'AITA for bringing a friend as my date to a destination wedding instead of my GF?' UPDATED

"AITA for going to a destination wedding with someone that isn't my girlfriend?"

My girlfriend (22f) and I (23m) have been dating for 8 months. Around 4 months before I met her, my sister announced she is having a destination wedding. Being that I was single, I asked my friend (22f) if she wanted to go with me. There has never been anything romantic between us and that is one of the things we value about our friendship.

I promised her that even if I got into a relationship, we would still go because I think it would be shitty of me to take that away from a long standing friend and give it to a relatively newer girlfriend. After a few months, we both ended up in happy and supportive relationships.

As it turns out, my friend and gf went to the same high school together, but did not interact much as they were very different people back then. To give some perspective on the gf, she is someone who goes far out of her way to accommodate others and make people feel comfortable, putting her own happiness second to those around her.

We are both great communicators and are always able to talk through our problems. I brought up the destination wedding trip and details early on in the relationship so it wouldn't be a surprise, and it didn't seem to be an issue initially.

Over time, her friends (who I believe were only looking out for her) expressed concern that I was going to a romantic destination wedding with someone that is not her, and that they think it is inappropriate. When she met my family, they brought up the wedding on multiple separate occasions forgetting that she was not going, and when we reminded them of this, she was met with "oh we wish you were going."

Reasonably, these things got to her and built up to her being adamantly against the concept of the trip. By this I mean that she never asked me not to go, and she never asked me to let her go instead of my friend, but she said that she does not want contact with me while I am gone, and does not want to hear about the trip.

She has stated that when I return, if she can forget it ever happened and move on, then we will be fine, but if she can't get past it, then our relationship is likely over. I feel like I am doing the right thing by keeping my promise, but she feels like the right thing would have been for me to realize months ago that this is inappropriate and to take her instead (even though she did not ask me to do that). AITA?

EDIT: There is no time to change plans. The flight is tomorrow morning and there are no more rooms in the resort. GF has no passport, so this is impossible at this point.

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

BBBux said:

I’d say YTA. 1.) It was unreasonable of you to make such a promise to your friend. You were only considering two peoples feelings, but now your girlfriend exists and is a real person with real emotions.

2.) It sounds like your family wants your girlfriend to come and not your friend. If this includes your sister then you should concede seeing as it’s her wedding.

3.) It is strange that your friend hasn’t given up the spot out of politeness seeing as you are now in a serious relationship. I can’t imagine not doing that even though you “promised” it to her.

4.) Your girlfriend has already expressed her discomfort with this situation and it’s not unreasonable discomfort. Why ignore her? What does it matter that she appeared to not care earlier? The wedding hasn’t begun yet.

[deleted] said:

I mean, you aren't being TA toward your friend when viewed in a vacuum - you invited her, after all. But definitely YTA toward your girlfriend. If this were just a friend, they should totally understand that a relationship partner has MUCH higher priority for wedding invites, even if it means slightly disappointing your friend. You are putting your friend's feelings over your girlfriend's, so of course she's pissed.

Bottom line is you should have never made that "promise" that you would take her no matter what. You created your own hell, now you're facing the consequences. Normal people would have just said "want to come to this wedding in a year or so, unless something comes up?". That way she wouldn't have gotten her hopes so high and you could have let her down easy. But you didn't do that.

This isn't to say you can't go on trips with platonic friends while in a relationship, but you have to know the optics of taking another woman to a wedding of all things are terrible, even if you both are 100% sure nothing would happen between you. It's all about the message you are sending to your gf - that she's not even a higher priority than your friends.

hatturner said:

YTA it’s completely inappropriate.

binger5 said:

YTA. You had plenty of time to add her to the itinerary. Situations change.

And angryspaceplant said:

I'm going to go against the grain here, a bit. I see both sides, and ultimately I think there's NAH. You've dated this girl for 8 months. You communicated the wedding situation from the very beginning, very maturely.

I think that a lot of people in this thread are downplaying the importance of friendships, and riding on the stereotype of straight men and women being unable to have meaningful platonic friendships (ie. it's "inappropriate," when really it's only inappropriate if you don't trust your partner). Frankly, friendships are important and you've been friends with this person longer than you've been dating this girl.

I understand why your girlfriend is feeling the way she is, and I'm not faulting her, but the fact that she's suddenly against the wedding, doesn't like your friend, and is staking your whole relationship on something that you communicated from the start shows serious jealously.

Again, I understand why she's feeling that way and I don't fault her at all, my only hang-up is that you've been together little more than half a year. My partner didn't come to a big family event like that until we'd been together for 3 years.

I've taken close platonic friends as dates to weddings or other events while together with my partner. If you're really in a trusting, stable relationship with good communication, you need to get past the trust issues and jealously that this is generating.

Because you've been together for such a short time, I think this is a good opportunity to communicate that and work that out if you think this relationship has a chance to last. Whether you take your friend or your girlfriend is irrelevant at this point, I think you just need to have a dialogue with her about all of it, and it can't end with her resenting your friend, because that's not healthy.

After the wedding, OP shared this update:

For those of you saying "You probably won't have a girlfriend when you get back" and "Waiting for the edit saying your GF broke up with you" prepare to be disappointed. The wedding was a lot of fun, and we talked every day. She had a good weekend visiting a sibling and we hung out when I got back.

She made me brownies and I gave her some rum cakes from the trip and we caught up and joked around. We are already planning a getaway trip for her birthday with just the two of us, so things are really looking up. Every relationship has bumps and mistakes; not everything has to be a deal breaker.