To cut off friend of nearly 30 years?

[Seakayaker100]

Name changed as very outing.
I have a very good friend, been with me through lots of life's milestones, always there when I've needed her. Now I feel like the worst friend as I can't be there for her right now. Her ex has been arrested and remanded out of the blue, and turns out he has been caught in an undercover online sting and arrested when arriving at a house to carry out child sex abuse that had been planned online with an undercover police officer. She's in pieces and is verging on suicidal, but wants to stand by him. Has visited him on remand, is listening to his excuses and even justifying that there wasn't a victim so not that bad. I've said no, I can't support her in this, and that despite not being convicted yet, I want no part in anything or anyone involved with him. When they were dating, she brought him to my house and to watch my son in a school event. She seems confused why that is upsetting me. I feel guilty to desert her when she's suicidal, but I can't play any part in this. (She has other MH services involved).
Please tell me I'm not being unreasonable, or if you think I am, explain why? His shitty choices have ruined a great friendship, but I'm more upset about how poor her boundaries are with this. This is no doubt due to her mental health, but I can't see a way to support her that doesn't involve listening to her making excuses and down playing what he's done.

I agree that this is worth breaking your friendship for .........................however..............
at the moment she is still in shock and she is only getting his side of the story.

When there is a court case and she sees the evidence, I hope the scales fall from her eyes.

If she denounces her 'H,' I think she may need your support.

She is not in her ‘right mind’ - whatever codependent angst she’s caught up in right now quite possibly won’t last. I would treat this like a person in active addiction. Detach with love.

“Dearest friend, I love you but I cannot condone your support of your husbands behaviour. As and when you are able to / chose to step away from the damage that he has done and was willing to do, I will be waiting with open arms and all the support in the world. But I can’t condone your continued relationship with him + the harm it does to you. Please get in touch if that changes. I hope it does, but until it does I must keep my distance” or similar

If this was happening to my best friend I would not drop her.

I very much doubt the full situation has come out and she is probably unaware of alot of things until nearer the court case.

Many people are going to step away. Her life is ruined, she just may not realise the impact as yet. Her world has shifted and her past is not what she believed. I'd be staying. But this is an area I have worked in and seen the impact on families.

I understand why you'd want to and your frustration though

@LookingForPurpose thank you for sharing your experience - it sounds horrendous. I can see that with a family member, you have a greater obligation to find the truth and work out if continued contact is possible. I'm struggling with this being her ex, and there really being no need to maintain any relationship at all. They weren't married and never lived together, there is no long lasting ties to each other. And yet she is effectively choosing him over me, as I have said I can't support her if she sticks with him. It's so messed up 😔

If this is a recent case then you should stick by your friend. Remember that she has been betrayed by her partner/husband, she is also a victim. She had no fore-knowledge of his intentions. These people are so devious and cunning they fool those close. Saville, Rolf Harris and others. Thinking that you would not be taken in is you holding yourself up as superior.
As a victim she needs all the help she can get from her friends. But it seems they will all desert her.
It is more than the gaslighting that is so often talked about on MN. It will take a long time before she can see the truth and not the myth he had created to deliberately deceive her. Will you not give her that time? Will you not help her to find the truth.
Also, remember the victims of Nick, Edward Heath, Cliff Richards some senior military officers and politicians. For 12 months their friends left them saying and thinking exactly as you are. They were innocent.

Yanbu.
She is standing by her paedophile partner who was planning on going to a house with the intent to sexually abuse a child.

Don't have sympathy for someone like this. 🤮

If there was 100% proof against him and any friends or family stood by the perverted arsehole...I'd have no hesitation in cutting them off.

The first time I read your post I misread it as her current partner but it’s her ex which should be much easier to distance yourself from and it’s bizarre to choose such a person over a life long friend. I might like others say give it a few weeks and if she’s still not seeing the light cut her off.

No You have done the right thing to step away.

When this all came out were they together at the time or already broken up?

There’s an anonymous forum which is for people who need support in situations like these. People who’s children/husbands/family members are abusers and need to talk to people in similar situations. I can’t remember the name but I’d direct her there for support.

Of course you don’t want to drop a really good friend who’s suicidal but at the same time I don’t see how you can support someone who’s supporting this man. It’s a tricky one. I don’t envy you at all

@WeightWhat

I was out of the country on a weekend away with my DH celebrating our first trip Alone when my house was raided. My 3 children age 15-21 were home when the police came through the door. Thankfully my youngest was with other family. I got a call from the police, asked them to hold so I could throw my guts up from sheer horror and panic and then had to wait 12 hours until I could fly home. So it was an incredibly tough time.

I spoke to my sons right away. My eldest admitted it to me right away he has ASD and oddly is very honest, said it was hentaii which is like anime porn? Don't Google it. Tentacles, animal human hybrids etc. anyway, even though it's cartoons it's illegal as the characters often have school uniforms and or are animals or hybrids. So he made a statement saying yes it was him. Then Covid hit and it was delayed 30 months to sentencing. The police found even more of the hentaii images and videos that he had forgotten about. It was only AFTER sentencing it came out in his therapy that he had been groomed online and he had a pornography addiction and that had also caused the horrific (and often suicidal) transgender issues he has been going through from age 13-18.

The grooming and addiction the police were not the slightest bit interested in, even though my son offered the details of every person in what was and still is, an active online paedophile ring sharing the very same images that he was prosecuted for. They had a conviction and that's ask they wanted. They refused to even look into the petite that had added him to these hidden groups are 13-14 as they are resident all over the world and they wouldn't have an icicle in hells chance of getting any arrests etc.

So then I found it easier in some ways, to reconcile my revulsion and my personal gender critical beliefs . He says he's never been attracted to children, he just liked hentaii. And none of his behaviour has ever suggested an interest of ANY kind in any children of any age. The fact that I was a victim of child hood sexual abuse myself made it harder. Some days, even now, I am so angry that I can't even look at him. He's torn my family apart. Im his carer but he can't remain at home so he had to go and live in a flat a few miles away. His world is very very small. But he's complying 100% with probation, engaging with therapy etc and has since got a diagnosis of ADHD and is now medicated. But he's chronically unhappy and says if this is all his life will ever be then he doesn't want to be here for it. 23 yo and his entire life is over as far as he is concerned. It kill's me and on my darkest days I even found myself thinking the same. It's incredibly hard. But he's my son. What else can I do?

I think the ops friends will come to her senses. But it will take a while. She's likely to see sense Especially when she realises any children she has to this man will be taken away as he won't be allowed near them. If she had children with somebody else then they would rightly report any contact with him and the same would happen if she can't protect them. Or when he's found guilty and it goes the papers and People know they are /were together. Her life won't be worth living.

It’s the fact she’s standing by him that would do it for me. If she was shocked and disgusted and wanted nothing to do with him then I’d have supported her but she’s basically condoning and excusing his behaviour. I couldn’t stay friends with someone like that no matter how long I’d known her. She is an appalling judge of character and not worthy of your friendship especially considering your son was inadvertently in the company of such scum she still chooses to associate with.

The forum I mentioned is called Stop It Now

This

I couldn't give an airborne sexual encounter about whether it was his first time or his millionth. He was still involved to his back teeth. What else do you need to know?

I would be kind to friend bc every woman has had stand by your man blasted into her ears since birth. The friend needs to appreciate exactly how much evidence is required to find yourself in court and how hard these men work to appear like the perfect guy.

I'm struggling with this being her ex, and there really being no need to maintain any relationship at all. They weren't married and never lived together, there is no long lasting ties to each other

I'm struggling with that too, so wonder if there's any possibility he isn't actually an ex, and that knowing or suspecting what's gone on she's lied about seeing him so people don't think badly of her?

It would certainly explain some of her MH struggles, but then it would affect how I'd handle this too if it was true

Please don't think of it as choosing him over you. I think it's more choosing him over herself. Perhaps she feels 'how could I ever have been involved with/loved someone like that?' and is trying to convince herself that he isn't 'like that' in order to keep herself 'sane', for lack of a better word. Denial is very common in situations like this, be it child sex abuse, murder, or even addiction. We don't want to believe, so we choose not to believe. But in these cases the truth eventually forces itself on us.

Make your feelings clear to her, tell her you love her but cannot support her in this. Then, if you can, try to sort of 'hover round the edges' of her life and hope she comes to her senses.

Wow @LookingForPurpose what a sad sad time for your family. Sending you best wishes for your future.

Depending on how recently your friend received this bombshell, it may just be that her feelings haven't yet caught up with her new reality. She hasn't yet had time to process what she now knows about her DH, so many of her attitudes towards him are still caught in the pre-revelation pattern.

For that reason it does seem harsh to cut her off, rather than remaining as a source of support for her at what must be a horrendous time.

I don't feel judgey towards you at all for this decision - god knows whether or not I would be able to provide suppport for a friend in the same circumstances. And I'm sure no one else would judge you either. But it does seem like the best course of action would be to set boundaries about what you are and are not prepared to listen to, and to remain with her to provide support in matters that will not be controversial between you, such as practical help, cheerful distractions and being a compassionate listener within the boundaries you have set.

I couldn't be friends with someone who -

defends a nonce
makes excuses for a nonce
stands by a nonce

You can justifiably cut her off. You can say that you will think of her but this is indefensible. Going into a paedo act is just not acceptable. You can message her support obliquely but you simply can't discuss this anymore.

On another note this must surely be a large paedo ring, the police wouldn't bother with just one person surely. They are too busy.

Why's she so wrapped up in an ex anyway?

The people saying 'Nobody wants to believe that their partner is a paedophile' and 'There hasn't been a trial yet' are missing the point, I think.

The woman in this case isn't actually saying that she believes the man is innocent. She isn't denying that he went to a house after arranging to rape a child. She's making excuses for him and saying that, as it turned out there was no child there for him to rape, he hasn't done any harm. That's very different from believing that, eg, it was a case of mistaken identity or that it was all some kind of misunderstanding. Instead, she's acknowledging that he did have conversations online about his desire to abuse children, and also that he went to a house having made arrangements to do so - but she's 'making excuses' for him and saying he hasn't really done anything wrong because the arrangements turned out to be a trap.

Also, note that OP describes the man as her friend's EX, not her partner. She's making excuses for the horrific criminal behaviour of a man she isn't even together with.

OP, I'd walk away from her. She sounds like a fucking nightmare.

How close are you? Just wondering if, over 30 years, you've only met the husband a handful of times.

You're making this all about you and not about her, OP. Which is okay if you're happy with that but not it you really are such good friends that you've supported each other through previous difficult experiences. This has to be about as difficult as it gets and a 'friend' who insists 'I'm right, you're wrong' at a time when you're suicidal doesn't strike me as much of a friend.

IIWY I'd give it some time to let her process things more completely. She's in shock and desperately trying to find a way to make everything feel better and normal. I'd see her on her own, probably in cafes or wherever, and I'd say that I was struggling with the idea of being friends with a woman who was excusing her husband's sexual abuse. But I wouldn't behave just like all the other righteously indignant judgy folk all anxious to point fingers. I'd like to think I was better than that.

I absolutely hate it when I see people looking for ways to blame women for things men do.

Unpopular opinion but I think it takes great strength of character to see that rarely in life are things totally black and white, and to attempt to stay in touch with her, navigating this. Not everybody would be up for, or up to, that. But for a 30 year old friendship if you are up to and up for trying, I would. As others have said, it's very common for people to go through denial as they try to make a huge mental adjustment from the person they thought they knew to the person who they prove themselves to be.

It's okay if you don't feel up to this. It's okay if you do, but want to put some boundaries in place around what you will and won't discuss or sympathise with.

If she's suicidal she needs to look after herself first. Paedo ex's need to be banished.