My [23F] boyfriend [26M] is about to go on a trip with a girl [20-somethingF] he doesn't want me to meet

TL;DR: My boyfriend of 6 months asked me to go on a 3-week international trip with him in December, I declined because of work. Now he is taking a close female friend, and he doesn't want to introduce her to me. Not sure if their history is platonic or romantic. Should I dig further about this or let it go?

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For privacy reasons, I'm using a throwaway account and all names have been changed.

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I've been dating this guy James for about 6 months now. We met at a charity gala for the nonprofit I work for and we hit it off immediately. Things have been going great so far.

Since the beginning of the year (before we met) James has been planning a 3-week trip in Europe that he will take in December. He originally planned to go alone, but last month he asked me if I would like to join him. Unfortunately, while December is a fairly slow month for his job, it is the busiest time for mine. My schedule would make it nearly impossible for me to find even a few days to join him. So I declined, with the promise that we would plan our own trip together next year at a time that works for both of us.

Last week I found out that a close friend of his, Debbie, will now be going with him on this trip. I don't know if he offered her to join or if she asked him. I guess it doesn't matter. What does matter is that Debbie is the one friend that he wont introduce me to. He talks about Debbie all of the time, and apparently they used to hang out a lot before we started dating. I have no idea whether it was romantic or just platonic. One time when he was talking about her, I casually said "she sounds cool, I'd love to meet her!" and he quickly responded with "ah, you two definitely should not meet" and then changed the subject. I couldn't tell if he was joking or not, and I really wasn't that worried about her then, so I just laughed and brushed it off. However, now they are going on a three week international trip together and I feel like we should meet. Honestly, I want to get to know her and be assured that things are just platonic between them.

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My friends are in two camps on this. On one side, I should ask him straight up why he doesn't want Debbie to meet me. Don't stand down until he gives me an answer that I am comfortable with. On the other side, I should stay out of it. Regardless of their history, he is a grown man and I can't tell him who he is allowed to travel with. Bringing it up now will accomplish nothing but making me look clingy and insecure- especially if their friendship truly is platonic. I should trust him, let things play out, and if they get together on the trip then I'll have my answer.

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He hasn't given me any reasons to doubt him. That said, I've been cheated on before, and this brings up a lot of anxiety for me. What should I do?

***EDIT***

Thank you all for your responses and encouragement!

I want to make one thing very clear: I do not think he is currently cheating on me with this woman. I certainly know that it is possible- anything is possible- but I'm not concerned enough to jump to that conclusion right now. Remember that he wanted to go on this trip with me first. He begged me for weeks, and I had to tell him definitively that I couldn't do the trip and it wasn't up for discussion. My thought is that he was then regretting his decision to travel alone, and found another partner who could agree to take the time off.

If I did have reason to believe he was cheating on me, that would make this scenario A LOT easier for me to deal with. I'm not going to detonate this relationship-- not yet, anyways.

I have only brought up wanting to meet Debbie ONCE at the beginning of our relationship. It hasn't come up since. In fact, I'm almost positive he's forgotten about what he said. What I need to do right now is have an honest conversation with him about this and calmly explain the reasons why I think we should meet now. His reaction will give me enough information to proceed.

I was worried about being the nagging, uncool, headcase of a girlfriend by not trusting him to go on a trip with a girl who's history I don't know (especially given my anxiety about being cheated on), but I know now that I am well within reason to express my perfectly valid feelings.

I'm going to hang out with him again soon, I'll post an update on how it goes. And if you all are right that he's actually cheating on me, then drinks are on me!

Submitted October 01, 2018 at 05:34PM by ElectronicSandwich1 https://ift.tt/2NWXn3V