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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
TroublesomeEx · 17/12/2011 07:39

I agree she sounds needy and somewhat predatory.

I don't think what happened all those years ago is a problem, the fact she is still talking about it now is a bit Hmm though. I think she probably was marking her territory when she spoke to you. It was entirely inappropriate.

Is there a chance she might make a play for DH not because she desperately wants him but to prove to herself that she could still have him if she did?

weevilswobble · 17/12/2011 07:40

I think you should tell your DH that an old flame and i mean old in both senses, has moved nearby and has asked you out to the pub and has kindly offered to take your DCs out to the park / babysit. See if that idea freaks him out. Why the f would he want to be all chummy with him? He just wouldnt.
So same thing.
YADNBU
My DP was taken in hand by a married older woman why he was a cute 18 yr old and really shown the ropes. It makes me cringe, partly because i dont like to think of him sleeping with anyone else past or future, but especially a dominant, preditory older woman who knows exactly what shes doing. He moved on to uni and left her behind, but he said recently she tried to add him on Facebook!!!!!!!!!!!! Arghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! This was all over 25 yrs ago.

troisgarcons · 17/12/2011 07:40

Well, aside of the Ops dispproval of something that happened 20 odd years back - it is a bit disrespectful of this woman to keep asking a married man out for a drink , excluding his wife from the invitation. Well I think it is. It is like 'marking your territory'.

once upon a time she could hook abloke 20 years younger - I bet she can't now - and trips down memory lane serve no purpose.

MakesXmasCakesWhenStressed · 17/12/2011 07:42

tb entirely h I'm not sure I'd want my DH going out for drinkies with one of his exes no matter what the history was. Just tell him to look at it from your POV?

NinkyNonker · 17/12/2011 07:43

Wow, amazed the mil is fine with that. Had it been a 17 yr old daughter and the dad's friend I suspect the family (and MN response) would be a little different.

Original poster
stickette · 17/12/2011 07:45

DH finds the whole thing a bit uncomfortable to look back on so he tries not to. Some of the stuff they did (she introduced him to drugs, and anal sex), he does regret.

I didn't invite her to the wedding! I was a bit stressed at the thought she might get drunk and tell all our friends/my family about her and DH to be honest. MIL threw a massive strop about it.

weevil that is spooky because she added DH on facebook a while back! He added her back to be polite.

OP posts:
NinkyNonker · 17/12/2011 07:47

Yup, yanbu. Eeew.

Original poster
stickette · 17/12/2011 07:48

Makes DH is friendly with a couple of his exes and we see them around, I don't have a problem with that really. But they've not been disrespectful to me, which is a big difference :)

He can't see it from my POV because he really doesn't understand why I care! He is one of those anything for a quiet life types.

NinkyNonker yeah I think it would be. I hope so, actually. MIL's (lack of), negative reaction does make me a bit Hmm, I would be properly horrified if one of my best friends was shagging my DS.

OP posts:
NinkyNonker · 17/12/2011 07:48

And I'm sorry, but I personally find it odd to be sexually attracted to someone you babysat for.

jasper · 17/12/2011 07:51

you might be increasing his discomfort by pressing him to feel even worse about it .
Just avoid her but you can't dictate how he acts/feels towards her.

Are you feeling threatened by her? Are you worried that your husband secretly wants to have sex with her again?

troisgarcons · 17/12/2011 07:51

randomly waving arms expansively lots of men run off with the teenage babysitter. OK well, maybe not lots, but it often hits the papers, especially if they are s'lebs.

It's more unusual for women. Or I think it is. I've always been attracted to older men - well apart from that Harry in One Direction - but thats just an aberation on my part Grin Whilst I think of it, he's bonking some old dear as well; walking around with a smile a mile wide on his chops

roundcornsilkvirgin · 17/12/2011 07:51

your MIL sounds odd as well TBH. Why should you invite her friends to your wedding?

MakesXmasCakesWhenStressed · 17/12/2011 07:54

Stickette - and he really doesn't understand why you wouldn't want him seeing someone without you who has openly disrespected you?

I suggest a skillet to the back of the head until he opens his eyes...

(yes, I'm joking)

NinkyNonker · 17/12/2011 07:54

They may do, but I find that just as odd.

ohbugrit · 17/12/2011 07:55

YAsoNBU. And yes, imagine reversing the genders - an older man crowing about "teaching her evertyhing she knows" is massively distasteful.

I think in your shoes I'd be making it clear to your DH that the problem is her inappropriate conversation with you in the toilets. That alone demonstrates that she's a nut, her behaviour with

ohbugrit · 17/12/2011 07:55

your DH aside.

NinkyNonker · 17/12/2011 07:56

But but but, she babysat him...as in, she looked after him and knew him as a child. That is the weird part and totally different to the adult in the house getting it on with the teenage/just and adult babysitter surely?

Original poster
stickette · 17/12/2011 07:57

jasper I don't feel threatened by her sexually. I think - and I know you (and lots of people), disagree, and I don't really want to get into an argument - that having sex with someone you have known since they were a small child is dodgy. The fact she went out of her way to let me know what had happened is weird. That's just my perspective.

If she wanted to have sex with a teenager, why the son of one of her closest friends, who she'd known since he was small? And the circumstances were somewhat coercive. I know a teenage boy having sex with an older woman, even an older woman he knows, even a friend of his mum's, isn't unheard of. But it was not nice for him.

DH doesn't want to have sex with her again. It's not a regular topic of conversation but it has come up during the years and years we've been together, as have various other life experiences. I don't go on about it to him, no need, he knows how I feel and why.

roundcorn she wanted us to invite loads of her friends - a lot of them were close to DH (not in that way!), growing up, family friends sort of thing, so we did invite some of them.

OP posts:
Original poster
stickette · 17/12/2011 07:59

I think as well I've felt differently about it since having my own DS. When I first heard about it from DH (before I knew all the details), it was just a cringey/funny-ish anecdote.

OP posts:
jasper · 17/12/2011 08:01

going out of her way to tell you is weird indeed!
I would not give her/the situation any more headspace

StealthPolarBear · 17/12/2011 08:08

"having sex with someone you have known since they were a small child is dodgy." agree

jasper · 17/12/2011 08:16

I'm surprised mil does not think it dodgy as well.

NinkyNonker · 17/12/2011 08:16

Exactly, I'm amazed there isn't more shock at this, and am convinced the reaction would be different were it a girl in question.

jasper · 17/12/2011 08:20

think yourself lucky(ish)
I know a 17 yo boy whose 40 yo "fling" just got pregnant and is keeping the baby

pigletmania · 17/12/2011 08:21

YABU about the past, if your dh is fine with it, than so be it, let it go, its his past. YANBU though to not have anything to do with her, I would stay well away, she sounds like trouble. Don't have anything to do with her.