'AITA for talking to a woman in a bikini while at the beach with my wife and son?' MAJOR UPDATE

Sometimes the only way to settle an argument is to blast it off on the internet for thousands of strangers to comment on.

"AITA for talking to a woman in a bikini on a beach?"

My wife (35F) is making me (37M) write this post. She feels my behavior during our vacation was completely inappropriate, while I think that it was completely acceptable and she is wrong. She loves this subreddit and wants for all of you to weigh in on our debate and solve this issue for us. We have been married for 7 years and have a 3-year-old toddler.

A few weeks ago, we went to Miami for a vacation and had a fun time. On the second day on the beach, we were relaxing on the beach chairs. My son and I were playing on the beach, while my wife was soaking in the sun. I must add here that I love her very much and she is the most beautiful person I have ever laid eyes on.

At one point, my son wanted to build a sand-castle, and I took him to the wet sand near the water with all his plastic toys. While he was playing, a lady (mid-thirties) walked up to us and told me how cute my son is. I smiled and said thanks. She was looking towards the water constantly, and I think her kids must be in the water and she was watching them.

Now, according to my wife, she was wearing a completely inappropriate, over the top bikini that left nothing for imagination. According to me, I did not notice what she was wearing and have no comments. She was trying to make small talk and was asking me about my son's name, how old he is, where we are from, etc. I was also polite and had a brief conversation with her.

We talked about where we are from, how long we were in Miami, etc. Finally, my son had enough, and he wanted to go back. So, I said bye and came back and sat next to my wife. The whole conversation may have lasted for less than 10 minutes. My wife was not happy with me talking to this lady.

She kept on telling me how inappropriate it was to talk to "that girl in the tiny bikini" and that she was trying to flirt with me. I told her what we talked about, and it was not even remotely flirty. I told her that this is common and when my son is with me in the park or other places, he gets a lot of attention from other moms, and they always come and have a chat.

My wife has seen this play out before and never had a problem with it. My wife thinks that this is different because that girl was in a very revealing bikini, and I as a married man should know better than talking to her. We saw that lady a few other times during our stay, and I cut our conversation short every time she tried to talk to me.

My wife cannot let this go. She thinks that I should admit that it's different to talk to a girl in a social setting vs when she is in a bikini on a beach. I feel having small talk with someone is fine irrespective of their state of dress or undress. So, dear internet, please settle this debate for us.

Is my wife correct that I am the AH for talking to a girl when she is wearing a bikini, or she is being unfair to that lady when she was wearing an appropriate outfit for the place where she was. Note that my wife will also be reading the replies, so please be nice when telling her how wrong she is.

Wife here: I think he wrote this post omitting key details. The girl on beach was clearly flirting and leaning too close to him. She may not have said it explicitly, but you could see she was interested. She also kept on popping up in resort restaurant, bar and lobby after this incident and tried to keep on talking him through the week.

It was disrespectful as she did not say a single word to me the whole time. I am not saying my husband was flirting with her, but he should have read her body language and shut her down. Plus, there is bikinis and there was her bikini. Something with her was clearly off.

The internet was quick to share their opinions.

Lilacs-Roses-Sunsets wrote:

NTA. I have been married 37 years. Your wife should let this go. You were not trying to pick the woman up. You were at the beach! If anything she should feel good that someone else thought you “might” be attractive.

If your wife is half as beautiful as you say then she has had plenty of guys talking to her regardless of what she is wearing. Again she should let it go. Otherwise both of you are going to start monitoring each other’s conversations with the opposite s#x. This is a slippery slope.

TK9K wrote:

He didn't even initiate the conversation. He was literally just being polite. What do you expect him to do? Tell her to f#$k off? Not exactly the best example to set for your son.

AnGiorria wrote:

My wife finds it hilarious when (according to her) other women try to flirt with me because I am completely oblivious and she knows that 1: I had no idea, 2: I'd never cheat on her, and 3: I honestly don't have the energy for that nonsense.

NTA, your wife needs to chill.

dadtobe2023 wrote:

I’ve always been completely oblivious to women trying to flirt with me. Looking back now huge facepalm at some of the signs I missed. A friend invited me to dinner at her place, was nicely dressed, cooked me a meal, casually dropped the line that she was wearing no underwear and I was like oh ok, friendo.

My poor wife shamelessly chased me for months (also did the invite me over to cook for me thing) and I was just grateful this crazy attractive friend of mine was being so friendly. She was about to give up so her best friend got in touch and told me what was going on. From there I took over. Phew!

humorless_kskid wrote:

NTA. Mrs. OP: Next time, get off your a*s during the 10 minutes of HER flirting and walk down to the water and rescue your husband. The woman may not have known you were with the man she was flirting with.

(No mention of how far OP and son were from Mrs. OP and whether it was obvious you were connected.)

Even if he had recognized the woman was flirting, he was not required to be rude and interrupt your child's fun in building as castle.

The next day OP's wife jumped on with an update.

I am the wife in this situation. My husband and I posted a debate we were having for the last week regarding an incident that happened during our vacation. I got it after the first 100 responses that I was wrong.I thought this forum would back me up, but guess I need to take this L like a champion.

I am blessed to have a loving and caring husband and an amazing kid. I am also used to women flirting with him all the time. It's not just when our son is with him, but it has happened at his work, bars, weddings, and other places.

The worst was when I was giving birth to our son and the nurse helping with the birth told him that hair looks like "Price Charming" (It was 6am in the morning and he had just woken up) followed by telling him our son is so lucky that he got his blond hair and blue eyes.

The worst part is he is not very perceptive when women flirt with him. He thinks that most women go around talking to strangers and compliment them on their looks, because that is his life experience.

When I try to tell him that, he always gets very defensive. I do trust him with all my heart though and he is the best husband ever.

Some of you asked me what happened from my perspective. I know there is no way for me to not seem like an AH when I write this, but this is what I saw.

We were all enjoying our time on the beach. My son wanted to run around, and my husband volunteered to watch him and let me relax. I was enjoying the ocean and occasionally watching them. At one point, I saw my husband and son sitting on sand and a lady talking to them. No problem, she is just a passerby and noticed my toddler.

I close my eyes and after 5 minutes, I see again and now this lady is sitting next to my husband and they are talking. I also noticed she was extremely attractive and of course I got a bit insecure, since I have a mom-bod now. She is laughing at god knows what my husband said. At this point, I started getting curious and was waiting for my husband to look towards me.

He finally got up after my son was bored and came running back to me. I asked my husband who the person was, and he said just some mom on the beach having a small talk. I asked him what you guys were talking about and he said the same things he wrote here. I told him she was gorgeous, and did he noticed what she was wearing. He looked again at her and said, "Ohh yeah, that's pretty bold".

The whole incident rubbed me the wrong way.

Then this lady kept on popping up everywhere we went, and we met her every day. My husband introduced me to her the first time we saw her, and she just walked right past me and started talking with her.

I then told my husband I was not comfortable with his new "girlfriend" (I was teasing him), and my husband then immediately blew her off next time she showed up. When we came back, I told him about my insecurity when I saw him talk to her and she was sitting next to him. He again got defensive and told me that he was just being polite. This is when I told him not to talk to gorgeous moms in bikinis.

He felt I was attacking him, but I could not help what I felt and was just communicating it to him. This was the silly debate we were having, and I thought you guys would have my back. Anyways, I will try to work on my insecurities and let him talk to moms in bikinis. One PSA is please don't comment on that thread anymore and tell him how right he is.

You guys are feeding the beast. Last night, he was sending me links to frames on amazon because he wants to print out this thread and put it on the wall. He says it's his first win against me and the next time we have disagreement, he can point to it and tell me about the time when thousands of people told me I was wrong.

Commenters had lots to say in response to the update.

Lanzifer wrote:

Moms in Bikinis sounds like a mid 00's song by an alt rock band, which hasn't aged well with some of the lyrics but is still a banger.

Particular_Title42 wrote:

"The worst part is he is not very perceptive when women flirt with him."

That's...a lot of men.

handbreath wrote:

From what I gathered from both posts, your husband loves you very much.

Either-Ad3080 wrote:

"Note that my wife will also be reading the replies, so please be nice when telling her how wrong she is." - The legend himself.

Drbennett75 wrote:

One way to deal with this is just to go up and introduce yourself. Not in an insecure or passive-aggressive cockblocking way. Just “Hi, I’m ____, I’m _____’s wife.” and actually make friendly conversation. It’s the high road and gets the job done.

Yetikins wrote:

I gotta say you thinking the delivery nurse was hitting on your husband while you were birthing his baby indicates you might seriously want to go see a therapist about your insecurities. Is he from the South or somewhere that people are a lot friendlier, and you're from Seattle where strangers never really give compliments?

It sounds like you take every female interacting with him in a positive way as a threat. Maybe skimpy bikini lady was a threat and that's why she didn't acknowledge you in conversation. But I bet your husband has heard you claim 100 other random women are threats and is defensive at this point because he feels like he isn't doing anything wrong by answering politely.

jcniper wrote:

From what it seems like, he loves you very much. I do think maybe I can see the argument for him trying to be a little more perceptive of when women are trying to flirt with him, just so he could shut that part down quicker, but working on your insecurities also needs to be addressed.

Not every attractive woman is engaging in flirting by existing and talking to your husband, and unless he's given you indication otherwise, it doesn't seem like he'd be into it if that was the case.

Give him the respect of trusting him. Also, it sounds like you two need to sit down and have a conversation about your insecurities in a way that's not accusatory towards him so he can understand your head space better, and you two can come to compromises or establish boundaries on the subject. Sounds like a job for a therapist.

Well, this certainly got settled.