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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:
troisgarcons · 17/12/2011 08:22

I wouldnt be more shocked if it were a girl - in my experience teenage girls can be very predatory - boys are quite naive at that age. Girls just tend to be a bit more, well, sexualised.

I shall ponder whether, it's just women are more predatory than men for a moment or two.

I'm not saying there arren't male sexual predators, of course there are. Women tend to know what they want and how to get it - and they do it from a very young age. Girls flirt with their fathers to get their own way and wrap them round their fingers. Men just aren't generally as manipulative as women can be - mean are a bit more straightforward.

So no, again, I wouldnt have a different opinion if the situation were reversed and 17yo girl was bonking a 30+ bloke. I would actually find it more 'normal' than the Mrs Robinson scenario.

TheRuderBarracuda · 17/12/2011 08:23

She sounds utterly vile - a sleazy old woman, as I would think of a sleazy old man. I share your revulsion stickette.

She has been desperately telling all and sundry for the past 20 years that when she was in her 30s she shagged her best friend's "barely legal" son because she either still carries a torch for him and/or she uses it constantly to boost her self-esteem.

If she ever tries to tell you anything again (I just knew you were going to say she said that phrase! YUK) I would just say all light and breezy, "Oh and I know, me and DP were just laughing the other day about you and him ever having got together, saying that if you'd been a bloke everyone would have been calling you Paedo Pam/Sleazy Sue. I suppose it's one of the few double standards that works in a woman's favour."

She does also sound jealous of you so I would treat her as someone to be pitied and make a joke out of her at home. A 40+ woman cornering a 23 yr old to tell her 20 years ago I shagged your boyfriend. Desperado.

pigletmania · 17/12/2011 08:24

She sounds creepy and vile, absolutely no to babysitting and a big no to having anything to do with her.

NinkyNonker · 17/12/2011 08:26

Hmmm. But is she his mother's friend, and did she take care of him as a child? Completely alters the dynamic I think.

MrsCampbellBlack · 17/12/2011 08:26

I suspect your DH doesn't actually want to think about it too much. Because if he did - well he may actually realise that it was rather dodgy.

I'd just be polite but very stand-offish with her.

And seriously am surprised anyone thinks this was appropriate - if I was mil - I would have been absolutely furious - it was a total abuse of trust in my opinion.

NinkyNonker · 17/12/2011 08:28

But Trois, you really don't think the babysitter/small child thing is odd?

And I never flirted with my father, ick ick ick!

5318hoho8 · 17/12/2011 08:29

creepy

yanbu

pigletmania · 17/12/2011 08:31

I would tell him to delete her off FB too. Good on you standing your ground and not inviting that creep to your wedding, why should you, she is not your friend. I am surprised that your MIL is behaving the way she is, I would be livid if my friend had an affair with my 17 year old son still a minor.

troisgarcons · 17/12/2011 08:35

But Trois, you really don't think the babysitter/small child thing is odd?

Educating Rita springs to mind.

And I never flirted with my father, ick ick ick!

I have a task for you Ninky Grin observe lttle girls out with their parents. Watch the wide eyed coy smiles directed towards their father when they want something. A very different look to the one they give their mothers. Jung wrorte about the Electra complex

NinkyNonker · 17/12/2011 08:38

Quadruple ick! On all counts!

GooKingWenceslas · 17/12/2011 08:39

The woman sounds desperate to crow about how attractive she is was that she could seduce a 17 YO boy. Now we all know that seducing a 17 YO is astoundingly difficult, as their libido is so repressed at that age Xmas Hmm

TBH I'd have a quiet word and tell her what I thought, that it's pathetic and rude to talk about it, and that you don't have any intention of being friendly with her, when she abused the trust of her best friend, why should you trust her with your children.

Cut near enough the bone and she is not going to repeat any of that stuff back to anyone, is she? She she'll just fuck off.

spatchcock · 17/12/2011 08:43

Ewww, very creepy OP. No way in hell would I be letting that woman babysit!

QuickLookBusy · 17/12/2011 08:47

Tell DH that his insistance that you are "being silly" annoys you. You aren't being silly, you think she's a creep, and you don't want her anywhere near your DC.

Also do what someone else suggested, tell him about the old flame who was 40 when you were 17, who taught you everything you know,and he
wants to take you out for a drink.

TheRuderBarracuda · 17/12/2011 08:50

Oh I see. It's female children who are predatory in this world Hmm

That is one seriously fucked up attitude.

Trois You're not a judge are you? I seem to remember one saying an abused raped little girl was "no angel".

SilentNotViolentNight · 17/12/2011 08:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

QuickLookBusy · 17/12/2011 08:53

TheRuder I agree with you. Felt very uncomfortable with your last few posts trois. It's really not on to blame teenages girls in such a way.

sitandnatter · 17/12/2011 08:53

That might be the problem Jasper

troisgarcons · 17/12/2011 08:59

See you lot all read what you want to see - I was pointing out that women generally are more able to manipulate situations to their advantage. I learned that a long time ago, having the misfortune to go to a girls school. Horrible place, and to this day I distrust women intensly. On the otherhand I'm well aware that I get what I want by tipping my head slightly to one side and looking a bit thick - works wonders.

I don't think I can be held responsible for Jung and Electra, nor indeed Freud with Oedipus, if you wish to flip the coin and discuss from another angle.

euphrosyne · 17/12/2011 09:01

Some of the stuff they did (she introduced him to drugs, and anal sex)

She sounds lovely.

And a good friend too. Babysitting, educating your child...[hmmm]

YANBU and certainly NOT 'being silly'

Rudolfsgottarednose · 17/12/2011 09:04

You are entitled to not want to have any ex-sex partners (of either of you)babysitting, especially if they have 'issues'.

Some age gaps relationships can work, mine lasted 22 years, until i was widowed, some of the comments on here have been akin to the reaction mixed race relationships would have gotten previously and are quite offensive.

ohbugrit · 17/12/2011 09:10

I agree with the others trois. I think you're teetering alarmingly close to the "she was gagging for it" line trotted out about young girls coerced into thatngs they might prefer not to be doing. Of course there's a huge spectrum of "normal" behaviour but your views, to me, have been massively skewed by your past experiences. I certainly don't share your mistrust I'd women, and in honesty would be seeking therapy if I felt that way about 50% of the population!

ohbugrit · 17/12/2011 09:12

Rudolph I agree but the issue here isn't the age difference but the behaviour.

NinkyNonker · 17/12/2011 09:13

It isn't the age gap I personally am responding to Red, it is the previously responsible relationship they had had...that she was a friend of MIL's who babysat him as a child. That is the crunch point here for me.

Original poster
stickette · 17/12/2011 09:14

Just to be clear, I don't have any especial problem with age-gap relationships if both parties are consenting adults. I do have a problem with anyone shagging someone they've known from a small child.

OP posts:
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