'AITA? My boyfriend brought home a girl for the holidays.' UPDATED
"AITA? My boyfriend brought home a girl for the holidays."
I, (f24) am with my longtime boyfriend and best friend since birth (m23, let’s call him will). A little backstory, our mom’s were best friends in high school and since we are only less than a year apart, we grew up very close and always hung out.
Will, his twin brother (let’s call him Wyatt), and I were always together growing up. Going on vacations, sleepovers during summer etc. Will and I basically have had crushes on each other since we were in elementary school. But only officially started dating when I was a sophomore and he was a freshman in high school. We’ve only ever dated each other.
Then, it was college time for me since I was a grade earlier. We both thought I should take a gap year so we could start together. Well…. we both ended up taking multiple gap years lol. We had decent jobs and had the luxury of being able to travel so we did.
So this year, we all three started college for the first time (plus will and Wyatt’s best friend, we’ll call him Ian, m23). But as the years went by (before I started college) I kept switching on ideas for majors.
I ended up choosing one they didn’t have at the college we all wanted to go to, so I talked with Will about it, and we decided we could still make it work since the college that has the major I wanted was only a 1 hour car ride away.
Well, college started. I ended up absolutely hating my major, so I will be switching and transferring to the original college of choice which will is super happy about and I'll be moving into the apartment he has with Wyatt and Ian.
Now, moving onto the actual problem.
It is of course winter break and I was so excited to spend time with will since we didn’t get to see each other much during the semester even though we texted as much as we could and always face-timed at night even if it was only for 5 minutes.
So imagine my surprise when I come home for break and go to his parents' house, and there’s a girl sitting in the living room with them. Will comes up and greets me like everything’s normal, and introduces me to the girl (we’ll call her Abby, f19).
Wyatt tells me that they’ve all grown close to her at college and that she’s become like a best friend to them.. I was floored by this. Will never once told me that he made any good friends at college, let alone a girl. I could tell that will knew from my face that I wasn’t exactly thrilled at this, but since we were in front of people I kept my mouth shut.
I went to go help will and Wyatt’s mom in the kitchen not long after that, and I asked her if she knew anything about Abby, like maybe her family lived too far and she couldn’t afford to travel back, maybe she had a bad home life? You know, anything that could make a bit of sense.
She told me she had asked the same question, because she was a bit weirded out as well, but they told her she had a good relationship with her family, but wanted to spend Christmas with friends this year.
This rubbed me the completely wrong way. I can’t imagine ditching my family to spend Christmas with two guys I’ve only known for 3-4 months? Especially when you aren’t dating one. (A good time to mention that Wyatt is gay).
I talked to will about it later that night and told him that I was uncomfortable that she was here, especially because it was supposed to be our time together after months apart, plus it’s a family holiday and she isn’t family.
And he told me that he understands, but she’s just a good friend and wanted to spend Christmas with them and he felt too bad to tell her no. And by the way, this isn’t a “is my boyfriend cheating or not” post. I genuinely trust will and I don’t think he would ever cheat on me.
Now, I have to admit I do get jealous sometimes, but I really don’t think I am that unreasonable. I don’t mind him having a friendship with a different gender (as long as boundaries aren’t crossed) but I feel like this is a huge boundary.
We were supposed to use this time to catch up, but now this girl who has already been spending time with them for months is here. And I thought maybe she’ll spend most of her time with Wyatt while Will and I can do our own thing. Nope.
We went ice skating two days ago (which is a tradition of ours) and guess who wanted to come as soon as we got ready? Abby. We tried to watch a movie in the basement last night. Guess who showed up? Abby. We went to go look at Christmas lights a few nights ago. Who wanted to come? Abby.
Needed to go Christmas shopping. Who wanted to come with? Abby. Had a date for the Christmas market, she knew it was a date and who wanted to come? Abby. (Luckily, this time will told her no) (also should mention the only time Wyatt was with us during any of that was for the Christmas lights. That’s it, so it wasn’t like she just wanted to be included and didn’t want to be alone.)
I finally snapped tonight when will and I we’re getting ready to go to my grandma’s to decorate cookies like we do every year, Abby asked where we were going and Will answered.
She really had the audacity to ask, again, “can I come with”? This is where I might(?) be the AH. i told her that no, she can’t come. That she’s intruded enough so far on this break and that she knew we hadn’t seen each-other in 4 months and yet she can’t stop inserting herself.
I told her to go back to her family for Christmas because she wasn’t apart of this family and never would be. She cried and ran to the guest room. Will got super mad at me, and told me I was being ridiculous and a “jealous brat”, but I’m genuinely fed up.
This girl is either wanting my boyfriend, or she has a MAJOR boundary problem. But either way, I don’t want to deal with either problem. It was super awkward at my grandma's as Will is still mad at me. But now that I was thinking about it, I can’t help being mad at him too.
He lied to me (or withheld information, I guess) about getting close to another girl (and now that I've met said girl, I'm very concerned because she seems unhealthily attached to my boyfriend since she hasn’t really made any effort to hang out with Wyatt).
I think letting her come to Christmas and our reunion was super disrespectful and I know for a fact if the tables were turned he would be enraged. Christmas is now in two days, and i’m not even excited anymore. i know anything we’ll try to do abby will just insert herself. and this was my favorite holiday.
i texted Ian about her, and he told me that she seemed closer to Wyatt then will when they were at college? So I have no idea what’s going on. So, I guess, AITA for blowing up at her? any advice on what to do now? Thank you for any advice!
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
Girl why didn’t your boyfriend tell you? You actually showed up and neither one of your lifelong friends thought to mention another person would be there, let alone some girl 4 years younger than y'all.
You talk to him every day and he never mentioned any new friends? Let alone this one who they let or invited to come home with them for Christmas. i’d be annoyed at both because you’re suppose to be friends, but i’d be side eyeing your man. all very sus. All very strange.
willowicey (OP)
This is what angered me the most! I don’t understand why neither of them told me. Since we’re older than the normal age of starting college and he was going with his brother and best friend, I honestly just assumed we wouldn’t be trying to go out and make friends.
Which I understand can sometimes happen naturally. So I never really asked about it and I can’t understand for the life of me figure out why he couldn’t just tell me. I’m going to talk to him later about it for sure.
Your boyfriend brought his new girlfriend.
I don’t think you’re wrong for feeling blindsided, but I do think you need to talk to Will directly before letting this spiral. College changes people and social circles fast, and it sounds like he didn’t realize how big this would feel to you.
Bringing someone home for Christmas without warning your partner is a bad call, full stop. That said, jumping to conclusions won’t help. Tell him clearly why this upset you and see how he responds — his reaction will tell you a lot.
The next day, the OP returned with an update.
Hello everyone! Thank you so much for all the comments and advice. Since I’m going to be busy during Christmas, I wanted to update this today.
Now here is the update:
After two panic attacks and thinking way too much, I tried to calm myself down and after a few hours I texted him and asked if he could come over so we could talk.
He arrived and instantly apologized to me for calling me a jealous brat, and said I had every right to be annoyed and upset, he just wished I was less harsh. I apologized as well, and said I was a bit too hard, and I told him i should have communicated better (thanks for all the advice on that, I realize I definitely should have said something sooner, rather than letting it all blow up).
He told me that he should communicate better as well in the future, which we promised to do. after that, I immediately asked why he even kept his friendship with her a secret in the first place.
He told me that he knew I’d be upset about his friendship with a girl and he didn’t want to tell me and make me worry whilst we were at different colleges. While I’m ngl that would have stressed me out a bit, I still had a right to know.
My face must have shown I wasn’t the happiest with that excuse as he instantly told me he’s sorry again and that he made a mistake in the way he handled this whole thing, but that he genuinely doesn’t have any feelings for her except friendship, and he would never cheat on me.
He told me his mom sat him down after I left, and laid it out for him. About how suspicious this must look to me, about how trust was broken, and the fact he completely blind sided me and he told me that really made him think about his actions. He looked very genuine and even was starting to tear up.
Will then told me that Abby had asked Wyatt a couple weeks ago if she could come to their Christmas instead of her parents this year because she wanted to hang out with them instead and thought it would be fun.
Will told me that Wyatt texted him about the idea as soon as she asked, and that he instantly shut it down, saying it probably wasn’t a good idea since I wouldn’t like it (he showed me the text messages between Wyatt and him without me even asking to see them).
But Wyatt told will that since it was the first time will and I had been apart before Christmas break, that we would probably be spending even more time alone together than normal, and it could be nice if he had a friend to spend that time with, and Will felt bad so he agreed.
I asked him why he couldn’t have just told me that from the get-go, but he said “he thought I would understand that he wasn’t the one that invited her” which.. ngl pissed me off. Because what do you mean??
Obviously I told him that that’s something to work on with the communication and he agreed. He said he had absolutely no idea that Abby would insist on intruding on our alone time together, and that he also should have told her no after the 2nd time she tried, but he was too shocked and confused by her behavior to do anything because she never acted that way towards him at college.
Which lined up with what Ian told me earlier, that she seemed more close to Wyatt. And I also asked Wyatt and Ian to confirm and they told me that she never acted that way towards him at college. At all.
Will told me that he realized that Abby must like him after she kept trying to include herself in our plans the third time, and didn’t make much of an effort to hang out with Wyatt, which was the whole reason she was invited.
Wyatt also confirmed all of this on call and told me he was also surprised by her behavior this whole time and had tried to talk to with her about it and she apparently said that she didn’t mean any harm and just wanted to hang out with will as well. Which… I’m not sure I really buy.
Wyatt also said whenever he would ask if she wanted to go and do something with him, she would always say she wanted to stay inside and relax.. which.. girl. you had no problem trying to go out with Will and I when we left the house.
Will told me in morning once we go back to his house, he’ll tell Abby that it’s best that she spends Christmas with her family, and that once they get back to college it’s best they all keep their distance.
Wyatt and Ian also agreed to the same thing so she wouldn’t still be around hanging out with them. I’ll also be transferring to their college for the upcoming spring semester as well, which was already planned before this whole incident, so it’s not something they could be lying about since they know I’ll be living with them soon.
So, now it’s done. Abby didn’t take it particularly well, and told us that she would back off if she could stay and that it wasn’t fair to make her leave the day before Christmas eve, but will remained firm with her, which I appreciated.
I did apologize to her for being too harsh, which she just nodded. Wyatt already drove Abby back home a few hours ago and a huge weight is lifted off my shoulders. I realize it’s not the most thrilling of updates, but I’m glad we promised each other better communication as I see that was something we were struggling with, on both ends.
Thank you again for all the advice and comments and I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, and if you don’t celebrate I hope you have a great day as well.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
I’m not sure how I’d feel about dating a guy who not only hid his new friendship with another woman, but then sprung her on me at Christmas and then needed his mommy to explain to him why I was upset because he wouldn’t listen to me. This dude is kind of gross.
Yeah - chick had an ulterior motive. She figured she’d keep inserting herself and make it look sus and you’d get mad and she’d get will. You’ve planned well to totally avoid her in the future, which would have been my advice. She’s not anyone’s friend… and she can’t be that damn oblivious to her actions.
Do people not know how to tell someone no? Like they went on 5 ‘dates’ and just were silently upset she came to each one? I would have said no, sorry this is just the two of us and if you are a fan of confrontation, surely your attitude to having her come along would have been quite sour? Some people just need to grow a back bone and speak up.
So Wyatt wants to invite his friend who he'll host since he knows his brother will be busy with OP, but doesn't mind being ditched so she can try to hang out with Will? Where is Wyatt in all this? Also. They've known this girl for like 3-4 months and she's staying with them, having Christmas with their family already --- and her family is fine with her not coming home? A lot seems difficult to believe here.
I don’t think the boyfriend was necessarily cheating, but I struggle to understand how the brother didn’t realize immediately after the first two times that the person he invited to hang out mysteriously couldn’t hang out and would just “want to stay home inside” whenever op had a date.
Like one time I understand, two maybe she’s not feeling okay, but who tags on Christmas break just to stay inside a house with people they are not related or friends to?