Hi y’all, just wanna get other people’s thoughts on this. I figured that if my mom wants her friend to go so badly, they should just plan their own trip, but let me explain. Sorry for the long read. TL;DR at bottom. 

The Situation:

Back when I graduated from high school, my mom’s graduation gift to me was “a ticket to the Philippines (redeemable at a future date).” This is in quotations because there was no actual ticket, rather it was a comment written in my grad card because 1) I had already told her that even though I wanted to go, I would be in school and didn’t know when I’d actually be able to go and 2) she couldn’t actually afford a ticket at the time. This becomes important later on (imo). 
 
This past summer, I applied to medical school and was successful(!), so I’ll be starting this coming fall. That being said, I’ve been studying/working throughout college and after graduation to prep my application and save money to pay for aforementioned apps, so I’ve never really been able to take any vacations or trips. In this span of ~6 years, my mom has gone to the Philippines (without me, because I was in school) 3 times, each time for 3-4 weeks. 

Since I’ll start school in the fall, I’ve started to plan my last day at work, and when I’ll finally be taking my trip to the Philippines. I told my mom about this, and asked if she would come with me and if the offer for the free ticket was still on the table. She admitted that money was still tight (which didn’t surprise me because my dad is still unemployed), and that she probably wouldn’t be able to cover her ticket, let alone mine. I was fine with this though, since I’ve been working full time and have managed to start saving a bit (after finally paying off the ~$6k I spent of my own money to apply to med school in the first place). I really want my mom to come with me, because the first time I went to the PI was with her, and I’d like to be able to enjoy a trip with her again. My tagalog is also not the greatest, and even though I know enough to get by and some of my family members speak some english, things still get lost in translation. 

Since I want my mom to come with me, I crunched the numbers and figured I can afford to buy my mom’s ticket, so I offered to do so for her. This she happily accepted, and we started trying to plan out dates for the trip. The main point of this trip, at least, as I intended it, was to visit and spend time with family. It’s been almost 10 years since I’ve last gone, and my grandmother’s getting pretty up there in age. My mom knows this. 

As we’re figuring out dates, my mom pulls out her phone, and calls her best friend, who we’ll call Marie. Cue her telling Marie about our upcoming trip, and telling her she should come with us. She spends a good half hour discussing logistics, places her friend can stay, and other touristy islands and places they could visit. Marie sounds excited for the trip and plans to come. 

After she hangs up, I ask my mom why she invited Marie, as I wanted it to be us two to visit family. Her response was basically “Marie has been wanting to come with me to the PI forever!!! We’re finally going, so of course she should come. I told her she could the next time I went.” 
Of course, I responded saying that I wanted it to be a family visit trip, not one where we’d go around to all the touristy places so she and her could take pics (this was what she was talking with her about). She basically brushed that aside and said “She’s been wanting to go for so long, so she has to come. Don’t be selfish.” As if I haven’t too??

This is really annoying me, since this isn’t at all what I intended it to be and I feel like the trip would be much different now if her best friend does come. I’m at the point where I almost want to not pay for my mom’s ticket anymore, because I wanted it to be a trip for me and her, not here and her friend. But of course, if I don’t pay, my mom won’t be coming with me and won’t be able to see her family. So, AITA here, and WIBTA if I did tell her I didn’t want to pay for her anymore?

TL;DR: Mom invited her best friend on a trip to visit family that I was going to pay her way for and calls me selfish for not wanting the best friend to come because “she wants to go too.”
