My mum has met and moved in with someone very quickly, within six months. When she first met him I was immediately uncomfortable because of the comments she made about him being domineering, wanting things his way, making sure she was aware of his life and how she ought to fit in with it. Since she has been with him she has quickly gone from her usual self to everything being a 'unit', much as you would expect from a long standing married couple.
She has stopped coming over to the town where all her children live, cancels plans and whenever any of us ask her if she wants to do anything her first reaction is 'I need to check what partner is doing first'.
All of this is worrying in of itself and I feel he is very controlling.
However my main issue is my reaction to him around my child and my nieces and nephews. I have had a basic gut reaction of extreme aversion to him, to the point where him picking up my son and cuddling him made me want to leap over the room and hit him.
When I saw him with all the other children my reaction was the same. He spent the first time he met them all focusing almost exclusively on them, asked them all for cuddles and had them all sat on his lap. When I raised this with my mum and said I found it inappropriate to be holding them, cuddling them, resting his hand on the youngest one's bottom and generally forcing hugs on them on the first meeting she said he had raised this himself that evening and was 'worried' the children had all been so 'affectionate' to him, but that 'they came to him'.
My mum is now being pretty forceful in asking us all to visit him at his house with them both there, my sister went and said she felt uncomfortable and that it was similar behaviour.
I am basically refusing to have him anywhere near my son, I cannot explain how strongly my reaction is to him, I feel sick even thinking about him being in the same room as my son and this was my instant reaction and has only got worse and more strong.
Since obviously all his behaviour can be explained away innocently I am in the position of coming across hysterical but I cannot emphasise how strong my feelings are enough on a gut level, and also I have NEVER had this reaction to anyone before. I have been 100% fine with other men my mum has seen over the years and how they are around my son.
So I guess my question is two-fold. Have any of you ever had such a strong reaction like this and what did you do about it? And also what should I do moving forward. She is now getting divorce papers for her current marriage (my step dad) and I fear a swift engagement is on the cards.
Am I massively over reacting?