A woman recently messaged me with a dilemma. She had planned a trip to the Grand Canyon months ago with a platonic male friend. Since then, she started dating someone new, and after one month of exclusivity with her new boyfriend, she told him about the trip. The boyfriend’s reaction? Not good.

Her question to me: “Do I cancel the trip out of respect for my boyfriend, or go and risk the end of the relationship?”

When she initially asked me the question, I did not have all of the context. Her message to me said this:

“Hi Erika, I have had a trip planned to the Grand Canyon with a guy friend (only a friend — no benefits) for the past 5 months. Since then, I met a guy and we've been exclusive for a month. I told him about the trip and he is not happy at all. What do I do? Cancel my trip out of respect for my boyfriend? Go on the trip with the understanding my boyfriend is not OK with it and most likely our relationship will be over?”

I read this a few times before deciding how to answer. But, I didn’t want to just give an answer without any other context, so I asked some follow-up questions, and this is how the next part of the conversation went:

Me: “Did your new boyfriend know about this friendship/trip the whole time?”

Her: “He knew about the friendship but not the trip.”

Me: “I guess I'm just not sure why it's so black-and-white. Why can't you just talk to him and perhaps even introduce them over FaceTime? And how did he indicate that he's ‘not happy at all’”? (This last part was the part I was most interested in hearing.)

Her: “I am planning on talking to him again today. I will let you know how that conversation goes. His response when I first told him was ‘no f---ing way,’ he kept saying no over and over, he said it's weird, and he doesn't believe that this guy won't want more from me sexually once we're there. I told him we have separate sleeping spaces, we've been friends for a while & used to work together. I asked him about ‘us’ and he said how does it look if his family/friends ask where's Melissa, and he has to say ‘on vacation with another man.’ I asked if we'd talk tomorrow, he didn't respond. Then he said he was going to lay down and he hung up.”

Wow.

Me: “I just learned everything I need to know. This man is possessive and childish. I wouldn’t entertain his behavior for one more second. Choose the friend. Choose you.”

I then added, “A mature adult is allowed jealousy. We are human. But a mature adult will also listen and have an adult conversation with someone — you — he supposedly cares about. He prioritized both his ego and his insecurity over you and your feelings. To stay with him is to know this. It doesn't bring me joy to be blunt and tell you words you don't want to hear. But you asked, it's important that you do hear them. Good luck.”

As I said, jealousy is human. But adults handle it through conversation, not ultimatums. This man didn’t ask thoughtful questions. He didn’t want to meet the friend or hear reassurance. He blew up. He made it about his ego, not her integrity.

I don’t know what she’ll decide, and while I, of course, feel that she should go on the trip (and cancel the new relationship), she is the ultimate decision-maker here.

In a healthy relationship, trust is the Grand Canyon — deep, vast and earned over time. But if someone tries to bulldoze it before it’s even built? Decide if it’s worth staying.

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