Mums new partner…red flags or is it me?

[AurumVox]

Hi…I really need some advice if possible as I can’t tell if it’s me having an issue with my mums new partner because it’s new or whether I should be genuinely worried.

To give some context, I’m 41/F, my mum is 68. We lost our dad (step father who raised us) 3 years ago and my mum has started dating a guy (73) over the last 6 months. I met him this week as I live about 200 miles away so I’m visiting currently.

I want to start off by saying the huge amount of relief I felt when I found out that mum had met somebody, although it was hard and different I actively encouraged it as I knew how much mum was missing my stepdad who she was with for 31 years, I also worry a lot being so far away so to know that she’s been so happy and that she’s spending time enjoying her self has been the biggest relief.

In the first few months of them dating mum was really quite overwhelmed as she’s very independent, has a great network of friends and stays very busy. The guy she’s started dating is very intense and was wanting to spend all of his time with her so she was finding it hard to balance all the other commitments. I talked a lot to her about seeing it from his perspective as he has also lost his wife around 18 months ago. So I put a lot into talking things through with mum and encouraging her to communicate with him about how she was feeling etc.

About 3 weeks ago mum travelled up to stay with me and I looked after her dog while she went to her place in Crete, while she was staying he was calling her 4 x a day which I thought was a lot! Didn’t say anything though. She said this was normal for him. That he wanted to spend all of his time with her which she didn’t want. She had also said previously that lots of people disliked him because he often says the wrong thing and could be taken as rude / abrupt etc, that perhaps he was slightly lacked social skills. I again said well you know him in a different way so go with the your gut. They met through a solo group of which some of the members have apparently warned mum off him.
They get on great, and she’s said recently she’s totally fallen for him. My mum I would say is a very independent, intelligent, wise lady…so I would never have questioned her choice.

I met him this week, a couple of times now and he has been so rude to me that it was uncomfortable, for myself and for mum. The first time I let it go thinking maybe he’s nervous etc. but the 2nd time was pretty awful. I didn’t want to make a big deal and thought I’d wait for mum to bring it up which she did after he’d gone, saying she’d never seen him behave that rudely towards anybody before. I was surprised I managed not to react but instead I think I just froze and didn’t know what to do.

I also noticed he corrects her all the time and they have this constant ‘banter’ as mum calls it, where they almost argue who is right. To the onlooker it comes across as him telling her she’s wrong about everything. He also has the code to her key safe on the house. When we arrived back from mum staying with me he had let himself in and left her flowers and cooked a meal for us which was left in the fridge - which was a lovely gesture it just felt strange, like he’s totally love bombing her.

I’ve seriously wracked my brain over whether my issue is one of my own - am I still grieving, am I feeling possessive, I’ve gone over and over the mum deserves to be happy and so on. But my gut just can’t get past the way he spoke to me and how he is with her. I actually feel like a petulant child about it (which I hate!)…am I reading too much into it? Am I subconsciously trying to sabotage?! I simply don’t like him and I feel like I’m really trying to.

It’s hard because I obviously miss my stepdad terribly and its weird somebody else being here but I’m highly aware it’s her house, her life, she needs and deserves to be happy (which I want for her more than anything else) and at the end of the day my opinion doesn’t and shouldn’t matter (much).
It’s been strange because I’ve barely seen her and since I’ve been back she’s been over at his or stayed over there and when she’s been here she’s exhausted so our time has been limited. I’ve taken time off from work to come down and spend time with her and I’m pretty much just here doing very little.

I really don’t know what to do. Should I put my feelings aside despite what I feel are red flags? Or should I keep sharing my concerns which is making it really difficult?

Any advice or opinions would be welcomed - I’m realistic and if I’m coming across as bratty then I’m open to that too! I just want an outside non emotional perspective I guess?

Just adding to my pp.
I'd say 'look mum I've seen enough. I don't like the way he treats you or me'.
Add more if you wish but you need to be frank.
I told my friend her chap was controlling and after her cash (her mother's really as he proposed marriage after seeing the family home). The mother is 86.
I always preface hard talk with 'you can tell me to bog off but...'

Personally I’d have asked that he goes to visit his wife’s grave in his own so that you can spend some quality time together. If he didn’t understand this then that’s another thing your mum needs to see against him.
why would his ex want his new woman to visit her grave anyway?

I think you need to make it clear that her relationship is her choice, you’ll support her whatever she decides but you are concerned about … And spell your thoughts out directly without hedging around anything.

"I simply don't like him and feel like I'm really trying to!"

You're trying to ignore your instincts for your mum's sake. And because you don't want to come across as the jealous daughter.

Your mum is probably ignoring her instincts for his sake because she's 'fallen for him' what with him being so misunderstood and all that. And also for her own sake as she enjoys being in a relationship again.

I would keep an eye on things and share your concerns with your mum. She needs another voice in her ear to counterbalance him and his mind conditioning.

Letting himself in to cook the meal etc. in context with everything else? Ugh! I can almost imagine him earmarking the page in his text book.

Don't try to like him. Go with your instinct. It sounds spot-on to me.

You sound like the loveliest person but really...!

Maybe my family are peculiar or something but we really do speak our minds to each other, never rude, never swearing, never bombastic but we get our points across! Stop treading so carefully.

Honestly! You need to sit your lovely Mum down and tell her what for! This man sounds awful. Talking over you, rude to you, bombarding your mother with messages, it's all unpleasant.

It has happened to my late FIL. A woman made a play for him, it's such a long story, can't go into it... needless to say he changed his Will, and most of my DH's treasured family possessions are now with her family (she has since died) and we will never see them again.

He may well have neurodivergent traits, but being autistic and being abusive are not mutually exclusive. As you say, he recognises his behaviour can be problematic and can control his worst impulses when he wants to.

My guess is that he was especially rude to you because of jealousy, and because you represent the biggest threat to him - you’re the one person who can cut through the noise of his incessant neediness, love-bombing and mansplaining, and wrest your mother out of his control.

And it is control. Controlling behaviour usually comes from a place of insecurity, so it’s easy to excuse and feel sorry for the person engaged in this behaviour - at the beginning. But by the end he will have worn down and reduced the mum you currently know to a shadow of herself. Isolationist tactics, encroaching on her life to the exclusion of everything and everyone else, talking down to and diminishing her - it’s the standard playbook. Next he’ll be punishing her ‘transgressions’ (i.e. anything he doesn’t want her to do/think/feel/say) with sulking, brooding, anger and withholding.

IME people meeting second-time-around partners in later life tend not to chop and change once a bond has been established, no matter how suboptimal the partner. You may not be too late to save her from this inevitable trajectory, but if it goes on much longer OP, you’ll lose her to this shitty man.

Rudeness is a clasdic way to alienate someone from family and friends.

Unfortunately you have inexplicable told her to ignore her gut.
Really inexplicable.

Apologise to your mother for getting it so wrong.

This is a controlling manipulative man.
Who cares if he is on the spectrum.

He's an arsehole.
You need to do a Claire's law check on him.
Tell the police your mother has been warned by friends about him.

Take it very seriously.
He reads as controlling and predatory.

Also talk to her about the future - if he falls ill tomorrow (at age 73 it’s statistically
possible) is he able to get care if he needs it? Does he have family who would step up? Is she expected to be his carer?

OP, have a conversation with her and share your concerns.

She was with your dad (stepdad) for 31 years and that's a long time to suddenly be faced with someone new and to he navigating whether this is 'normal but different' or 'wrong'.

I understand you wanting to be nice when she first raised this with you but I feel that was her reaching out looking for support and maybe validation for her feelings. I think the kind thing to do now would be to be honest with her about your true feelings about this man.

Whatever this man's reasons for his behaviours, he is not your mum's responsibility and she needs to protect herself.

You’re being far too nice about this. Your mum trusts you to be honest with her & you’re not.

Your mum raised the red flags early on. She was clearly concerned or she wouldn't have told you about them. She wanted your opinion, but you glossed over them.

I hate to say it, but you bear a degree of responsibility for this, and it's time you were completely honest with her. Anyone else would have responded to this grave trip by saying 'mum, I took time off work to come and see you, yet he's demanded your presence and we've hardly spent any time together. Why are you going with him, and why does he expect you to?'

You are so right. So many red flags! I had a similar situation many, many years ago when i was in my late teens. I was really creeped out about my mums boyfriend, he was rude to me and even at one point grabbed hold of me and threatened me. My mum wouldn’t have any of it and didn’t believe me. From that moment i made it my mission to get rid of him, he was so toxic. I hired a private detective to do some digging into his past and after the initial probe it was found he was a fraudster who had financially ruined other partners lifes. After desperately going down this route i did not regret it and thankfully my mother actually listened to what i had to say and got rid. I could just feel he was evil. Even decades after the thought of it still gives me the creeps!

Show her this thread. You sound lovely and she will surely see that your intent is all about caring for her well being.

What evidence is there that he is autistic and not just a controlling arsehole? Is there a diagnosis?
My family are neurodiverse, none of us would act like this misogynistic, bombastic, controlling prick. Also where is his own family? Is he non contact with them? If so why?

Please stop being so polite about him.
Your mum may mistake your politeness for approval.

Sorry OP but it's a thing. I'm not much younger than your mum and there's a sub-section of men this age who still think life revolves around them and their needs. They think that women will be so grateful to have a bloke in their life they'll give up all friendships and activities to sit and watch the snooker with them and make them snacks.

Tell your mum on no account to do this. This isn't a long term loving relationship where you've earned trust and compromise for each other. She sounds way too good for this chancer who just wants a housekeeper with benefits.

This is absolutely awful, it is true that men from other generations may have grown accustomed at having a wife always available for everything they may need want, but that level of control, which is not right but unfortunately common at that age, builds (or deteriorates into it) over years. The fact he is trying to get her there so quickly is far more than a red flag.

I think you need to start expressing what you feel if she asks you directly, instead of glossing over it or trying to get her to understand where this abuser is coming from.

He is a very bad idea.

She sounds great and she has so much going for her. The last thing she needs is this man clinging to her, dragging her down, isolating her, criticising her.

When she voices her doubts you seem to have been defending him!

Sorry but I’d actually say he’s right here. He says something and you shut him down as though he can’t possibly have an opinion. I wouldn’t say either of these was rude of him.

He sounds like my friends partner over the years I have tried to tel her he is abusive but she brushes it off. Now she has really bad anxiety, i do not even think she knows it’s because of him but he’s tells her everything is wrong and she is useless at everything. I’d be concerned too.

Re-read the OP's OP.

Lay off the assigning of responsibility to the OP FFS. What anyone else would have done is beside the point.

I don't think this is the problem.

Without wishing to generalise, 'being on the spectrum' might lead to missing social cues, and not realising that he was dominating the conversation, but it wouldn't lead to him being upset that you had experience of living in a city with trams, or irritation at a banal comment about having grown up in the area.

But I do think it’s really weird that he’s hogging her while you’re visiting

You can't be serious.

He sounds narcissistic and I have read that they get worse as they get older. I have what I would consider a narcissistic ex and he was a nightmare.

She wasn't shutting him down. In one instance she was just agreeing that the walk was lovely and that she knew it because she grew up in the area.

In the other she was just contributing to a conversation about trams.

Even if she had expressed herself in a way that he found a little irritating, in normal social discourse, you put up with that - particularly if you are meeting your new partner's child for the first time.

yanbu. Your mum being exhausted is a red flag. Possibly he’s exhausting her? I’d she’s in a good, new relationship she shouldn’t be feeling that way? It’s a tell tale sign that all isn’t well.

I’m the same age as your mum and have been widowed for a similar length of time.

I can’t imagine myself ever getting in a similar situation - but that’s the point, isn’t it, we all think it won’t happen to us until it does. Even the most feisty, independent and capable people can become very vulnerable after the death of a spouse.

Please do your best to alert her to the possible implications of trusting someone so completely at such an early stage in the relationship.

Does mum understand the risks she faces by giving him permission to enter her house when she’s not there?

The priority must be to stop him gaining access to the house - change the locks, stop using a key safe. Ask a trusted neighbour to keep an eye on the house when mum’s away and let you know if they have any concerns.

If he’s in the house when she’s not there he might gain access to financial paperwork, her will, property details etc, all of which could be used to put pressure on her to make decisions in his favour. He could even move in and prevent her from entering!

I hope you can find a way to raise this with her - in the end it may require some straight talking but if you tackle it with a practical security focus first that might be more acceptable to her.