My girlfriend made a simple passport mistake before our trip to Japan so I did the unthinkable… and now she’s mad at me

A young man has told how he spontaneously traveled to Japan without his girlfriend after she missed her flight due to a simple passport error.

The American couple traveled interstate to catch their connecting flight to Japan, where they planned to spend a week ringing in the New Year.

But halfway through their domestic flight, the friend, 23, suddenly realized she had forgotten her passport at home.

Instead of staying with her, the 25-year-old decided to go on vacation without her.

“Because we were far away from our home, she couldn’t just rush home and grab her passport,” the man explained in a Reddit thread.

“We were both obviously upset, but I checked in anyway and told her I’ll still be going without her.”

“She got upset and asked me why I was abandoning her over a simple mistake, and I told her I wouldn’t miss a trip just because she planned poorly.”

The dilemma started after the man reminded his girlfriend to pack her passport the day before their trip, and she assured him she would do so.

On the day of their flight, the couple began their journey, flying from a domestic airport to the international airport.

“We both just showed our IDs for domestic flights and flew fine,” he explained, adding that the couple had booked their tickets for the two flights separately.

‘When we were checking in at International for the second flight, they asked for her passport. She said she didn’t have it and told me that halfway through the first flight she realized she forgot to pack it.”

Since the couple was far from home, he suggested that she could stay with a friend until he returned from their trip.

“I told her that since we had a mutual friend who lived in the town we were currently in, she could ask him if she could stay with him for a week and explore, and that I would pick her up when I would fly back and we’ll go home,’ he said.

“She agreed but was still upset about wanting to spend New Year’s Eve with me.”

However, things took a turn when he called his girlfriend on New Year’s Eve.

‘I FaceTimed her and we chatted for a while. Our friend joined the call saying he was shocked that I let her down like that and that he was disappointed in me. My girlfriend agreed with him,” the friend said.

‘Am I really a bad boyfriend because I still travel? For example, if I chose not to go, it wouldn’t even benefit her, it would only hurt me.

“Am I the one who goes on a trip without my girlfriend because she forgot her passport?”

Thousands of people had their say on the man’s situation, with the majority agreeing that they would have gone on holiday without their partner if they had forgotten their passport.

The American couple traveled interstate to catch their connecting flight to Japan, where they planned to spend a week ringing in the New Year (stock image)

“This is what I would call a relationship-defining event. If someone is so careless as to leave his passport behind on a multi-leg international journey without being mentally incompetent, that is his fault and his responsibility and he must bear the consequences. If they turned around and got mad at me for taking the trip as planned, I would seriously reconsider the relationship,” one person said.

‘It’s a shame she forgot her passport, but that’s her fault and not yours. You reminded her to wrap it up, and she didn’t. Why miss a trip you planned and paid for because of her mistake? It’s not like you left her in a random place, you made sure she had a safe and comfortable backup plan with a mutual friend,” another explained.

‘I would have gone on a trip too. This is 100 percent her fault,” one person added.

However, not everyone agreed with his decision.

“When it comes to your girlfriend, the fault was clearly hers. However, you decided to go on an amazing journey and leave her behind, so I don’t blame her for being upset about that. I’ll tell you why. Your solution when you left your girlfriend was for her to simply go to a friend’s house unannounced and stay there for a week. A week! Who does that to someone, even a close friend? I can’t say I blame the friend for letting you know. This behavior is so unbelievable to me

Meanwhile, many said the woman could have found an alternative way to get to Japan without missing the trip altogether.

Many suggested that her passport could have been couriered to her via FedEx on the same day.

‘Is there no one at home to whom you would entrust the key in an emergency? Because FedEx same day express is still a thing, and she could have arranged a flight the next day. A few hundred dollars to save a few thousand dollars on a vacation would be worth it to me,” said one.

Meanwhile, travel workers said they are constantly seeing people miss their flights because they forget their passports, a common mistake travelers make.

‘I used to be a travel agent. You would be shocked and amazed,” one person said.

Others couldn’t understand how the woman was able to board her domestic flight without any problems, with one person explaining: ‘They booked the domestic and international flights separately. This means that for all intents and purposes they are two completely separate routes, even if it is with the same airline. They are not connected at all and there would be no international requirements checks until they tried to check in on the second flight, which happened.”