Ok, this is my first post but I've joined with loads of things in mind to ask, I feel like there's uncertainty in so much of my life right now.
I am writing this from upstairs in my parents' house. They don't live far from me and we've made a plan that I'll visit weekly with my son (now 15 months).
My son LOVES my mum. As do I. The problem is my dad.
He's not a very nice person. I have never liked him, he treated my mum like dirt when I was little and we've always had a strained, formal relationship.
I don't think I have any reason to suspect that he's done anything really bad to me when I was small but he has also always made me feel quite uncomfortable in an explicable, shuddery sort of way.
I have an older sister who is a narcissist (whole other story) and she once told me that he has been accused of being innapropriate by another family member but she didn't have details and I never know whether to believe things she says. For all I know if I bring it up again she'll deny having said it, that's what usually happens with the weird things she tells me.
So.
I feel very uncomfortable about the thought of leaving my son alone with him, although there's really no concrete reason for this.
I have told my mum that I am not comfortable but I don't really dare explain why as she's very defensive and already exploded at me for even saying that.
Every time I go there and ask her to watch the baby while I go and do something, within minutes I hear her off in the loo and realise she's left the baby with my dad. I ask her to just call if she wants the loo and I'll come back, I'm never indisposed.
I think she fears offending him if it becomes obvious that I don't want to leave them alone, but I always make convincing excuses.
Just now I went down and said to him "oh you need your nose wiped" and then when she came back I said under my breath "you should have called me" and aloud "he needed his nose wiped".
She got very angry and said shrilly "I had to go to the loo!!!!" and I said "I'd have come back down if you'd called" to which she gave me a very disappointed look and said that I was unfair.
My dad had gone off by this point so I said quietly "it makes me unconfortable, every time I ask you to call me and every time you just leave him."
She said "I am not going to call you I think it's unkind", so I said "then we won't come anymore" and she said "yes, I think maybe you should stop coming".
I am not exaggerating when I say this happens every time.
I know nothing untoward has ever happened and I really think it probably never would. I don't really think he is an abuser and even if he was, to my knowledge he's only been creepy to girls.
I don't feel that it's a safeguarding issue so much as a comfort/trust thing with my mum.
Apart from when it comes to discussing things that make her defensive, we are very close.
I have other problems at the moment and I really appreciate her support and don't want to stop visits or create bad blood.
AIBU?