One of my closest friends, let’s call her Hannah, has been in a relationship for around 6 months or so. I considered him nice enough on the first one or two occasions I met him, if slightly comparable to an overexcited puppy. Then just before the summer, Hannah discovered texts on his phone that suggested he had not only been texting multiple girls, but had also met an escort in a nearby local hotel after having just left Hannah's flat. She said she was going to end it with him but after what I consider to be pretty major gaslighting on his part and a desire to not admit defeat or be proven wrong about him being a nice guy’, Hannah is still with him. Her choice, I made it clear that I didn’t like him but would be civil for her benefit whenever he would be in our company, which I have been.
However, what’s really bothering me is the way he is around my almost two year old son. He first met DS when a group of us went for lunch back in August, and spent a good deal of it playing and chatting with my son at the table, which is nice enough obviously, but almost immediately after we all parted ways, he messaged me offering to babysit whenever, as well as posting a picture of himself, DS and Hannah which had been taken during the lunch, on his Instagram account, bearing in mind this was like the fourth or fifth time I’ve met him. I immediately, and for the first time since becoming a mum, got a very bad feeling, like a very strong need to keep him away sort of thing.
This leads us to last night where I had some friends round for dinner at my house. I hadn’t invited him, but he turned up late into the night after Hannah told him to come over. A friend from America was also visiting for the first time in over a year so was asking me lots about DS which was nice. Midway through, the boyfriend asked me ‘when are you going to let me and Hannah take DS out for the day?’ My immediate response was to laugh and say never, which I’ll admit came out rather short so I covered by saying that DS was having issues with separation at the moment, which he isn’t, but I wanted to avoid having something kick off.
Like I said, I’ve never had such an overwhelming need to keep someone away from my son before, but my instinct has very rarely been wrong in the past, but I’m just at a loss for what to think or do really. Am I being silly?