Guidance

[adoptionissues]

Hi all,

So a little background.
Me and my ex partner were together for some time.
I found out that they had a criminal conviction of independent images of children (disgusting) and to my utter horror, their conviction ended up on my DBs (as a 3rd party disclosure). Some time later, the relationship ended (due to other issues as well. (I was young and naive and didn't see any evidence of them looking at pictures of children)).

I'm now happily married, and me and my partner are now looking into adoption. I have been assured that my DBs will be cleared of any information relating to my ex. My partner doesn't know about my ex's conviction as we havent spoke about it and I really don't want to have that conversation. And I'm pretty sure that would be a confidentiality breach too to discuss my ex's conviction.

My question is, do I have to have that conversation with a social worker about my ex? We live a long distance away from each other, like 300 miles and we have no contact. I haven't spoken to the ex in years and I am worried this will hinder my adoption process Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Hmmm unsure. They will want to discuss and pull apart any serious relationships you've had. If you lived together then social services will want to explore it. It's best to tell your husband, why keep it a secret? The process is long and honestly it's difficult to keep secrets from social workers.

They do usually want to speak to your ex's so I think you'd need to be completely honest with them as a starting point,the assessment does go in to your past relationships etc.i would think you also should tell your husband.

If you do not disclose and social workers find out, your adoption journey will be over for good. Why do you not want to discuss this with your husband? Based on this secrecy, social workers might question your ability to have difficult conversations with your future child.

Hi All,

Thanks for the advice so far.

I don't want to tell my husband purely for the fact I don't have contact with my ex, he lives 300 miles away from me, and it's their conviction, not mine.

I am not involved anymore with any information about my ex, not do I want to be. It was a mentally abusive relationship and I don't want to revisit the past or have my husband know the knowledge of my ex. I simply want to move on with my life and have a family with my husband.

Unfortunately, I can't have children of my own, so adoption is really the only way to go to for us.

Thank you all

To be honest, the whole process involves revisiting the past. Social workers will want to know that you have processed all of those events in your life both together and as a couple.

They will pull at any loose threads and this is a big loose thread.

They would want to know why you felt you owed your ex confidentiality over total honesty in your current relationship, especially given that it was official and has a direct impact on your relationship now. You owe him nothing at all. There is no such thing as confidentiality in this process really!

They also need to know whether you have really been able to process that time in your life. For example, would you know the signs of another abusive relationship? What tools or strategies would you have to escape it? Being a new parent absolutely kicks you in the gonads mental health wise, and you can be incredibly vulnerable, so having a robustly set of strategies to prevent your own isolation would be important. I would say it is a strengrh- you have clearly done it before, so you could talk about this as a positive aspect.

I would also say that having a kid can be very triggering, and adopted kids can be incredibly astute about working out your triggers. For example, if you like a tidy house because your mum/ex/uni flatmate was messy, or insisted on it or mentioned it once when you were feeling vulnerable, the sound of a million tiny lego pieces tumbling to the floor as your child gleefully empties a box with nary a care in the world about them going everywhere for the tenth time that day might well be the last straw. I would say that you need to have processed everything that happened with your ex with your new partner so that they can know why you reacted that way and can support you. It also means you can name your own feelings.

Finally, there is also a lot of life story work involved for adoptedchildren. You tell them stories, retell them, play them out, help them to make sense of it. The breach of trust between you and your ex when you found out about those images must have been really hard. Your children may have gone through similar experiences, or been victims of similar circumstances. You will possibly be reliving your own trauma everything you do this, and without the support of your intimate partner that is hard.

I would say you have a really good opportunity to discuss this with your partner, and get some good learning from it that will be seen as really beneficial in your application.

I totally get not wanting to even think about an ex. Unfortunately there just isn't a way round it unless you tell a big lie. As others have said, if they then find out you will be stopped from adopting. They speak to various references for you both, all it needs is for a friend or family member to mention an ex and that will be it.

It's shit but it's how it is. I'm sure if you talk to them about the relationship and it being abusive they will not contact your ex. So I wouldn't worry about that side of things.

A lot of the process is about gritting your teeth and keeping in mind the end goal.

Have you had counselling for your past relationship and the abuse? If not, book a few sessions whether you feel you need them or not. They made us stop the process until my husband had three sessions. He didn't need it but we did it to tick the box. They then requested the counsellor confirm he had those sessions and that was that.

Hope that helps!

That’s a pretty big thing to try and keep from social work - I’d want to explore a number of things with you as part of the assessment ie why you continued a relationship with someone who had a conviction for sex offences, the abuse you experienced in the relationship, how the relationship came to an end, the supports you had in place, what’s changed in you now particularly in terms of your judgement.

You can’t be help responsible for someone else’s offence, but remaining in the relationship after finding out about the abuse, and his abuse of you would need to be explored in the context of you being able to protect yourself and any child placed, being able to set and maintain safe boundaries in the home and any potential trauma you may still be carrying. I’d certainly want to see you having had therapeutic support for all of that.

I know it feels unfair that you can’t just wipe out the past and move on, but adoption is hard on everyone- better to do the hard work of reflection now than be dealing with the fall out post placement.