*Trigger Warning* To send this text when FIL supporting paedophile

[Milo2]

Just to summarise what’s happened: My husband has recently told me that he was sexually abused by his 20/21 year old cousin when he was about 11 or 12 years old.

My husband confided in his mother who also informed his dad. She told my husband to stay silent otherwise they would not be able to go on holiday abroad to the paedophiles house each year.

My husband begged them not to have the paedophile come and stay but the visits continued, year after year, with the paedophile now staying in another room (possibly in his younger brother or two younger sister's rooms).

The visits abroad staying with the paedophile also continued, often for the whole of the summer holidays.

The paedophile is due to stay at my FIL’s house in the next few weeks or so.

Last week I rang my husband’s dad’s girlfriend and told her what happened (as my husband is scared of his father and cannot talk to him).

Her response was that she feels sorry for my husband - however she doesn't want this coming in between her's and my husband's dad's relationship. When asked 'what about your grandchildren and all the other children that the paedophile will be around?' she replied 'yes, I'll keep an eye on him'.

Not the response I expected.

Today I called my FIL to tell him I know about the abuse and to find out what his view is. (Secretly hoping he had no idea).

He knew about it and said my husband ‘claims’ it happened but that they asked the paedophile and he denied it, so that was that. He doesn’t understand why my husband is bringing it up after all this time.

Since the phone call he has text me to ask if there’s anything he can do to help. I need to respond sticking up for my husband.

Here’s what I would like to say:

My husband is telling the truth about the abuse. You and your wife failed to protect him, exposing him (and other children) to the paedophile over and over again. As my husband was 11/12 at the time and the cousin was 21/22 this means you were aiding and abetting a paedophile. This is a serious criminal offence in itself. You are still continuing to let him stay at your house with your grandchildren. For this reason we have been advised to keep our child away from you for her safety.

I’ll be saying the names of the people in the text but obviously I can’t on this post.

Is there anything else I should add?

This forum has been so supportive. I’m not talking to anyone else about it at the mo so I really appreciate your advice.

Thanks to everyone that has helped so far. I’ll add a link to the original thread.

Already in the process of reporting @HermioneMakepeace

I would send the text, but without the aiding and abetting, and without stating you’ve been advised to keep your children away. I would say at the end “with our children’s safety as our priority, we have decided it is best that they have no contact with you/your wife at the moment” or something to that effect.

Don’t make it sound like it is official advice, as you don’t want the perpetrator/s to have time to prepare a defence.

In a way I feel like I should ignore the text altogether. I expect we will be advised to have no contact anyway.

Don’t say you’ve been advised to keep DC away, that sounds like you’ve told a professional/police and they might warn the paedophile. Instead, say, we are keeping our DC away from all of you, as my husband clearly is not going to put her in danger as you are doing with the other grandchildren

Sorry if this has been mentioned on the previous thread, I haven't seen it.

Has your dh spoken to his siblings about this previously? You may well discover that they were also abused but led to believe that they were the 'only special one' so to speak (sorry, that's an awful thing to call it, but can't think of a better way) - in which case they will completely understand.

I like the rewritten versions of the text done by Rage and Lisa, although I might not mention that you have been advsed to keep your dc away, just say that there is no way that you are going to expose your child to any of the horrors your dh experienced and so you'll all be keeping away - that way you're not tipping them off about talking to others to get advice.

”We had a relative that abused my sibling, we didn’t find out until 20 years later. It was reported to police. Our belief now (and the police’s belief) is my mum kept quiet about it. The police wanted to prosecute her too as it is an offence to not keep children in your care safe - turning a blind eye! We decided it was too much on my sibling too go through another court case. Abuser got 6 years.
To be honest your dh dad doesn’t sound like he cares anyway. If your husband is strong enough I would report to police.”

This was my point exactly. When I wrote about the aiding and abetting it’s because I read similar cases to yours where the parents knew. The parents were prosecuted for ‘aiding and abetting’.

I’m sure anyone reading this is thinking stop talking about the aiding and abetting now.

I’m glad your sibling’s abuser got 6 years @Beldon I hope they are okay.

No matter what happens, I would never allow my children around your in-laws again.

I think the word here is 'permitted'.
Your in-laws permitted a sexual predator to keep on abusing. By them just taking the word of said sexual predator! Why on earth would an 11 year old boy-or girl say anything of the kind.

Exactly what my husband said earlier. He’s not sure if he even knew what it was at the time and if he did it certainly wasn’t something he was interested in.

Aquamarine1029

”No matter what happens, I would never allow my children around your in-laws again.”

Very much how I feel and from the response on my last thread I think most people agree.

I would never ever leave my child in their care. Not even for a quick trip to the toilet. With that in mind how can she possibly have a relationship with them? They’ll damage her just like they have my husband!

I’m just going to be blunt. You need to contact the police. You need to cut contact with his family completely, unfortunately. Both for the sake of your husband’s well being and to protect your children. There are no other options, you can’t remain on amicable terms as this ‘family’ dynamic has gone beyond repair.

I've no advice for the text.
I wanted to say how fabulous your support is to your DH.
It must have been awful not to have been believed, similar happened to me, Inwas half believed, my parents fell out with their family but I always felt very guilty about it.
How dare FIL ask why DH brought it up, did he think he'd just forget the awful experience.
If FIL continues to minimise this I think you all should go nc.

It still happens in lots of family, I never leave my DC unattended for long periods with older cousins or friends.
I don't care if it is helicopering I wont leave it to chance.
DD was shocked when we discussed if anyone behaves inappropriate with her, she said but I wouldn't talk to a stranger, her little face when I told her sometimes it is not a stranger.

I'd send a simple text:

"I believe my husband. And because I believe him we have made the joint decision that we will not be visiting your home whilst XXX is there, nor will you be permitted to visit us for fear that you will bring him."

Anything else can wait. For now, just make it clear that when filthy cousin is there, you and your family will NOT be.

Once filthy cousin is gone, tell your iLs everything you've said and done and that they will never be permitted to be unsupervised with your DC again because you simply cannot trust them.

I am so sorry this is just too awful. Your husband will need specialist counselling and the police need to deal with this.

You should definitely cut these vile people out of your lives altogether, your poor husband.

As to the wording of the text, I don't think it matters too much, you can let the police deal with the matter. But I would want to get in that he and your husband's mum had failed miserably to protect their child.

So very sad. The police will have procedures to follow. Your husband will need so much specialist help. Please do remind him how very brave he s in coming forward. And you have obviously given him the love he needed to be able to say all this.

It's astounding that FIL asked the abuser if he did it and then believed him when he denied it. Did he expect the man to admit it? Worse yet he thought his little boy was making it up. Simply awful.

He really did just wasn't the free holidays.

Report it and then for your own piece of mind keep away from all of them.

If my son told me someone had abused him I would report it and probably hurt the abuser.

What Beldon said.
I had a similar experience to your DH, but at a much younger age, back in the days when children weren't believed. People though we'd forget or just get over it. I will never, ever forgive the perpetrator and the family members who failed me. Going NC is the right thing to do. FIL doesn't deserve contact with his grandchildren and needs to understand that. He absolutely did enable the perpetrator and the comfort of denial should be taken away from him. It may be the only punishment he gets for the shitty way he treated his son, but it's something.

And hugs to your DH and yourself! This is a horrible, sickening thing to go through. And a virtual kick in the nuts to filthy cousin. Approximately once an hour.

Good message, like others I would leave out the aiding and abetting, I would possibly revise you have been advised to well will be keeping DD away from paedophile name for her safety.

I wouldn't say you are keeping away from FIL for safety, unless you think he will actively abuse her as I think that phrasing will just make him think he is being accused of abuse.

Otherwise it sends a very strong message of your intent and the reasons why.

I totally agree with all that has been said here and hope your DH does speak to the Police. However, everyone seems to have missed the fact that this monster lives abroad? Is he a British citizen or has he taken another nationality? Police would need to act very fast to be effective whilst he is here or else he could simply go home... possibly to a country where we have no extradition treaty.

If your DH intends to go through with the report then make sure he does it soon, and well in advance of any visit, so any necessary legal preparation is in place when the cousin arrives.

Id forgotten the cousin lives abroad. That complicated things.

If you’ve spoken to the police, what next steps do they recommend/ seem likely?

What happens when a foreigner is accused of a historic crime? But is visiting the UK now?

This would be my guide to what I’d write in the text, or in fact if I’d send any text back at this moment.

By the way, I don’t know if this will help you understand at all, but I myself got an insight into how these people go down the road of denial when it comes to a disclosure of this nature.

I definitely do NOT mean understanding leading to forgiveness and empathy or any of that hogwash. What these adults do is a betrayal almost as heinous as the abuse itself. I feel I should make that clear before I go on.

But I did have a flash of understanding about how their unforgivable act first happens, due to, an experience that took me through the whole thought process/ knee jerk emotional response a parent gets when their little child discloses something so awful of this nature.

As I was in shock, I sort of experienced the first few days in slow-mo, as a kind of out of body experience, which gave me chance to feel and examine all the myriad of extreme, raw and conflicting emotions that are thrown at your whole being...

I remember thinking, as our whole world crumbled, that I could see two roads in front of me: One which was fast disappearing into dream dust, a sparkly lovely simple normality where nothing bad had happened to my own child, and nothing was going to disrupt our lives. And then the second path that we were actually on, a dark f**king awful path where our world was collapsing and my child’s innocence was destroyed, our family damaged and basically, everything just bloody dark and terrible stretching out before us in this road...

I had a heart wrenching moment where I saw the lovely nice path of our future vanishing before my eyes. I was distraught and kind of mourning the destruction of our future, as we were forced down a much darker path.

But of course being a proper mother, and not a selfish weak coward, I faced up to reality and got on with it. Well actually by ‘got on with it’ I mean, I recognised I couldn’t turn back time or magically undo what this evil bastard had done to my darling innocent boy, and that I could fall apart in private (which I certainly did), but my boy needed me to be stronger than I knew how to be, and I just had to pretend/fake it, and get through it as best as I could... because my little boy needed me, and there was no other choice.

The only way to get back to that nice, happy shiny road, was to build a way back up with my bare hands, after we’d got through the shit we’d had imposed upon us.

Anyway, my point is, those weak willed selfish people must see their lovely, nice roads being taken away from them, and an “easy” way to hang onto their lives as they want them... and they prefer to pretend that their child is lying / doesn’t know what they are saying / whatever, and having sacked off that problem, they can just carry on along their lovely path and refuse to go down that other dark path of reality. And screw the child’s wellbeing and safety in the process.

I had that moment of longing for reality to be different and to give us back our nice path to go along, and magically erase this whole episode for me and DS. I remember thinking at the time, through all the other stuff whirling around my head that I was dealing with, that this is how it starts for parents who make the choice to abandon their children to abusers, they believe they can cling onto the nicer road by sacrificing their child and prioritising their own contentment and ease.

So, there you go, not sure why I wrote all this, but maybe it will help somehow