My (42F) husband's (56M) friend (63M) is isolating himself and getting REALLY into guns, and I'm concerned about how to continue interacting with him.

Long time no post, r/relationships. Last time, I was asking for help telling my husband's friend Alan that he can't just move into our beach house; today, that same friend has continued to isolate himself, is complaining about how much he hates his job, and has recently gotten even more into guns -- acquiring his first assault rifle. My question is how to handle this guy, who has technically done NOTHING wrong, but who is emotionally unstable with no close family or other ties to reality, and who still makes passive-aggressive remarks sometimes (via text) about how he sure does wish he could go to the beach house "one last time." He sets off all my alarms and I'm frightened of him.

Alan has a history of alcohol abuse and depression, he's divorced, his only connection in life is his truly ancient cat, he seems really angry about the state of the US today (hence going out and getting an assault rifle "while he still can"), he feels ill-treated at his job, he's behaved inappropriately toward me before via text (I went no-contact with him a few years ago as a result), he still REALLY wants to stay at our beach house, and he gets pissy when my husband doesn't text him back quickly enough. I feel like we're being held hostage, and I don't know how to get out of it; if my husband goes NC, I feel like that will only upset Alan more and possibly cause him to focus his rage on us, but I also hate "having" to stay in touch with him... because he's a creep.

My husband wants to do the whole "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" thing with Alan to stay in the loop about what he's thinking, and he says he knows Alan well enough to understand that getting together in person is the best way to make Alan feel seen and heard (although my husband doesn't like the thought of it, either). I do want Alan to view my husband as a friend so he hopefully doesn't decide to drop by our house if/when he goes on a shooting spree, but staying in touch with him also puts us at a bigger risk of upsetting him, if that makes sense. What about the next time he asks to stay at the beach house and my husband says no?

I apologize if this seems vague. I'm struggling to articulate the problem. Again, Alan hasn't done anything actionable by any means, but my husband and I are both creeped out by him, and we're just not sure how to deal with him going forward. I wish he would just go away. This is not going to improve with age, either, I'm sure.

We have an email in to a security consultation firm who specializes in identifying potential problems (like stalkers), and I hope to get some advice from them, but I also wanted to find out if anyone here has had a similar experience to ours. I know that tensions have been high in the US lately and that's pushed some people to extreme views and statements, and maybe someone out there has a brother or coworker or someone like that who they've learned to handle with a balance of distance and delicacy.

TL;DR: My husband's friend exhibits a number of signs of someone who could "go postal" and become a mass shooter, and he's added an assault rifle to his gun collection; I'm looking for the best way to interact with him going forward, even though my husband and I are scared of him and would go no-contact if doing so wouldn't put us in potential danger.

Submitted October 11, 2021 at 06:19PM by throwawayX3thetrash https://ift.tt/3luyR9s