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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to avoid (a bit rudely), this woman because I disapprove of what she did with DH even though DH is friendly with her?

103 replies

stickette · 17/12/2011 06:51

Hard to sum it up in a subject line!

When DH was 17 he had an affair/fling/whatever with one of his mother's friends. She was late 30s at the time (MIL a few years older). She and MIL were very close. She babysat him when he was younger.

Now, as far as DH is concerned it was a fling, he was in it for the fun and it was embarrassing when people found out (she told MIL while drunk). This woman is still friends with MIL.

At MIL's birthday party some years ago, when DH and I were first together and I was being 'introduced' to MIL and FIL and their friends, this woman cornered me in the loos. Now, DH had already told me about their fling as an aside to a conversation about age-gap relationships. During that conversation he told me some details of how she'd behaved during their fling which made be think she wanted more of a relationship iyswim.

Anyway. If he hadn't already told me about it, what she said in the loos at this restaurant would've made it crystal clear and I found that massively inappropriate. I just sort of backed out of there.

Since then, and since we've had the DCs, I've done some thinking about the whole thing. I'm about the age she was when she and DH were shagging and I would never want to have sex with a teenager, especially a shy inexperienced one (as DH was). If she'd been a man and DH a girl, I think people would've been up in arms about it and TBH I'd be horrified if one of my friends was having sex with my DS.

DH isn't in the least bothered or scarred by what happened and I tend to keep my negative feelings about this woman to myself.

However she's just moved into our area, just a few streets away, and we keep bumping into her in the park etc. She has invited DH (not me and DH), out for drinks, keeps offering to babysit the DCs etc.

I don't like her. I just don't. She was rude to me. I don't for a second think she's any kind of threat. I just don't like her and don't want to be around her and I bet I get flamed for this but I think what she did with DH was massively wrong.

So I avoid her - when we bump into her I sort of smile and wander off after the DCs. I deflect her 'shall we go out for coffees' and I am pretty sure it must be obvious that I don't want to be friends.

DH doesn't get it at all and thinks I am being silly. He thinks she's a bit pathetic and wants someone to go to the pub with. He doesn't try to get me to be pally with her or anything but he really doesn't understand why I have any kind of problem with her.

So, AIBU?

OP posts:

roundcornsilkvirgin · 17/12/2011 06:54

how old is she now? she does sound a bit needy

Original poster

stickette · 17/12/2011 06:56

She's mid/late 50s now.

OP posts:

BrokenBananaTantrum · 17/12/2011 06:57

Yanbu. You don't have to be friends if you don't want to. If she was rude to you and you don't like her then no need to have anything more to so with her. Keep doing the deflection and she will hopefully get the message soon.

CheshireDing · 17/12/2011 06:58

God certainly wouldn't leave my children with her.

Just keep doing what you are doing, be polite but then hurry on with your day as you have stuff to do\are busy - surely she will get the message eventually.

Sounds like DH would create a rod for his own back if he started socialising with her.

roundcornsilkvirgin · 17/12/2011 06:58

she sounds a bit strange to me TBH ...wanting to hang out with dh etc. Your MIL sounds a bit weird as well though being friends with her. How did it all come out when he was 17 - did she tell everyone?

troisgarcons · 17/12/2011 06:59

She's just lonely - and an age gap relationship if she's 35 and your DH was 17 is very different to your DH being 35 and she being in her 50's. Aging often isn't kind to women!

TBH, as you keep bumping into her I'd just say "Thanks for your babysitting offer, but we have reliable ones already" - that lets her know that you and DH talk. I'd also pointedly say something like "Sorry, we can't come to the pub on X day, we already have plans" I might, be bitchy and make a comment about singles clubs for the over 50's etc if she was really irritating me, or I might not be bitchy. It would depend what side of bed I got up that morning

Original poster

stickette · 17/12/2011 07:00

I have no problem being unfriendly (clearly ) - but DH's 'what's the problem? You're being silly' attitude annoys me.

I know I can like or dislike whoever I want but I wish he'd be less laidback about it I think - maybe I am put out because I think he should disapprove of what she did too? I know if the genders were reversed he'd be tutting away.

OP posts:

Original poster

stickette · 17/12/2011 07:03

roundcornsilk she got drunk on holiday (she, MIL, DH and his Dbro were on a 'family holiday'), and told MIL they were 'seeing each other'.

Given she took the time to tell me what they'd 'got up to' ten years later I'd say she's told everyone, yeah. Certainly all MIL's friends know.

troisgarcons she has loads of friends though! Very active social life.

OP posts:

HardCheese · 17/12/2011 07:05

YANBU. Quite apart from anything else, there's no rule that you have to be friends with everyone who wants to be friends with you - if you don't like her, you don't need to see her. Her desire for drinking companions is not your problem. And whatever about the morality of her relationship with your husband in the distant past, in your position I would find it pretty distasteful and a bit weird that she felt the need to tell you all about it in the loo the first time you met her! Did she think you were going to find it endearing?

In your position I would be tempted to ask your husband to imagine it was the other way around, that one of your father's friends had confided in him at the urinals that he'd had a sexual relationship with you when you were a teenager, and see whether he finds it cute.

roundcornsilkvirgin · 17/12/2011 07:06

eeeewwwww

troisgarcons · 17/12/2011 07:08

Well, I'd say it's every adolescent boys dream to have a Mrs Robinson! At 17 he was capable of making his own decisions.

By and large, I don't have problems with DH keeping in touch with his ex's and he's had a sprinkling of nut-jobs amongst them

I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill.

When I was in my early-mid 20's I never had a BF under 40. Not quite the same thing as being 17 - but I knew what I was doing.

Original poster

stickette · 17/12/2011 07:10

HardCheese I wondered at the time what her motivation was in telling me - if it had come up in conversation it would've been one thing, but she literally followed me into the loos and said "it's nice to see you and DH together, he's a lovely guy... very lovely... I taught him everything he knows!"

which is just disgusting, isn't it?

DH sort of understands, he understands why that specific incident bothered me but doesn't understand why I 'still' dislike her (after all this time or something).

OP posts:

roundcornsilkvirgin · 17/12/2011 07:11

Oh no I'm cringing now! Everything he knows - the weirdo.

Original poster

stickette · 17/12/2011 07:14

I know! And it was the first time I'd met her and MIL's friends! Proper fancy do, too. I was only 23 and had no idea what to say or do with myself! And luckily I already knew the history (which she had no way of knowing).

Just creepy. I don't know if she was trying to mark her territory (I mean MIL/her place 'in the family' more than DH specifically), or it was some horrible attempt at girl talk but EW!

OP posts:

Veda · 17/12/2011 07:14

Yanbu not to like her. If shw was a prize bitch to you then no wonder! But I wouldn't dwell on what happened in the past. They were both legal and, distasteful as I find it, I have to say that it was up to them what they did.

I had a 6ling with a 33 year old when I was 17 and it lasted a year. I cringe now when I think on it but at the time I had a lot of fun and no amount of cringing will change that. I was bg enough to know exactly what I was doing and I don't blame him at ALL. We were attracted to each other and followed up on it with no strings attatched.

My own husband popped his cherry when he was 17 to a 45 year old. He ended up telling his Mum while pissed ar her 40th birthday dinner! He thought it was hysterical! As you can imagine his Mum was less than pleased!

So, yes, from the outside the age thing is a bit creepy BUT the people involved don't tend to think much about those things when involved.

I'd definately stay away from this crazy old mare if I were you. She sounds loopy regardless.

lifechanger · 17/12/2011 07:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Gonzo33 · 17/12/2011 07:16

stickette you should have told her it took you an age to get him out of those bad habits

I think I would have told her to jog on by now though.

HardCheese · 17/12/2011 07:17

Stickette - oh yuk. She sounds like her judgement of what might be approprate to say in a conversation with a total stranger is way off, and why on earth is she still dwelling on a long-past fling? (I have no massive moral problem with the original relationship, personally, but if any long-past ex of my partner's felt the need to tell me about what she'd 'taught' him sexually the first time we met, I'd wonder what on earth was wrong with her!) I have to say it would also put a bit of a crimp in my libido!

Veda · 17/12/2011 07:18

*fling

Original poster

stickette · 17/12/2011 07:18

I think I'm coming at it from being protective of DH (who was a very shy and awkward teenager - and she did a lot of 'grown up' things with him I think it would've been better if he'd discovered with people his own age), and having DSs. When I was 17 having an older boyfriend was very 'cool', but 24 was the upper limit!

I'm not saying he was especially badly treated, but I do not approve [catsbum emoticon] It was the emotional manipulation more than the physical act I think I object to.

OP posts:

Original poster

stickette · 17/12/2011 07:19

Gonzo I can't really tell her to GTFO explicitly (well, I could, but), because she is still good friends with MIL and FIL and goes to all the big social events.

MIL was really angry when I didn't want to invite her to our wedding, for example.

OP posts:

roundcornsilkvirgin · 17/12/2011 07:20

Oh blimey - did you invite her?

Snorbs · 17/12/2011 07:30

YANBU to not want this woman as a friend.

YABU to be pissed off with your DH that he doesn't see the situation the same way you do. It was consensual sex. The age gap doesn't bother him and who he chose to sleep with before he met you is, frankly, none of your business.

jasper · 17/12/2011 07:35

fair enough for you to avoid her if you don't like her.

But yabu for being annoyed at you husband for not seeing it as you do. It happened before you met . He may look back on it with great fondness

jasper · 17/12/2011 07:37

does your husband say he was emotionally manipulated?

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