AIBU - pushy/needy friend

[Heidi3333]

Just wondering what you guys thought of a situation I’m in.

I’m 47, single and 3 years ago met a guy while on holiday with my daughter (she’s now 7). He’s a few years older, single, never married. Although there was definitely no romantic interest on my side he seemed nice company and we met up a few times on the holiday just as friends. I’ve always made it clear we are just friends and he has always respected that and never made any moves.

Since we got back home he has travelled up to Scotland (where I live) numerous times to spend time with us - he lives a 3.5 hour drive away. He usually stays a few days and will book into a hotel near by. I enjoyed his company and didn’t mind the visits.

Initially he came up just a few times a year but he’s starting to want to come up more and more often. Xmas 2022 he asked if he could spend Xmas with us and my family but I (politely) said no. Most recently he was up in December then February and now he wants to come up again in April! Visits are always initiated by him, I’ve never went down to his. And when he’s here it’s for days, he spends hours at a time sitting on my house and I end up spending a lot of money keeping him entertained with days out, dinners/lunches out etc that, being a single parent, I struggle financially with.

I’m living temporarily with my parents and brother right now and over time they’ve got to know my friend and grown fond of him. He has also started bringing his step-mum (only family member he really has) and I like her too. They both shower the family with an embarrassing amount of presents on birthdays and Christmas and have gotten close enough to my
Family that sometimes they all go out for dinner without me if I’m busy.

Here’s the problem - I am 7 months pregnant (donor embryo) and my
friend was last up only a few weeks ago. He messaged asking if he could come up next month (when I’ll be 8 months gone) but I said no as I’ll be too tired to entertain them for 3 days. I said he was welcome
to come up once the baby arrives. He then suggested coming up either the week after the baby was born or a few weeks after to celebrate his birthday. I also said no and that I needed some time getting settled Into a routine with my new baby and that he would have to wait until Autumn to next visit.

He hasn’t replied to my last message.

I think he’s probably hurt by my rebuttal but I just feel he’s getting too much and becoming too imposing on my family. He doesn’t seem to have many friends… I am becoming increasingly irritated by him at this stage but part of me also feels guilty.
AIBU by keeping him at arms length and setting up boundaries?

Thanks for reading x

Anyway, he’s crossed too many lines and I’ve had enough. I don’t think I’ll be seeing
him again.

This is good but you need to make it more final.

Anyway, he’s crossed too many lines and I’ve had enough. I won't be seeing
him again and will text him today to tell him. Then I'll block him completely.

I can see how hard it is when everyone else treats it as normal. I was told on safeguarding training they groom the adults around the child first and then can get away with inappropriate behaviour in plain sight. Sounds like he’s done this with your family.

I let him take her to the local park for 30 mins last time he was up while his step mum and I went to a shop. I suggested it as my daughter wanted to go. This was only after I’d had a lengthy chat with my dad and my brothers about my concerns re my friend and they reassured me I was being irrational. I regret it now 🥲

Talking is useless without practical action.

You've left this ... inappropriate man be alone with her, despite your own instincts. What use is talking to her about inappropriate behaviours if you then leave her alone with an inappropriate guy who has already given you ample evidence of how he doesn;t take NO for an answer?

Sorry OP, I'm sure you have no plans to let him be alone with her again.
Try reading The Gift of Fear. If you'd read it before your hiliday 3 years ago, you might have listened to your gut feeling. The feeling that you felt bothered by this guy & didn't want his company. Start having the courage of your convictions & stop letting random men invade your life.
www.amazon.co.uk/Gift-Fear-Survival-Signals-Violence/dp/0747538352

But I think it’s a bit irrational to view EVERY guy as a potential paedo!!
Nobody's asking you to. And stop bloody minimising, this isn't a joke. Get THIS man out of your life - not because he's a potential paedo but because he's a boundary-crashing user who is teaching your child that she has to tolerate being manhandled by him.

The essential nature of grooming is that it happens in plain sight.

No i definitely won’t be leaving her alone with him again. It was the only time in 3 years and like I said it was only because my family reassured me I was worrying about nothing! It won’t happen again as he won’t be coming up again!!

If you mean what you say OP, then message and block him today. There is literally nothing stopping you.

By saying nothing you are leaving the door open.

I completely agree with this.

You need to be decisive OP and cut the cord.

You've spoken a lot about not wanting to be confrontational or make a fuss etc by saying you weren't comfortable with the physical affection.

But you must always, always prioritise your daughter's wellbeing over avoiding awkward conversations or unpopular decisions.

Worst case scenario if he's not dodgy is that you aren't friends with him any more - which isn't a huge loss as he clearly makes you uncomfortable in a number of ways.

Worst case scenario if he is dodgy... doesn't bear thinking about.

It's better to make an unpopular decision / have an awkward conversation and for your child to be safe than it is to be 'kind' to someone who makes you uncomfortable and put your child at even 1% more risk than necessary.

I find it quite baffling that your response to a complete stranger messaging you on FB was to respond to their messages ‘because they’re quite attractive’. Didn’t you wonder why a random person started messaging you? Did you even consider it could be a scammer with a fake profile?

Those are the things I assume when I get random FB messages, and my instant reaction is to block them, not to start chatting.

When you did your training as a nurse, didn't you do a paediatric rotation where you looked at safe guarding?

Get off online dating sites and focus on putting in boundaries to protect your children. Your recent experience OLD has already shown you that there are a lot of seedy guys out there.

You are definitely doing the correct thing by cutting contact. Have you had any communications with the American family at all?

Op, fuck this “he definitely won’t be alone with her again” scenario.

your absolute best case is that he is entirely benign but is teaching your daughter that it’s ok for her to be touched and kissed by adult men, thereby making her more vulnerable to grooming by others. That’s the best case. And the worst case is extremely likely
given everything he doing is straight out of a groomer’s handbook.

block him and work on your judgement and boundaries to keep your kids safe.

Hi with re to the other guy contacting me on FB - he sent me a message claiming I’d sent him a friend request and that he’d accidently deleted it and he was unable to send me a request back (or something like that). He was really attractive and I wondered if there was some truth in his story so chatted for a bit but I’ve stopped now.

yes I’ve had some safeguarding lectures as a nurse but I thought grooming would be much more obvious. If my ‘friend’ has been grooming me and my family it’s been very insidious 🥲. Physical affection to my daughter in front of everyone, posting pictures of us all over FB. It’s not always been obvious.

They do it in front of others, that's what these creepy men do. It's about breaking down boundaries.
Good god woman, advocate for your daughter, tell this man to never contact you again & block him, what the hell are u thinking.
The FB guy is a scammer, u didn't send him a request, it's what scammers do. Block him. Do not reply to people you don't know on FB, this is basic internet shit.

I can understand why you've not been confident enough in the past to make a decision about this man, but now's the time.
Make the decision to cut this man from your life, and more importantly, from your daughter's life.
You are right that you can't go through life worrying about the worst that could happen, but you can't ignore things when they are staring you in the face.
These are my red flag sensations:
I'm sorry but it's all so odd. If he's after a relationship with you, and you've been clear that isn't going to happen, then he's obviously not bothered by not having sex with you and after 3 years hasn't been put off. So that's not his motive.
If he's lonely, why purposely choose someone of the other sex, who has young children, lives some distance from him, and has different priorities at the moment. Wouldn't it be simpler to find some like minded people to chat with at a hobby nearer to his home.
If he enjoys family life. This isn't an unreasonable wish, but you mention him having relatives, so he does have extended family. The idea that you can sort of insert yourself into another family group, continually upping the timescale of meet ups and adding on an elderly stepmother is a bit of a niche idea, if you ask me. If it happens due to circumstance over many years, with neighbours or people who live near to you, then that might be one thing, but this all seems so engineered.
This man is of no benefit to your daughter. Don't risk putting yourself in a position where you would risk saying yes to something, either to save embarrassment, or due to circumstance. The simplest way to prevent your daughter from being alone with this man is by never seeing him again. It would be so much harder to refuse help with her once new baby is here and you are shattered.
It'll be "let me help" or " you need to get some rest, or else you'll be no good to anyone. I'll watch her" . If you know you lack confidence and find that people override your opinions, the best way is to shut everything down so you aren't in a position to agree, under any circumstances.

yes I’ve had some safeguarding lectures as a nurse but I thought grooming would be much more obvious. If my ‘friend’ has been grooming me and my family it’s been very insidious 🥲. Physical affection to my daughter in front of everyone, posting pictures of us all over FB. It’s not always been obvious.

I really think it's worth you doing some work on this maybe with a refresher course on safeguarding.

Abusers don't just groom children. They groom their whole families.

They hide in plain sight and can abuse children literally in the same room as other people, as they've created a dynamic where it's normalised for them to be in close physical contact with the child.

Is there a history of being in uncomfortable, unhealthy or inappropriate situations within your family? Or a history of all avoiding difficult conversations / keeping up appearances etc?

Only because you and your mum have both been uncomfortable with this man's behaviour towards your daughter but neither of you seemed willing to address it (and you still haven't said outright that you're now going to cut contact with him) and I'm finding it hard to understand the hesitance so wonder if similar (adult males being befriended by your parents and welcomed into the family for example) has happened before when you were younger?

Some relevant info I found with a quick google:

Befriending Family Members of the Child
Child predators groom children as well as their family members, giving themselves greater access to opportunities to be alone with the child.
When the child sees the friendly relationship their abuser has with their parents or other family members, it can keep them from sharing what’s really going on behind closed doors once the sexual abuse begins. This may be because they don’t want to disrupt the family “peace” or feel guilty for having complicated feelings about an individual the family loves and trusts.

Pushing Physical Boundaries
A perpetrator will often start to push physical boundaries, starting with innocent touching that eventually leads to inappropriate sexual contact. They may push physical boundaries, want to give hugs, or let the kids sit in their lap, or tickle them.

Grooming is insidious by nature and takes place over time.

yes I’ve had some safeguarding lectures as a nurse but I thought grooming would be much more obvious.
If it was obvious, we'd all be able to spot it & prevent it wouldn't we?

I need to repeat this because you're just not getting it - GROOMING HIDES IN PLAIN SIGHT.
It involves adults, family members, & uses relatives (eg the stepmother) as beards to make the groomer look inoffensive & sanctioned.

It doesn't matter if he;s predatory or not.
He has pushed his way into your life, he demands too much, he makes you uncomfortable, he feels entitled to your daughter. Get rid of him.

I hope,@Heidi3333 , that you will take the advice you've had to heart and ACT on it.

Surely you must realise by now that you are a gullible people pleaser who lacks boundaries. I don't know what happened in your life, especially your childhood, for you to be so ill equipped that you cannot see the sea of red flags that is quite obvious to everyone else.

I don't want to seem harsh, but you would really benefit from intensive counselling to try and unpick all this and help you find the boundaries that you so desperately need.

But it’s not been obvious to everyone else has it?! My entire family have been taken in by him! When your nearest and dearest don’t think there’s a problem it’s hard to trust your instincts
And no, I haven’t been in contact with the American family.
Anyway, I really appreciate all the replies.
He will not be coming nearing us again. It will be a relief to not be worrying about him anymore.
I think a slow fade out will work for me better. I kNOW I won’t be seeing him again as I didn’t really want him coming up last time and with a new baby I’ll be even more wary. It seems easier and less dramatic to me. In time he will be deleted and blocked.

OP- I second reading the gift of fear by Gavin De Becker. Its an excellent book. He emphasises in this book how NOT trusting your instincts can lead to absolutely horrific situations. He also wrote a book called protecting the gift which is similar to the gift of fear but is about protecting your children from scenarios such as this.

I suspect your worry about offending him is indicative of being a people pleaser which you probably got from your parents (from what you've described about them also being vulnerable to hangers on etc). Therefore, if your parents are also people pleasers then of course they will think the best too- they are not listening to their instincts either because they have a thing about not offending people. Therefore, your parents are also not the best people to judge this situation objectively because they are also trying to people please. Trust your instincts and use this situation to read up on people pleasing because otherwise you will find yourself in this kind of situation over and over again. At worse, you will be open to potential predators and at best, your needs will end up being trampled on due to other people taking advantage of your inability to say no. Another really good book is by Aziz Gazipura called "not nice" and its about how to stop people pleasing and stand up for yourself.

I wouldn’t do a slow fade on this one as someone who ignores boundaries will just keep trashing them…..and this slow fade will have you preoccupied and on high alert for months and months when your headspace needs to be 100% on your daughters.

I would make it blunt and permanent.

Don’t worry about offending him - he has no care for imposing on you - also these types have been there before - he will be used to people binning him off.

Is the slow fade for his benefit?

How does it benefit you to have even one more interaction with him?

He is a stranger and a leech at best. You owe him nothing. New chapter for you.

Rip off the plaster - the relief will be immense.

But it’s not been obvious to everyone else has it?! My entire family have been taken in by him!

Your mum has reservations too, you said?

You need to feel empowered to make decisions that might be awkward or feel unpopular if those decisions are in your child's best interests.

That's why I think no contact is best. You're obviously vulnerable to having your instinct overridden by what other people say, which means that he can still be manipulative / guilt trip you / get your family on side etc for as long as you have further contact.

Because in reality a slow fade is just a continuation of contact with him and he is someone who tramples your boundaries and overwhelms you.

No good can come from staying in touch.

Massively recommend reading 'the gift of fear' too and also having a think about whether your family has previous form for introducing adult males into the mix under the 'be kind' pretence when it's actually been inappropriate.

He sounds like a textbook paedophile. I found some good information on childluresprevention.com

You can also ask the police, explaining his contact with your child, and they will disclose to you whether he is a registered sex offender. His contact with your child meets the criteria for disclosure. You can find information about that here: www.gov.uk/police-check-someone-involved-with-child

You will never get definitive proof of his motivations - not until after it is far too late and he has already sexually assaulted your daughter. He gives you the creeps and he's following a paedophile's playbook. It's enough.

Grooming can happen to anyone, most people are not well informed on how it takes place, and it involves the entire family. Grooming involves getting the family and/or community onside so that those with suspicions or concerns are reassured, gaslighted, or undermined. Increasingly physical, affectionate and ultimately inappropriate contact occurs with the target child. Then comes alone time, the special relationship with the child, secret keeping, special treats, a "special" relationship. By the time the child is abused, they are fond of their abuser and want to protect them. The lines between filial and sexual have been blurred. The typical paedophile is the "trusted" adult who has pushed their way in to the family and past everyone's normal boundaries (if they ever existed). It's gradual, like boiling a frog in a pot.

I would ask the police if he is a sex offender. Regardless of the answer I wouldn't ever see him again. Speak to your daughter, make sure nothing has already happened. Even if this is alarmist, at the very least he is unwanted and makes you uncomfortable. You don't have to be "nice", he hasn't been "nice" to you. Be as pushy at getting rid of him as he has been infiltrating himself into your life.