'My MOH saw my fiance checking out another woman; now she thinks I shouldn't marry him.' + UPDATE

"My [30F] fiance [M30] looked at another woman in front of my maid of honor [F31]. MOH is disgusted by his look and tells me I should not marry him. But she remembers the situation totally differently."

I (F30) have been with my SO (M30) for 4 years, very happy and drama-free relationship. There is a couple that we're good friends with: Vicky and Tom (both 31). Vicky is my childhood friend and Tom is my SO's childhood friend, and they actually introduced us to each other. Which is why Vicky will be my maid of honor and Tom will be my SO's best man at our upcoming wedding in december.

Ever since my SO and I have been together, we went out for drinks or dinners or tennis or (in the last year) video chats with Vicky and Tom on a weekly basis and I love these evenings, Vicky and Tom are so much fun to hang out with, everyone likes everyone, we always have a great time.

This year, the four of us went on a vacation together (for the first time). We rented a house by the sea and spent a week there. It was great fun until the last evening. We went to a restaurant by the sea and there was this little pier leading up to the restaurant. We had a nice dinner and drank some wine. Now, we head back to our vacation home which is when the situation in question occured:

We are all on the pier and a woman is coming towards us from the other direction. At first, I just saw her silhouette because the light was behind her and then she stepped into the light, and I don't know how to say this without objectifying or sounding creepy but she just looked STUNNING.

Think Marilyn Monroe reincarnate but with an even crazier waist-to-hip-ratio. She honestly looked photoshopped. Easily the most beautiful human being I have ever seen. She looked out towards the sea with a cigarette in her hand and there was such a melancholy air about the whole scene, it was like out of a movie. Anyway, when she is almost passing us she suddenly looks at my SO

(who was nearest to her) in a super sexy sort of way. I don't know how to describe it, but she simultaneously blew out the smoke through her nose and then bit her lip while looking directly at him and then she flicked the cigarette into the sea without even looking at it. I don't like people polluting the sea but she just looked so cool doing it lol.

Sorry, I know I'm going into too much detail. Just know that she looked like straight out of a movie. So, she passes us and my SO and I look at each other and his face says "Omg did you see that?" and I just mouthed "wow", and as soon as she passed us my SO turns around and looks after her. For a long time.

Basically until she's in the restaurant. I made a bit of fun of him for looking after her so obviously and that was that. Vicky made a comment right then and there, how it's really uncomfortable to be stared at like that, which is totally true of course. And I'm sorry for staring but I just couldn't take my eyes off of her. Which doesn't make it ok, I know.

For the rest of the evening, Vicky was standoff-ish but I didn't know why, she didn't say anything. Then the next day she was even more so, I thought it was because the vacation was over and she had to get back to her stressful job the next day. A week goes by and I call up Vicky to ask if they want to hang out on the weekend.

She tells me she is not sure if she wants to see my SO because he behaved in such a disgusting way. I didn't know what she was talking about at first. Then she says, I was there when he was catcalling after the woman on the pier. I am 100% sure he didn't catcall. I told her as much. She just scoffs and says "sure, honey." Then we kind of awkwardly hang up.

Some days go by and Vicky texts me she would like to meet, just the two of us. We met for drinks yesterday. She basically told me she couldn't be my maid of honor, because she cannot watch me marry such a "disgusting" man. I told her again that he didn't catcall but she says that's beside the point.

She told me I apparently didn't look at his face while he looked at the woman and his look was disgusting. She also asked me if I'm not worried at all, marrying him, now that I know what "his type" really was. I told her that even I stared at the woman, and she's certainly not MY type, because I'm not into women. She was just stunningly beautiful. Vicky says that's different, I should have seen the look.

Well, I didn't know what to say to that, because I obviously didn't see it. I asked Vicky if she had a bad experience in a situation like that (I expected maybe the whole scene took her back to an uncomfortable situation she herself experienced) but she just waved it off. Said this wasn't about her. It was about him staring at "young women".

Now, the woman wasn't particularly young, it's hard to guess her age because she was wearing a lot of make up but I would say she was at least in her late 20s. I'm just so confused, did we experience the same situation? It's like Vicky saw it completely differently!

When I got home, I told my SO and he was really surprised and told me that he didn't catcall and never would do something like that, and that he's sorry for staring at the woman, which is not even an issue for me! (But now I'm thinking, should it be?) He called Tom and asked his perspective and Tom was totally surprised as well, Vicky made some comments but he didn't know it was that big a deal

and he didn't even know she doesn't want to be my maid of honor any more! Which makes me think, maybe this is not so serious after all, or she would have told Tom about it? Anyway, I'm at a loss. Can ONE LOOK really be so bad to change one's opinion of another person? Is Vicky exaggerating? Or am I not worried enough? May there be an underlying issue I am not seeing?

tl;dr - SO and I went to a restaurant with friends. A stunningly beautiful woman walks up to us and gives my husband a look that is out of this world. He stares at her. My friend (f31) and would be-maid of honor tells me how disgusting this was and that I can't marry a man like that. I don't get it.

What do you think about this situation? Is his behavior suss? Or is the friend making something out of nothing?

This is what top commenters had to say:

Jtenka said:

Imagine being so attractive you've destroyed a person's marriage just by walking past and smoking a cigarette. The whole story sound utterly insane. I can't believe there are actual humans that would end relationships over a single look.

[deleted] said:

Vicki is on some BS, ignore her. Some woman locked eyes with your fiancé and he stared back. You teased him about it but acknowledged she was indeed beautiful. End of story. Sounds like a very functional relationship to me.

[deleted] said:

Are Vicky and Tom married? If not, she may just be having internal issues about them as a couple introducing the two of you and now years later, you are getting married but she is still waiting to be asked. In which case, it could just be bitterness clouding her vision and behavior. Just a possible reason behind her behavior that gives you something to work with(i.e. if they are not married and she wants to be.)

La-di-dottie said:

I feel like Vicky must have something else going on that she is projecting onto your fiancé. Her reaction to the whole incident seems pretty out of proportion to what actually happened. I mean, if your fiancé really did catcall this woman right in front of you,

I have no doubt you would have noticed and been a little annoyed. I wonder if Tom might have any insight into what might be going on? So sorry you’re having to deal with this.

OP later shared this update on the situation:

Hello everyone, some time has gone by since my first post and I wanted to let all the helpful commentators in my OP know how the situation unfolded... So, first off: thanks for all your insights, it made me think about my friendship with Vicky and I realized that ever since I've been together with my SO, Vicky and I have almost never seen each other one-on-one any more.

I thought about all the possible reasons for how Vicky acted that were brought up in the comments. Some of them seemed reasonable enough:

- Vickys desire to be the first to marry, as she and Tom have been together longer. Being my MOH may have been "too much" for her.

- possible jealousy issue between Vicky and Tom that I didn't see, especially because Tom is out of town a lot

- catcalling situation in Vicky's past?

- maybe Vicky has a thing for my SO. This was brought up a couple of times and I found it pretty ridiculous at first, but I'll come to that later.

Anyway, I decided to give Vicky another week to cool off. Then I met her for brunch and talked it all over with her one more time. Told her that there was no catcalling and that I'm totally ok with my SO looking after the occasional ghost of Marilyn Monroe. I also told her that if she didn't want to be my MOH any more, that was totally fine and I would love to have her at our wedding as a guest.

She seemed really relieved at this last suggestion, and told me she can't imagine being my MOH now (she can't forget the disgusting look on SO's face after all) but she would like to attend the wedding. Which made me think, maybe she really wanted to get out of the MOH thing and was just grasping at straws and picked the first situation that presented itself for some sort of drama.

So, we parted on friendly terms, and I decided to spend more time with Vicky one-on-one without the guys. Maybe then she would open up more and tell me what the real problem was at some point? When I got home however, my SO says: "So, I guess Vicky's not mad anymore?" "Sure", I say. "How do you know?"

Turns out, the minute Vicky left the restaurant, she already texted my SO and asked him if he wanted to play tennis with her on Friday. (Vicky and one of her colleagues have a weekly reservation at a tennis club and whenever the colleague can't make it, Vicky asks my SO. This happens about once a month).

But it seemed weird to me. She thinks he's so disgusting but she wants to play tennis with him? During the next few days I was a bit torn. Was this Vicky's way of an olive branch or was there something about the comments with Vicky having a thing for my SO?

A situation came to mind. When I was still single and Vicky wanted to set me up with my now-SO, she always went on and on about how handsome he was etc. and saying things like "if I wasn't with Tom, I would totally date him." But I thought she just really wanted me to go on a date back then. Anyway, after another day of thinking I asked my SO if he thought it a possibility.

He laughed it off at first. "So she never said anything?", I asked. "Never.", he said. "Well, except for when we met of course." Then, my SO went on to tell me the REAL story about how Vicky and Tom met. Apparently, Tom and my SO were at a bar, Vicky comes in and walks up to my SO with a super cheesy pick up line, but he (who was in another relationship back then) introduced her to Tom

and they hit it off right away. Now, this is not how Vicky tells it. I have listened to her version of events time and time again with different friends groups and it's always a "love at first sight" sort of story. My SO has been there with me time and I don't really understand why he never told me the real story. But then again, this was seven years ago...

My SO also asked me if I wanted to go through Vickys messages to him. That maybe I would pick up on something he didn't see. I did, but there really wasn't much there. Most of the messages were about tennis. Sometimes, it felt like Vicky wanted to follow up on something the next day "Thanks again for the match yesterday. By the way, the meeting went really well." or something like that.

But my SO is so bad at texting, and he just replied with a thumbs up. So there was never a real conversation going on. And then, the week before our vacation, she sent him a bikini picture. Now, to be clear, it was a picture of a bikini, not of HER in a bikini. The caption said: "Do you think I can wear this to water skiing?" My SO replied with the thumbs up emoji once again.

But I found it a bit weird that she didn't send it to our group chat. Also, in the corner of the picture you could see a really sexy lingerie-style bra lying next to the bikini. Idk, the whole picture gave off a weird vibe. I already had "Why would you send a picture of a bikini to my SO?" typed out to Vicky,

but then I decided to just let it go. I have a job and a wedding to plan and no time for drama. So I decided that even though I don't know what exactly Vickys motives are, there is something fishy going on that I do not want to waste my energy on. So, I will just let the friendship "fade out", even though I'm sad about it. I guess you can't keep all your childhood friends...

I know, this is not a very satsifying update and not very spectacular but I decided to post it anyway... I guess the real reason for Vickys reaction was probably a combination of wanting to marry and maybe liking my SO a little too much because she's lonely when Tom is out of town!? Anyway, she's certainly not being honest to me and I'm so tired of all this highschool crap...

tl;dr MOH finds my SO disgusting but still wants to play tennis with him. Also sends him pictures of her bikini and apparently hit on him seven years ago. I don't really know what to think except I'm too old for that sh*t and not going to keep this friendship alive...

Welp!