Does this sound like grooming? Please help- step uncle

[Lam23]

Posting for traffic/I’m not sure where else this belongs..
Background if it helps: I’m a mum of a nearly 4 year old. She is very bright, happy, outgoing, completely normal development wise and attends nursery full time. I met dh when she was 2 and they have a great relationship, which has grown over time, i can honestly say I really trust him and she has started to call him daddy which feels natural for us all. Her dad has never been in the picture and we have no contact with him.
I have recently begun to have real worries about her relationship with my dh’s brother. He is 31, unmarried, no kids. Generally quite an immature guy (loves gaming, works minimum wage job and lives in a flat share) but seems pleasant enough since I’ve known him. However, since he met dd at a family gathering probably a year ago, alarm bells are ringing for me more and more and I don’t know if it’s instinct or paranoia. Every time he sees her he picks her ups lot, tickles her, cuddles her, he addresses her as “friend” (seems odd for a 3 year old), he always buys her extravagant presents whenever we see him. She is a trusting kid and I’m beginning to think, too trusting- because of all the positive attention he gives her (and maybe because she lacked a “dad figure” the first couple years of her life?) she absolutely loves him, talks about him loads, nowadays whenever he is there at a family gathering she just wants to go to him and has a tantrum if I say no or keep her next to me. It seems really excessive that she is so into him and that he had instigated this type of relationship with her- dh’s sister, who has kids, has what I would consider a more normal relationship with my dd and is lovely to her but definitely doesn’t push the boundaries. He has now offered to babysit a few times and I refuse point blank each time which I think dh is a little upset by (dh idolises his brother and I can’t talk to him about ANY of this). It happened again yesterday with lots of cuddling, sitting on his knee. My own brothers don’t do this with my dd and I feel like I can’t put a stop to it, but she is so trusting and I don’t know how to protect her. Whenever she needs a male figure she seems to get overly attached anyway, but for me this is going too far. She doesn’t want to be near me or dh when his brother is around, the amount of presents makes me uncomfortable and I feel like the physical stuff in public is a possible first step of grooming. Can anyone please help me understand what to do, it’s a really sensitive situation. Does this sound odd? I would appreciate anyone who knows about signs of grooming etc to weigh in. Do I sound crazy?
Fwiw my mum and sister are both teachers and having witnessed the interactions said that their own instincts were kicking in too and that the developing relationship wasn’t necessarily appropriate/he seemed a little over interested in kids.
Please help, this is stressing me out so much whenever we are around family.

It sounds like you have it well in hand OP! Best of luck with it, I hope DH has your back :)

For me, another red flag...

‘(as well as the random male friend he brought to the meal)’

Brought to a family meal without a prior invitation?

Manners, if not boundaries etc, for me.
Clearly your partner’s family has a different set of behaviours & family style to yours. For any new blended family, there’s some settling in to a familiar pattern that needs to take place.

For a moment, putting your unease about the partner’s brother to one side, there is scope to discuss with your partner the differences between your two families & what is usual & normal, & negotiate from there. This is the two of you as adults building your future. How this goes will go some way to allay or increase your concerns.

Make sure you all see your family as much as your & your daughter need & want. Do not loosen or loose contact with them.

Trust your instincts.
Better to look back in 20/20 hindsight to see your self now as being over cautious than to look back with deep regret.

There’s no way on earth I’d be considering having a child with a man who’s brother behaved like this op. With your dd you have the parent trump card to pull and always will - what you say goes. You wouldn’t be able to protect another child in the same way and if you ever split up you’d have no control over how or when this man was interacting with them. From what you’ve said the whole family are blind to his weirdness and your dh an apologist.

Good luck OP. I hope it goes well and you get your DH's support

OP she's your daughter therefore your rules. To be honest from what you've written it sounds like your husband has been groomed by his brother to not question him.Trust your gut.

Trust your instincts to be careful but he doesn't sound unlike my brother who always spoiled mine rotten and still would give them his last penny. Sometimes people are up to no good, other times it's fine.

The whole family sound weird, I’d keep her the hell away from them!
Talking about adoption ffs?

You don’t need to inform your DH that you’re going to speak to your daughter about the pant rule etc either? Do you feel like you need to run your parenting past him?
Are you quite submissive to him in general?

So this man works in LAW ENFORCEMENT yet thinks it's ok to go and be with a load of unrelated DCs rather than adults at a social gathering, tickle and have physical play with a 3 y o girl who he showers with gifts, have this girl sitting on his lap, and a whole load of other things? And people are tiptoeing around like he is an adult with additional needs who has no clue what he is doing and should not be upset?
He works in LAW ENFORCEMENT! He knows what constitutes grooming behaviour, I would expect? Perhaps OP should ask him about grooming behaviour and assess his reaction!

He also used to work in a school so yes I am sure he knows about how it comes across but fact that he obv doesn’t care is concerning.
All of my family or friends who met dh brother think he seems odd . A number of reasons why. Not in a benign way either, he does come over as arrogant and pretentious and made no time to get to know my adult family members.

I guess I am maybe “submissive” to dh because he can be stroppy, I walked on eggshells in the past until I asserted myself and it’s not been that bad again. I am a long time people pleaser but tbh the stuff with my dd is the only thing that’s made me change. Putting her first comes naturally and I’m not scared of his reaction to this because I also feel like I can bring in my mum for backup if he outright refuses to hear it or calls me crazy.

And tbh the bad bullying of my dh right up to their teenage years now they are “best friends” see each other every week, he was best man at our wedding, and dh has a total blind spot where he is concerned (his brother is also a functioning alcoholic by any definition and dh will defend this to the hilt)... it does feel like dh has been groomed. Maybe not sexually ever, but mentally.

OP, I haven’t been able to read the whole thread

I’m a little alarmed by some of the comments here that imply that blood relations / biological parents are not a risk to children which is sadly very far from being true.

I was abused by my father, my sister was not but was abused by a family friend. Another family friend would always come and stay and always suggested he would sleep in our room with us - my mum refused that fortunately.

None of these men were the type of men you’d think of as being child abusers - all married, two with children themselves. My uncle who was single all his life never laid a finger on us and was the most protective wonderful uncle you could ask for, more of a father to me than my own father.

You can’t assess risk of someone abusing your child from their relative status, their marital or parental status or anything else. You can only objectively look at their behaviour and trust your instincts.

If you ignore them, your child may be abused. If you listen to them, your child will not be learning inappropriate boundaries which leave her open to grooming and abuse from others even if he is not an abuser. Acting on your instincts will in no way harm her. Ignoring them might.

And meant to add, if he knows what constitutes grooming behaviour, why the hell is he engaging in it? As he should know how it could be interpreted, and would be putting himself at huge risk of trouble by engaging in it!

What your describing is very worrying to me.
You’ve only known your DH what 2 years?
There’s talk of him adopting your DD, you’ve walked on eggshells, he’s stroppy, you feel you have to justify your decisions over your own DD etc etc.

Do you think you’re subconsciously trying to paint a picture here because it sounds like it’s about a good deal more than DH brother?

OMG it gets worse.

BTW, a fiver days the 'cartoons' are manga / anime.

'says', not 'days'.

BTW, a fiver days the 'cartoons' are manga / anime

Yep, this is exactly what I was thinking

I think I and on my dd behalf do currently feel a bit out of control and beyond comfort zone, the dh brother worry is by far most serious example though because it could be a real threat to her security. Could be. And it’s easy when you’re a single parent to feel like you should be grateful to have this doting other family and not question it.

Trust your instincts. I have five daughters and have a blanket rule for all of them that they don’t sit on anyone’s knee except me and their dad and grandparents.
It is absolutely not worth the risk for the sake of offending somebody or hurting someone’s feelings.

Well, great excuse for not babysitting - I would not leave a child with an alcoholic.
Wonder why he dislikes himself so much that he needs all the alcohol?
Did uncle become best buddies with your DH after he met your DD, or before?

I always ask permission from my own dd if I have to e.g. check a strained muscle on her thigh - she is 11. I am her Mum and I think she has the right to know she has autonomy.

BTW, a fiver days the 'cartoons' are manga / anime

My thoughts as well as soon as cartoon was mentioned

Inky and Presea

are you both in CP too?

I haven’t read the whole thread through so apologies if this has been covered already.

Even if his motivations and intentions are entirely pure, he’s still going to have an effect on your daughter’s perception of acceptable and normal behavior.

She’s learning that it’s normal to sit on men’s laps. She’s learning that it’s normal to accept extravagant presents. She’s learning that it’s normal to be more friendly with a man than her mother is comfortable with.

Even if his intentions are entirely pure, his behavior towards her is going to leave her that bit more vulnerable if she meets a man with less wholesome intentions.
Because it will seem normal to her.

It is the responsibility of caring adults to act around children in ways that affirm good boundaries.

I’ve just had a similar discussion with dh about his dm’s habit of encouraging the dc not to tell mammy and to keep this our little secret
We’d been chatting about a lesson they’d had in school about safety that confused them and I’d said that you can always tell your parents anything and to be suspicious of anyone that encourages you to keep secrets, thinking I was on fairly solid ground.

I grew up in a family where being polite and having good manners was highly important. I had an uncle who had lots of sons and longed for a daughter and I used to have to endure sitting on his knee for cuddles. It was entirely innocent (and standard practice in the 70s) but (among other things) it contributed to my acquiescence to things that made me uncomfortable, and my fuzzy boundaries about normal male behavior. I was groomed in my early teens and I’m honestly shocked now that I couldn’t recognize, back then, how inappropriate the man’s behaviour was towards me. But if I contextualise it in the lessons I learned as a child, it makes a sad kind of sense.

It might be helpful when talking to your dh to discuss it from the point of view of what behaviours are being normalized for her. Rather than trying to convince him that his db is being inappropriate.

I would also be wary of your husband. It all sounds a bit weird. Some families allow abuse to happen.

They’ve been close since they both moved here at the same time. Neither have really any friends made here, they tend to socialise in family group/people who live here who are from same place. I don’t have an issue with dh having a close friendship with his brother but I don’t think he’s the most positive influence, literally every time they socialise dh returns absolutely plastered, the dB drink to point of vomiting at every social event, and besides that has actually got dh to spend even more time with him than he used to because of his mental health issues (mental health issues, alcoholic, no baby experience- why is my SIL handing over her babies to him? Literally no idea. This is what I mean, he’s NOT benign but in his family he is a prince and anyone else can’t see it at all and thinks he’s odd)