When Going With Your Gut Takes Guts

I have this friend. No, really.  She's a wonderful woman.  She lives nearby, she watches my kids, they even go to the same school.  She has been there for me numerous times over the years and I consider her a neighborhood treasure. 

Her husband is a whole other story.  He gives me the creeps.  When I'm around him my radar goes berserk and I'm not the only one.  I wish I could just push all my negative feelings for him under the rug of our friendship and pooh pooh them away but I can't.  He makes off-color comments to the women on my street and he does it in front of his wife and kids.  How do you explain polygamy and a threesome to a preschool age kid?  He can fill you in. 

Last week my mother paid me a visit and brought this man up for topic of conversation.  She was privilege to the most recent round of neighborhood news and gossip including this man's latest comments and leers.  As she listened to the litany of complaints and feelings of creepiness this man creates she mentioned something else.  Now my mother-in-law is getting involved.  She and my mother have made a small request.

Could I please keep my kids away from this man?

Sure. Nothing would give me more happiness than for them to not have to learn about bra cup-sizes, internet porn or a menage a trois than from this guy.  Except here is the thing- how do I explain our sudden absence to my kids and my friend, his wife?  It's easiest enough to keep the girls away while he is around on the weekends without stirring up questions from his wife. However, I know there will come a time when I will have to explain to my oldest child why she can't play with her friend.  Or have sleepovers, go on family trips with them and more.  We are getting into that realm of their friendship already. Add in the fact that my husband thinks all this is an unwarranted and unnecessary set of precautions and I'm feeling really stuck.

I am not saying this man is a pedophile.  From what I have seen he doesn't exhibit that type of behavior.  There is no unwarranted touching or strange eagerness towards my kids or even his own children.  It is simply the issue that he is entirely inappropriate and disrespectful in his comments towards other women in front of his kids and mine. When he exhibits his bad behavior in front of his own wife she laughs it off or comes up with an excuse for him.  It makes me wonder how far she would take these excuses and what she could also be wearing blinders from. 

I want to go with my gut instinct but having that conversation with my friend about her husband and then continuing to live next door in our tightly knit community is going to take real guts.  No matter how much I hate confrontation but these are my children.  It is my job to protect them from germs, injuries and jerks.  No matter how awkward it makes life for me.

Original DC Metro Moms post.  Victoria blogs daily at The Mummy Chronicles and Mummy's Product Reviews.