Should I confess to his wife & kids ...

[SlothMumma]

Very new to this but hear it goes...

I know ppl may judge; I honestly find it hard to believe the person I am now made such careless, selfish decisions years ago. I live with the guilt , shame and humiliation daily.

Had a two year relationship with a married man when I had just turned 16 - I’ve since learnt that he and his wife are now separated . His children are all grown up and are starting to filter through friends of friends of mine. Before lockdown I found myself in the same restaurant as his ex-wife, I wanted the ground to swallow me up! It has happened a few times be it in town shopping or when I’m out socially.

We have a very good mutual friend in common and I am panicking a bit that as I get older our social circles will become closer and eventually we will come face to face 😬 The guilt has eaten me alive for nearly 20 years. I know by telling her (I’m pretty sure she knows what happened tbh) is not gonna make her or me feel any better but I feel so awful and I don’t know how to let it all go.

I’m happily married with a family and have been for many years. I wish I could just forget but the guilt is so bad I do feel like I’m always trying to be the nicest person I can to repent for my past behaviour. I feel like it’s really haunted me .

It was an awful thing to do and I wish I could turn back the clock and change it all. I do realise I was so very young (not an excuse , I was fully aware of what I was doing ) just maybe naive of the implications and seriousness of it all and the hurt and pain it would have caused to his family . He was 16 years older than me and I had known him all of my life . Not quite sure how I now feel about the situation considering I was still at school , I felt so much older when I was 16, felt like an adult . Now it’s laughable .

I don't know what I'm more horrified by - the abuse or the hundreds of posts telling a victim to stay silent! Hideous! The wife should know who she was married to... a monster.

@Nothinglikeachocolatebrownie 1651 people have voted on this thread. 95% of them are saying the OP should stay silent. No wonder men continue to get away with shit like this time and time again. The majority of the 95% are women. The majority of those women are probably mothers. I am horrified.

@RhubarbAndRoses true! I am a mother and I would want to know. Regardless of how long ago it was I would want to know.

I should also add, I am so surprised that everyone thinks the wife will be angry with OP etc if she tells her what happened. Surely any decent and normal woman would he horrified that they spent a substantial portion of their life with a predator who groomed a family friend?! I just don't understand why there is this huge 'stay silent' consensus. Shouldn't women band together to out these monsters? I despair at the majorities opinion on this thread.

I voted for OP not to "confess" to his ex and children. She mentions she lives with the "guilt, shame and humiliation daily". She has nothing to "confess" or feel guilty, ashamed or humiliated by: she was a child who was taken advantage of by a grown man who had watched her grow up. He's the one who should be ashamed.

If she wants to tell the ex what happened, then that's a different, but she makes it sound like she was in the wrong and is still torturing herself over it, and is looking for forgiveness from his ex and children, which she doesn't need as she isn't to blame. The disgusting predatory grooming man is.

I wish I could just forget but the guilt is so bad I do feel like I’m always trying to be the nicest person I can to repent for my past behaviour. I feel like it’s really haunted me.

This is so sad to read OP, you don't need to repent for your past behaviour

Feeling guilt is a very normal response to grooming. The abuser has actually manipulated you to the point where you believe this is all your fault. It really isn’t OP, and I am so sorry that others have made you feel selfish for wanting to tell his ex wife. The victim often feels confusion, shame, guilt, remorse and disgust at his or her own participation. You have been manipulated to feel that way and I hope you can see that now.

[quote RhubarbAndRoses]@Nothinglikeachocolatebrownie 1651 people have voted on this thread. 95% of them are saying the OP should stay silent. No wonder men continue to get away with shit like this time and time again. The majority of the 95% are women. The majority of those women are probably mothers. I am horrified.[/quote]
No. 95% of people have answered the OP's question. Which was not about reporting this man, but about confessing her guilt.

She has no guilt to confess. And because of where she is in her mental state at the moment, the result of telling the ex and his children is likely to make her feel worse.

OP needs counselling so that she can lose the guilt and THEN potentially move to accuse the man. That next stage isn't about his wife and kids, it's about him.

You are answering a question that OP didn't ask. If she'd asked the question you're answering, then I think the answers would have been different.

If, when the OP has processed this, ideally with the help of a trained professional, she wants to tell anyone at all that she wants to, she of course should.

She neither has to talk about her trauma to anyone she doesn't want to nor has to hide it from anyone. Anyone encouraging to talk or to keep silent in the long term is wrong--this is a matter for her to decide alone.

But what she should not feel compelled to do is to go and "confess" something to his ex-wife out of a sense of guilt or obligation. She is not at fault. She's also not responsible for any further action he may have taken. And she doesn't need anyone putting any additional pressure or guilt on her.

Don’t talk to the wife and kids. They have moved on. You haven’t. You were a child to be frank and he was an adult who groomed you. You were manipulated

Go get counselling.

It was only just legal. Very very wrong

Don't tell her unless she asks. As others said you were groomed, and deep down I think you know that. Best thing for you is therapy.

@Nothinglikeachocolatebrownie

I don't know what I'm more horrified by - the abuse or the hundreds of posts telling a victim to stay silent! Hideous! The wife should know who she was married to... a monster.

Just because the wife should know, doesn't mean she is going to believe it, and her instinct may be to lash out in defence (not so much of her husband now they're separated, but of her own ignorance of what he was getting up to). The OP doesn't need to be dealing with that kind of reaction right now, she needs to be going to go to counselling to get past the guilt she feels about the whole situation. Once she's worked through that, then she can decide if clearing the air would be helpful, or if she would prefer to leave it in the past.

I just want to reiterate that I do NOT think that the OP should “confess” or confront the wife. What I said was that the wife may very well have been complicit in his activities. By discussing anything with her, it may interfere with anyone’s effective prosecution. She may warn him. If @SlothMumma chooses to do anything, she should run a Sarah’s Law check on this man, see if anything else pops up. This may help her decide whether she wishes to go ahead and prosecute him - or not.

Not your fault he was a paedo and you were groomed.

Do consider the possible implications of telling her. Does your husband know. It sounds like you live in a very close knit area, friends knowing friends etc. How would this play out if spread around. Speak to a professional about what happened to you. You need help to deal with this in your own mind. The wider community gossiping about you won't help

@saraclara I’m really interested to know how you feel about the Me Too movement? Do you believe that all the women who came forward should’ve stayed silent too? A hell of a lot of wives and children found out about their husbands and fathers when all those women spoke up. Those women didn’t need to go directly to the wives of their abusers because, being celebs, they had the media to use as their voice.

Reading all of OP’s posts can you not see that this has nothing to do with confessions to ease guilt? We all know how the vipers on MN respond to any post written by the OW.

You say that telling the ex wife will make her feel worse. What if it doesn’t? What if it helps? What if the ex wife has always suspected and OP finally validates her suspicions? We can’t say for sure how she will react.

But, most importantly, this man is a predator. He groomed the OP and sexually abused her. He might have a daughter who has young friends that he spends time with. That in itself is a very good reason to tell.

My concerns are not to do with easing anyone’s guilt. I would want to first know if there are any pending charges that could be negatively affected by this man being warned by someone (the wife) wanting this to be kept quiet to avoid the humiliation of having once been married to such a man. As I said before, he groomed you in such a textbook manner, I suspect you may not be the first victim, and you are probably not his last one, either. Something eventually broke up his marriage. I’ll bet that the police have a file on this man.