Would you expect DH to be honest about a pedophile parent? **OP has asked MNHQ to add a content warning**

[Rebelwithallthecause]

No longer with said husband because he turned out to be awfully financially and emotionally abusive but what’s made me most of all glad to not be with him now is finding out through the news the extent of his fathers crimes

I knew his dad had been arrested for pedophile related charges just before I left but exh absolutely minimised the extent of what for

I would also imagine that he’s probably not told his current girlfriend the extent of his fathers crimes too

Would you stay with a husband or partner who had a pedophile for a parent ? Especially if they are still seeing them and seemingly ok with it?

Absolutely not.

I would not stay with a partner if they had a parent who was a paedophile if they wished for us to have contact with that parent in any way shape or form, most particularly if we had children.

I refuse to blame the son / daughter for the sins of the father /mother.

I'd judge everyone by they're own merits. A rare quality now

I would not stay with a partner who minimised what their parent did and didn't tell me. Them having a sex offender parent on it's own wouldn't make me leave them, but the lies and minimising would.

@ClaryFray that’s very admirable

I’d assume you’d expect to be told the whole truth at least so you could make an informed decision yourself though

@ClaryFray

I refuse to blame the son / daughter for the sins of the father /mother.

I'd judge everyone by they're own merits. A rare quality now

I agree with you but they didn't tell their partner, and they minimised it. OP doesn't say if they have children together. I would be very, very angry if I had had children in contact with a known offender and my partner hadn't seen fit to mention it at all.

I would have a massive problem with them supporting their parent and minimising their crimes. If you have children with him I hope you can trust him not to leave them with this parent unsupervised.

Those are two pretty huge different things. Telling someone about a parent’s crimes, and being okay with those crimes.

My stepfather went to prison for molesting me. I’ve only ever told one person. I would certainly not tell someone I was dating, because it’s an extremely traumatic thing to talk about.

It doesn’t mean that I agree with or am okay with child abuse!! Or that I am an abuser myself. It’s pretty gross to suggest that people should be judged according to what their parents did.

Your ex sounds like a nasty piece of work but his own abusive behaviour is separate from wanting to keep his family history private.

No. I'd be gone - assuming there were no children needing protected. That would change the calculations somewhat. We all know how hopeless the family courts can be.

Do you have children with him? Does the gf?

do you have children? Has this grandparent been allowed access to the children?

If so, then yes, you should have been informed. If not then no, not really your business

Peadophile parent - I had one of those, so I wouldn't judge for that alone.

However I completely cut that person out and for the rest of his life I told anyone who had children near him that's exactly what he was.

I wouldn't stay with someone who lied, withheld the truth or otherwise put my kids at risk from being near a paedophile.

Absolutely zero contact with that parent and with the other parent if they enabled/turned a blind eye. Whether or not I had children. But I would also worry about the damage that had been done to any child growing up in this situation and their capacity to forge normal relationships. So I'd probably just walk away from the whole set-up as I have no urge to 'fix' people.

Would you stay with a husband or partner who had a pedophile for a parent ?

Yes if they had no contact and removed them from their life entirely.

Especially if they are still seeing them and seemingly ok with it?

Absolutely not.

Oh yes,

If he'd minimalised it I'd be livid, but from a physiologist stand point I can see why. People want to think the best of they're parents.

But as a parent, In your shoes op I'd be angry and I wouldn't allow my children with the grandparent. I'd even consider supervised contact with the father if I couldn't trust him to not take the child around the perp

I wouldn't ditch someone for having a parents who was a paedophile or any other type of abuser. It isn't genetic.
I would ditch someone who thought paedophilic behaviour was OK.
I would ditch someone who couldn't see that these were two different questions.

That's horrible. I would support them and acknowledge the fact that they would most likely have had the most horrific childhood, worse than I could possibly imagine. Of course I would not allow my own children any contact with that grandparent.
If I had a partner who was abusive to me or my children however in any shape or form, then this is reason to leave. Their awful parent is not.

We were trying for a baby before I left

I knew I couldn’t bring a baby into that family if there was a pedophile I was expected to socialise with regularly

The other siblings did not want anything to do with the parent as they had young children which is understandable

The current girlfriend of xh does not yet have children but I assume it will be on the cards one day as he did want children

What @Smallsteps88 said 👍

@Alexandernevermind the children (my exh and his siblings) were never aware of their fathers crimes growing up

Yes, I would expect them to be honest, but I think you also need to be conscious of how trauma affects people and how difficult it can be to 'be normal' when actually your family has screwed you up quite a bit. I've been through this twice now - in my family and in dh's family - in both cases the 'parent' was a stepfather, not our biological fathers.

It's absolutely horrific. In dh's case, his family massively minimised everything that happened. To the extent that we have now become the black sheep of the family. It took a long time actually for dh to even be able to talk to me about it (he wasn't the child who was abused, it was a child in stepfather's own family, but dh did experience a lot of childhood trauma that wasn't sexual abuse per se). Dysfunctional families can do a lot of work to normalise abuse. And dh found the idea of speaking out about it to be a 'betrayal' of his family, who are really quite toxic, but his relationship with them is really not normal, because of what he went through as a child.

Yes, I would expect a healthy adult to be upfront about it (as I have been when it happened in my family), but it isn't always that easy for everyone and I think you have to be conscious of that. Dh, with support, and a bit of an outside view on his family (he completely didn't realise that not all families normalise this sort of bullshit), was able to understand how horrible this all was and was very supportive of us cutting ties with this family member when it did finally all come out. But it took a lot of emotional work on his part to deal with his own stuff around it first. Fwiw, the rest of the family has continued to support the abuser and we are very much the black sheep because of the boundaries we've set.

But no, to answer your last question, I gave dh an ultimatum, either you accept that this is not normal in healthy families to support someone who abuses children and you come with me into a new life where we cut off ties with this person, or our marriage will be over and I will take our dc far, far away to protect them.

It depends. If he never saw his father and you didnt either there would be no need for you to know eg if they didnt speak any more. If he expected you to socialise with him and never told you then I'd be mad

My ex husband's father was convicted for historic offences that were over 40 years old. He went to prison. He was honest with me and kept contact for a few months by phone before deciding to cut him off. I agreed with this decision and didnt judge him for his fathers actions years before he was born. However if he hadn't been honey with me or had minimised I would have broken up with him. We also divorced due to him being unfaithful, abusive, terrible financially and addicted to porn.

Have you already posted about this today op?

You are very right to protect your children. A very dear friend was abused by her grandad for years as her mum assumed that he had "grown out of it". 50 years later she is still suffering. He was never challenged or brought to justice, if was just a case of "don't leave the children with grandad."

No way would I stay if they we having contact/open to contact with the parent