I’m in my early 30s and I’ve been getting to know a man who is 40. We’ve had good dates and got on well but the more I’ve learnt about him, the less comfortable I feel about pursuing anything.
His biological father wasn’t interested and wasn’t involved in his upbringing. His mother subsequently met his stepfather, who has been around ever since and they had children together. However, from the way he describes things, there seems to have been a division: him and his mum as one unit, and his mum, stepdad and their children as another.
What particularly troubles me is that, throughout his life, whenever his mother has had problems with his stepfather, she has apparently confided in her son about the ins and outs of their relationship. The way he describes it makes me feel she has treated him almost as a substitute partner emotionally. This seems to go beyond being close to your mum.
Alongside this, he has expressed views about women that I find misogynistic. For example, during a conversation about Chris Brown and Rihanna, he said “allow me to hit her”. There have also been conversations where his response to male wrongdoing has been to become defensive and bring up women behaving badly.
It’s left me with the impression that he carries resentment towards women. I wonder whether the role he’s had in his mother’s relationship has contributed to that, although obviously I can’t know for certain.
I can have sympathy for his childhood and still find his attitudes deeply unattractive. I don’t want to enter a relationship feeling I’ll have to defend women generally or deal with the fallout from boundaries he hasn’t established with his mother.
AIBU to find the combination enough to put me off, despite us initially getting on well? Has anyone encountered a similar dynamic?