Son's girlfriend is graduating, and his mom got invited, she wanted to go, but with a friend, girlfriend didn't like the idea, now the mom wants to cancel: 'I let them both live with me for the past four years, and this is how I am treated'

If you are invited somewhere, one should always assume that only you are invited, not you and whoever you want to bring as well. 

Imagine graduating and deciding to invite your boyfriend's mother to the celebration, as you live with her, and she was helpful during the time you were studying, only to find out she wants to bring a friend with her under the pretense that she doesn't want to feel left out with your family, even though her son will be there. Now imagine that you are being invited to your son's girlfriend's graduation party that is far away, so you want to bring a friend to stay with you and do things together that do not include the graduation party, as this person is not invited to that. Are you lost? So are the people from this story. This is such a huge misunderstanding that can only be blamed on the lack of communication skills that people have. Did you notice that both things could occur at the same time without bothering anyone? Let me explain. 

To be clearer, I'm going to call the boyfriend's mother Jane. So, to get the context of the non-issue: the girlfriend wants Jane to come to her out-of-town graduation. Jane wants to go, but she doesn't want to stay with the girlfriend's family, so she wants to bring a friend with her to split the Airbnb. Where's the issue, you may be asking? The girlfriend doesn't want Jane´s friend at the graduation ceremony, but that was not going to happen. The problem is that Jane said she wanted to bring a friend but never explained that it would only be to stay with her, not to accompany her to the ceremony. So is there really an issue? I don't think so. The real problem in all this is that these two people aren't communicating clearly and are using the boy they have in common as a cellphone. If they had talked to each other, they would soon realize that both things they want can happen at the same time without creating any problems. 

My takeaway from all this is that people need to talk to each other more. Stop texting, for once and for all, and call someone to arrange something like this. If you are planning something important, you shouldn't be handling it with text messages. Go to their house and talk to them or call them like in the old times. Writing everything can lead to misunderstandings; not everyone understands what they want. That's why you call them. New generations love to text for everything. If they could send an emoji or sticker that explained everything, they would. Well, stop that. Talk over the phone like a normal person would, and all these misunderstandings would end pretty quickly. So next time you enter an argument like this one, remember me and call the other person. I promise you everything will be easier to sort out once you get used to talking to people that way.