32-year-old girlfriend of a little over 4 months who lives 3 hours away just decided within the last 24 hours to go to Europe for 11 days with one of her friends and one of my closest male friends (who will definitely keep an eye on her, but that's not really relevant) in 2 weeks. I was invited on this trip a month ago but I chose to pass.

She messaged me in the middle of the day yesterday: "Vegas got postponed so I'm hoping to go to Europe. I just requested PTO and got it approved." (The friends who were going to Europe had already made plans a while ago, so they were going anyway. She was just joining them.)

Me: "Oh awesome you should totally go! I know you love to travel. It would probably break up the monotony of work, I know that's been an issue for you lately."

Her: "Thanks! I do and I haven't in so long. Were you thinking of going?"

Me: "No idea I haven't thought about it"

I guess I just thought I had some time to discuss. I was kinda an idiot and had no idea this was an 11 day trip. She's always talking about potentially doing things but doesn't usually follow through. Especially not this quickly. Also since I was seeing her this weekend I assumed we'd talk about it. She doesn't have much money so I was thinking, how is she even going to afford it?

Later that night, she messaged me: "I just confirmed my flight!!!!!! I don't think I actually thought I'd do it."

She calls me and I tell her that I'm not very excited about the fact that she booked an 11 day trip without me and didn't check in with me before booking the flight. She pushed hard for commitment but isn't exactly treating me how I'd like to be treated if I'm in a committed relationship. The way I felt, it was basically, "I'm going to go on this trip in 2 weeks. You can come if you want, but either way I'm going."

I also said stuff like, it's fine for you to do stuff like this, but I need to think about myself and my needs and reassess my commitment level given your actions.

She apologizes, and I'm like great, those are words and words don't mean anything to me, I only look at your actions. Then I hint at if she really wanted to apologize, she would cancel her flight.

I know to some degree the right response is to let her be free to do what she wants and not be controlling. But at the same time, I want to set some boundaries because I can't have her pulling this shit all the time.

Questions:

  1. How should I have handled this? Was my response too controlling/needy?

  2. What is the best response from here on out? I am seeing her the next two weekends. When she asks how I feel about it, what should I say?

EDIT: She messaged me today after our talk last night:

Her: "So I know there was a miscommunication about Europe, and maybe (I'd like you to) you can come too, but I do dearly want to travel with you, so would you like to try and plan one to have on the books?"

Me: "I don't have a passport." (She didn't know this)

EDIT 2: Also when she booked her flight she immediately posted on Facebook: "Holy Moly! I'm going to Europe!" so all of her friends saw and are aware.