Hi, I'm new to this and not sure where to post so am hopefully in the right place!
A year ago I split up with my ex of a year, and had a lot going on at the time of us splitting (I had to report 2 men within a year of each other to the police for stalking me after tracking down my address in ways that I never found out.. One of them is spending 3 years in prison now due to other crimes) so understandably it took me quite a while to get back into dating.
I've just started seeing a new man. He doesn't know anything about the past situations as I'm not comfortable opening up to anyone about it and seeming vulnerable. He seems lovely, and completely understands that I want to see him for a while and get to know him before starting a relationship, and hasn't tried anything on at all other than kissing, he's really respectful and pays attention to what I say/do and says that he want's to get to know me better too and take things slowly, but that he does really like me.
The problem is I had a one night stand with his brother over 4 years ago, but it's all out in the open and neither of us care about it because it didn't mean anything and none of it was hidden - we were chatting as friends while he knew about what happened with his brother who I haven't seen since. His brother then said that he doesn't want me going back to the house they live together as his girlfriend is there and is worried that we overlapped even though I'm pretty sure we didn't and he's worried that it will come out. The brother has got bipolar which I only recently found out about. He said that he's going to talk to him and see if he's ok with me coming back as we've been on about 15 dates now and have only been back to their house while he was on holiday, but I'm not sure whether we should just stay friends. Whenever I'm speaking to men now I'm constantly feeling like there's something wrong or looking for alarm bells that I didn't get before. He always makes jokes about losing his temper but I always thought he was joking - yesterday we went to a restaurant and he needed the toilet after the long drive, but the waiter said that he needed to be seated before which he got really angry at, and when I said it's fine I can go to the seat and just tell him where we were he left, the waiter turned to me and said "is your friend okay?" which was really embarrassing.. he then came back from the toilets and said "I could have given him a smack" :/ He seems so lovely in literally every other way but that put me back quite a lot. I don't know whether to stay as friends and just tell him not to ask his brother about me coming over or to see how things go? I don't want to ruin a good thing if I'm just over reacting. Does anyone else think this situation is a problem? Nobody else does apart from his brother, who said to him before our first date that it was ok to initiate a date with me, but after the third date turned round and said "yeah it's fine, I don't wanna see her though" He's there every night with his girlfriend so we have to go on dates and sit in the car rather than go inside, and I don't want to bring him home because I don't fully trust him enough yet for him to know where I live.