I don’t know how to deal with this without it coming out as an ultimatum

[TheThrowawayName]

TLDR - mum has kept a convicted criminal in her life and won’t stop mentioning him and I can’t cope. How do I navigate it?

Mum’s partner was charged and convicted of a serious offence. He is not the parent of me or my sibling and came into her life later. It’s a crime that means I don’t want him around my kids any more.

At first, mum said she was leaving him and that the relationship was over. But now he’s edging back into her life. I have said very clearly that, while I understand that who she has in her life is her choice, I don’t want to have him in mine. I don’t even want to hear his name.

But she keeps mentioning him. Just in passing. When I ask her to stop she says that he’s her friend and pretending he’s not is too hard for her.

Thing is, whenever I hear his name it whisks me back to conversations with police and social workers and reminds me of the children harmed by his choices. My H and I agree that we do not want him in our lives in any way, even mention it’s. What he did just overwhelms everything.

I need to be firm with mum. But if she refuses to stop what can I do. I don’t want it to be an ultimatum but I can’t see another way though it without saying that if she can’t resist talking about him then I can’t be around her. That she’s made her choice.

I get that she’s scared to be in her own. She’s in her 70’s and hasn’t faced the world without a partner since her early twenties. But I can’t really understand her decision to keep him in her life. She says he’s a friend, but I can see over time it’ll settle back to how it was before. He told her he was suicidal after conviction which is what persuaded her to stay.

As far as I can see everything is fucked. Either I put up with it, which I can’t, because I’m sickened. Or I don’t see my mum because she won’t change, which is awful as we otherwise liver her tomojeces. Or I push her to leave him properly and she resents me.

I can’t win. And I hate him for it.

ETA: My brother feels the same way he’s going to talk to her as he lives with her right now after a relationship breakdown. But he’s worried about it too.

Absolute bollocks. You are putting in a boundary that any normal thinking person would. Nothing at all to do with control.

You are at least giving your mother a chance to chose a decent path of dumping a paedo and having you and your kids in her life.

I can't see any alternative than an ultimatum but it can be served cold with polite explanation of you position and putting the ball in Mum's court with the wish and hope from you (verbalised to her) that she will choose you and yours over him.

This situation as as awful as it can get. I have a friend whose mother is with an appalling alcoholic who is violent and aggressive. It has taken years for her to see the light and it has wrecked the family.

Your brother is in a strong position to influence your mother (and perhaps tell the guy straight that he is not welcome in your family).

It might be more helpful to think in terms of having a boundary, which acknowleges that you can't control others' behaviour but you can decide how you will respond. When your mum mentions him jump in as politely as you can and say "sorry to interrupt mum, I have to go now." Your mum is free to bring him up in conversation and you are also free to leave the conversation at that point. Rinse and repeat. Being consistent with your boundary is more powerful than stating an ultimatum, and you don't need to cut off contact with your mum.

What danger do you think your mum is in? I think women in her situation are most likely being manipulated and used but not directly abused, unless she is at risk of coercive control? I might be missing something here, but there are examples of women who have enabled child abusers, rather then being targeted themselves.

Given what you’ve said about this person and their convictions I would have no doubts about an ultimatum in this instance.

I wouldn’t want him having any access to anything at all to do with my child, including their photos etc, and if she is unable to cut him off then I’d be secure in my decision to stop any information going to her about you & the children completely.

This would be a really firm boundary for me, she has choices and she needs to make one.

You have to choose. Your dm has made her choice. She prefers him to you and your children. I would go NC.

It ain't that complex. You side with paedophile you don't get me in your life simple.

Going no contact is something that is often suggested on MN, but after giving this a lot of thought OP, I don’t think you have any choice. I would expect my adult children to go NC with me if I was friends with him. Thing is, I wouldn’t be friends or have him in my life in any shape or form. That’s the real issue here: your mum has made her choice to prioritise him over you and her grandchildren. That hurts, but she’s an adult so will have to deal with the consequences of her actions. It might be that this will be the wake up call she needs to stop minimising the behaviour of her friend. In any case, your priority is your kids. End of.

It wouldn’t even be a question of whether to offer an ultimatum or not, if my mum even considered being in a relationship with someone like this I’d consider her a threat to my children.
Even if she ended the relationship, I’d still feel disgusted she even went there in the first place.

Well there’s the fun @MammaTo now she’s made this choice whatever she says, even if she swears he’s out of her life, I’m going to assume she’s in contact and hiding it. Fundamentally I no longer trust her judgment.

Nobody is 'siding with a paedophile'.

I know it's fun to go around accusing people online of allowing paedophiles to run rampant, but use half a brain cell.

OP has agreed that this a complex situation and there is more than one potentially vulnerable person involved.

@fghbvh or course it’s relevant. It would be easier for OP’s mum to turn a blind eye to the conviction if he insisted he was innocent and it was all a big mistake, than if he admitted he’d done it.

In speaking from family experience not online suspects. He is convicted the bar to that is horrendously high.

I went absolutely no contact with anyone who utters their name.

If my mum, who I love and care about, was dating a convicted criminal, I would think very hard about cutting contact and just leaving her to it, regardless of how stupidly I thought she was behaving. It's a complex situation.

I suspect your mother has accepted his assertion it was accidental access/caught up in something bigger. Alternatively she's convinced herself that "it's not the same as real child sex abuse" because it's images and he didn't have hands on a child, so she's minimised it in her head - he's not the person who took photos/carried out act therefore he is less culpable.

I don't know if there is some way of getting your mum to either speak to a professional involved in dealing with online crime who can calmly explain to her why it is not possible he accidentally "stumbled across" or was duped into accessing these images; that people who do this have to engage for quite some time with very cautious criminals to get access to images.

I expect you've already told her all this, but perhaps she would be more accepting of someone else she doesn't feel has the agenda of getting the man out of her life explaining it unemotionally.

Failing that working you are stuck with keeping her at arms' length.

And as I said I lived the experience with my father. Haven't seen him in 30 years. He chose to keep a relationship with a convicted paedo.

I don't let anyone in my life who has any contact with a known pedophile as did all the rest of my family. If it had have been my mother I would have done the same.

I would maintain contact with her to the extent that she’s able to have conversations that don’t mention him. She would not see my kids or have any relationship with them. Her link to them is his access to your children.

Every time she says his name repeat it but add "the paedophile" so if she says "Bob phoned me" reply with "Bob the paedophile?"
She will soon stop

OP - you should make this Sarah’s Law enquiry. Find out if this one conviction is the only one.

This is exactly how I would approach it.
Also my Mum would only see my children at my home and she’d have to give me her phone when entering through the door.

OPs mother is. It's literally the whole point of the thread.

Sadly your mum’s choices and behaviour put your DC at risk. You understandably don’t trust her as regards Bob.

Your mum has capacity to take decisions for herself and is doing so.

For me that would mean no contact between her and my DC, or any information for her about my DC, whilst she is in any form of contact with Bob, even with the safety measures others have suggested, due to the risk of her talking to Bob about the DC.

We had a similar experience; step grandfather was messaging our Austin daughter about using condoms on his Willy …. Not enough evidence for CPS. Although was arrested after refusing to hand over laptop phone etc.
dirty fucker.
its my husbands mums partner. She is not allowed contact with our younger children, our children aged 18 plus can make own decisions.
my husband does want a relationship with his mum… however she has ignored all contact .
for me… she’s just as bad as him

I would point out to her just how much mud sticks. That people who know his past and see them as 'friends' together will then judge her to be in accord with him.
We associate with people who have similar values and tastes.
Paint them with the same brush...
However lonely she might feel being alone, she will be lonelier still if she keeps company with him.... and fingers will point.
Be strong for your kids... you know the right thing to do.

I have a double fold insight into this. My father did this with my step mother. She had abused me but he stuck by her… I cut off all contact. Never intentionally saw or spoke to him again (occasionally saw him in passing as we lived about 20 miles apart) but as far as I was concerned he didn’t exist. That never changed. He died 6 years ago and I had been N/C for 20 years.

My ex partner turned out to be a paedophile (glad to say he’s currently in prison but won’t be there long enough) his family stuck by him and they were given a clear choice between myself and my children or him and they chose him. The one family member that stuck by me was my SIL (who has young children herself) and she’s now going through a similar thing with the family regarding them having access to her children if they continue to name drop or pass information. She’s already in the process of divorcing her husband because he has stood by his brother and, as she said, that makes him complicit in the crimes and it changes her feelings about him because that’s not the “good moral man” she married.

People that keep paedos in their lives or feel sorry for them are as damaged as the paedos themselves and I personally wouldn’t want anyone like that around me or my kids. That’s poison.

I think she needs to choose between a relationship with him or one with you and your family. I couldn’t speak to or even look at someone having a relationship with someone who has done what he has!! Disgusting.