me about conversations that 29F has had with you recently in which it seems implied that there is some real instability in their long-term relationship — stuff about kids and dogs. I have a discussion in which I let you know that I see that and that it worries me.

Meanwhile, I am still wanting all of this to work out for you and for me and for her. I, at this point, am planning on being with you for the long term and see no benefit in telling you to not go on a trip with your best friend. I want it to work out. But each and every interaction surrounding this trip chips and chips and chips away at my ability to handle it: the conversations that seem to go nowhere, etc. Your dad, your mom, and your grandparents are all very surprised when we tell them about this trip. It is becoming very obvious that this is a dangerous trip to make with the fragility of our relationship. 29M, we had only been together for nine months. How long did it take before 29F’s boyfriend was comfortable with you hanging around? Much less going on a one-on-one international tropical vacation in which he was uninvited because of your request?

We go over it with (friend) at the rock climbing gym, we go over it in the car, we go over it while we're booking our AirBnb for Copenhagen, we go over it when I tell you that I still feel uncomfortable and I do not feel good about the trip. Talk about repeatedly saying something! Although I ask for you to help me, you actually ask me instead to come up with what would make me feel better. Surprisingly, I have no ideas either.

Ultimately, it appears that the original plan to meet at my place and hang out and do a game night before you two go on the trip has been canceled, and 29F will be staying at my place, but not hanging out with us at all beforehand. You attribute it to you not bringing it up with her early enough. This is apparently not something that was discussed even two nights before the trip. This upsets me. You do not know what to do. I don’t blame you — at this point, it was well out of hand. I don't know what to do either. There is no good solution that I can think of besides waiting for the trip to be over. I tell you that either I have to get over it, or I have to break up with you, and that I don’t want to break up with you. But my ability to get over it is rather rather rather worn down.

She arrives at my place very late, and we wake up the next morning for me to take the two of you to the airport. After all of this lead-up, I know that you can tell how unhappy I am. I fully absolutely know you can tell how unhappy I am. You leave, and when I don’t respond to your text messages, you text me to tell me that you hope I’m okay and you’re going to bed. No call.

The rest of the week was rough. My text to you was met with, essentially, “I’m sorry you feel this way.” You tell me that I’m being unfair.

There is no acknowledgment (and there still has been none) that this trip to a fucking honeymoon destination, as we have discussed before, could be a crazy and horrible thing to go through with, even with my quasi-blessing. This is not something that people in relationships have to deal with. This is not something that people in relationships do, besides 29F, I guess.

In the end, all of this is to say that I have felt serious emotional needs go seriously unmet in a way that is a deal-breaker for me.

There have been some wonderful, very positive times, but there has been an unnecessary amount of heartache and suffering for me over things that come down to what I can only assume are personal differences.

I cannot handle your relationship with 29F. And I suppose I could ask you to pick between her and me, but that’s not what I want to do. I want you to have your best friend, and I want to leave. I did love you, but I am not about to fight this fight and hear you tell me that I’m crazy for not seeing how totally platonic everything is for the rest of my life.

It seems like trying to convince someone to like different food, or to have a different favorite color. I am not happy in this, and I do not want to feel these feelings any longer.

There is no need for this to be mutual. I do not need your permission to break up with you.”

He wrote me back an apologetic email in which he accepted responsibility for most things without any argument, except he denied anything that had to do with his relationship with her making me feel uncomfortable and he denied that I would not be able to handle their relationship.

He said that the only thing that made their trip bad for me was my own perspective.

I wrote him back that trust has to be built and that he put too much strain too early on a relationship in which we had not developed that trust.

He agreed and apologized. For me, it ended on a pretty amicable note, but this style of relationship really doesn’t work for me and I don’t feel like his responses to me really healed or changed anything significantly. I stand by my decision at this point.

TLDR: We broke up.

Reminder - I am not the original poster.