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AIBU?

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Channel 4 documentary "Married to a paedophile" *MNHQ amended title*

291 replies

MissHavershamssis · 03/09/2018 23:17

Channel 4 tonight aired a documentary whereby the words and experiences of women married to paedophiles were documented albeit actresses played the parts of the wives to preserve anonymity.

I absolutely cannot comprehend any woman who could remain married to a man who finds the abuse of children arousing. One wife rightly so chucked her husband out upon his arrest - yet is happy for their two daughters to have contact? The other woman was imo disgusting - welcomed her husband (who had viewed the most extreme categorises of child abuse over several months) back with excitement and 'wore her best dress' to meet him on his release from prison.

I absolutely am not of the vigilante stance where 'we should chop their bits off' etc, and believe in rehabilitation via the SOTP, but as a mother and daughter I cannot get my head around any woman who could remain with a partner who found children sexually attractive.

On a different forum a few years ago there as a woman who defended her partner to the death as he was attracted to pre-pubescent boys but didn't act on that attraction. Most people were horrified.

So I suppose my AIBU is - to not understand how anyone could stay with a partner who has a paedophile as a partner.

OP posts:
ThumbWitchesAbroad · 04/09/2018 01:13

I'm overseas so can't see the programme but I agree with you OP - I can NOT understand women who stay with men who abuse children. It is beyond me, totally - especially when it's their own children!

How desperate for a man in their lives must they be that they'll keep hold of a sick bastard rather than be on their own - that's the only reason I can see why they do it.
"But I love him" doesn't cut any ice with me because how could you still love someone who sexually abuses children? How could you still want to be even touched by someone who does that?

I do think that some of them completely minimise it too, refuse to believe the victims, downplay it, and mentally disconnect from it rather than actually face it. People are quite good at that when it interferes with their own self-interest, as a PP said.

I'm also convinced they cannot be rehabilitated. If that is their sexual preference, then that's not going to go away.

Want2bSupermum · 04/09/2018 01:20

I think the wives are often abused too which would explain why they stay. I think someone who sexually abused a child or enjoys watching it has a power problem and they are married to a submissive person who they are also controlling.

gunpowder I am so sorry you were so badly let down.

Havabiscuit · 04/09/2018 01:28

Paedophiles often have suffered abuse themselves as children.
I think we have to try and understand this urge in order to tackle it.
However, I’m trying to imagine how I would feel if anyone in my circle ( let alone my husband) was convicted of this kind of offence - absolute revulsion.

ToeToToe · 04/09/2018 01:29

Just to be clear - I haven't seem the program - this is too close to for me for reasons I won't go into here. But the story of my friend involved an interest in the abuse of babies and toddlers.

And yes, my friend had been abused by him too. In some ways, she was freed by the police raid on her home. In her words "somebody in authority had finally told him he was wrong".

Her testimony of his abuse against her got him put in prison - he got a suspended sentence for the child abuse stuff. Online child abuse is not taken seriously enough. It frequently turns into real-life abuse too.

Buswankeress · 04/09/2018 01:36

I'm not sure I'm going to explain this well, so please bear with me.....

Pedophiles cannot be rehabilitated.

I think this too. It is accepted that being sexually attracted to the same sex or opposite sex is not a conscious choice, rather a biological one. Society used to believe that being gay was a choice, it was illegal at one point. It's now understood and accepted that sexual orientation isn't a choice.
So how can a pedophile ever be rehabilitated if we understand and accept sexual attraction is not a conscious choice? Acting on such attractions is obviously a choice, but how can you discern that a person caught acting on such an attraction will not do it again, just hide it better to try and avoid getting caught, if sexual attraction isn't a choice? They will always have those feelings, there's no way to change that.

Aintnothingbutaheartache · 04/09/2018 02:01

I really hope we’re not going to start comparing peadophilia to being gay?

Havabiscuit · 04/09/2018 02:08

buswank
I think the jury is still out on rehabilitation. However, suppose we go with your assertion that paedophiles cannot be rehabilitated. We have to stop them acting on their sexual urges.
So I’m imagining that family support might help this? I don’t know!

ToeToToe · 04/09/2018 02:14

Well - I'm not!

But the PIE-types do. To justify themselves - they think they have sexual orientation. Of course the stand out OBVIOUS difference is that children cannot consent.

But then PIE-types (I know PIE has been disbanded now, but believe me, they're still around) are after reducing the age of consent too - so we just have to stop that nonsense too. Children cannot consent to sex.

Anyone that starts talking about the sexuality of children, or reducing the age of consent - well, you know who talking to. Shut that shit down.

ToeToToe · 04/09/2018 02:15

^that was to aintnothing in case it wasn't clear.

Buswankeress · 04/09/2018 02:45

@Aintnothingbutaheartache

I really hope we’re not going to start comparing peadophilia to being gay?

No I'm (we?!) certainly not because as pointed out, children cannot consent, therefore it's illegal and wrong. That wasn't my intention AT ALL. I said I wouldn't explain it well.

I'm saying if sexual attraction isn't a choice, which much information as I was growing up told me, but is a fact of who someone is, how they are born, then how could a pedofile be rehabilitated, as in choose not to find children attractive, if we say being gay or straight isn't a choice, it's who you are, then peadophilia which is also sexual attraction, isn't a choice and therefore not within the person's power to change. So no, I don't think that a peadophile can be rehabilitated.
What is in their power is the choice to act upon those feelings, even though they know they are illegal, immoral and harmful to the child/ren. To me, if they act in any way, shape or form on these feelings, and are obviously caught, how can we trust that they won't do it again, when the motivation to do it are the feelings that cannot be altered?
I'm not saying that pedophile's shouldn't be held accountable for their actions because they absolutely should, I'm saying if they go ahead and do it, there's no going back at all, locked up for good.

Harrypotterfan1604 · 04/09/2018 03:04

I worked with a lady who’s husband was arrested for child sex offences, he manipulated her she believed he didn’t do it then the night before the trial admitted to her he’d been grooming young children online and had even met up with a few and had sex with them boys and girls🤢 she was broken! Ten years on she’s still a mess about it and has never managed to trust another man again. Her name printed in newspaper articles saying she was sticking by him which almost ruined her career but at the time she genuinely believed him :(

AnoukSpirit · 04/09/2018 03:04

I'm not convinced it is about sexual attraction so much as the lure and high of the absolute power they can wield over someone vulnerable and defenceless.

After all, rape isn't about sexual attraction, it's about power.

Same motivation for all abuse: power and control.

Certainly, in that example earlier of the abuser who sent his victims messages etc, that was all about his need to feel powerful and that he could still wield control over them. "You will always be mine."

Santaclarita · 04/09/2018 06:12

What about the ones that only look at images though? Don't take them or abuse kids directly. That's not power or control, they have no power or control over any one in that situation. And there's a lot more people doing that than you'd like to think believe me.

There's a paedophile near me that did that and got caught. Tens of thousands of images on his computer.

At my work we also caught someone doing the same thing. He was sent to prison too of course. But he was again 'only' viewing images. There's no power there.

For some it is about power. They like having the control and ability to taunt. It just happened to be children that were the easiest group to access. If they had been a nurse or a prison officer instead of a teacher, the group abused would probably have been different. Criminals tend to work in ease of access to their victims.

serbska · 04/09/2018 06:17

There was a piece in the Saturday guardian magazine many years ago (five?) about women who’s husbands or partners were arrested and convicted of child abuse.

Some of them stood buy them. Awful.

sessionExpired · 04/09/2018 06:21

These women, I suspect, get some kind of thrill from it. Sexual or otherwise.

newdaylight · 04/09/2018 06:28

Unfortunately I've come across cases where paedophiles have managed to groom their partners and sometimes entire families and have then abused a child in the family. In some cases the partners own child, and when this is discovered the partners have stuck with them, blaming the child (their own child sometimes) for being abused. Sometimes whole sections of family turn on the victim and hold horrific attitudes about them. It's heartbreaking.

Wingingit3211 · 04/09/2018 06:40

This makes me sick. I was abused as a child and my step mum stayed with my dad and my mum continued to have contact with my uncle who abused me. In my case It’s because my mum didn’t believe me and my step mum Just pretended it never happened even though at times she was there. As a mother I just don’t understand it, how you can’t protect your own children. That betrayal has messed me up pretty badly

serbska · 04/09/2018 06:43

In the guardian magazine piece I’m thinking of, one of the women who did NOT stand by him and was clearly deveatsted - said something like “I just thought I was so lucky. So lucky that a nice man wanted to go out with me when I had four children. He even wanted to come on family days out. Obviously I know now he wasn’t interested in me at all but access to my children.”

pictish · 04/09/2018 06:45

I’m always struck by the irony of people who express their disgust for paedophiles and other violent/sexual criminals by detailing sordid violent fantasies of their own that they would like to mete out in response.

“Chop their genitalia off and feed it to them until they choke. Chop their hands off so they can’t stop it. And yes, I do mean that.”

Wow. I wouldn’t want that person anywhere near my children either!

Witchofwisteria · 04/09/2018 06:48

YANBU he would be dead to me.

LittleBookofCalm · 04/09/2018 06:58

I saw this, well the last 40 minutes. Bit of a taboo isnt it really but sad that the women are sticking by their husbands. They are not strong enough, although in the end the woman Did break the relationship.
Its a hard one, why should we be critical of the women, we should feel pity that they are too weak to leave.

Andro · 04/09/2018 06:59

I'm not convinced it is about sexual attraction so much as the lure and high of the absolute power they can wield over someone vulnerable and defenceless.

Not all child abusers are paedophiles (they get off on the power/seeing a vulnerable child being subjected to another's power).

Not all paedophiles (as defined in DMS-5) are child abusers (they choose not to act on their attraction)

brizzledrizzle · 04/09/2018 07:01

Nobody who finds out that they are married to somebody like that should stay. There is no justification.

brizzledrizzle · 04/09/2018 07:07

then peadophilia which is also sexual attraction, isn't a choice

It is always a choice. It might be sexual attraction but you have a choice not to act upon it. I see somebody walking round our city who I think is gorgeous and I'd love to have a relationship with them but they are married and so I ignore my feelings for them.

deepsea · 04/09/2018 07:07

Chemical castration is the only solution to men that abuse children.

Any woman that stays with a man like this needs professional help.

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